BFF

Jenne and I were the bestest of friends from preschool, and our friendship had always been relatively straightforward. Sometimes best friendships between girls can get complicated; it’s not all just rainbows and flowers. To be someone’s best friend is the grade-school equivalent of marriage. Or at the very least, it’s training for a monogamous relationship. You can only have one (at a time).

And it’s all very good, finding that someone who is fun and with whom you want to spend all of your time: “You like apple fruit rollups? Me too! You have Voltron at home? Cool! Let’s be best friends! “

It’s the Forever part of Best Friends that’s difficult. Especially when friends move far away, which is what Jenne and I did—she to New Jersey and I to Long Island.

Letters and telephone conversations are excellent means of communication, but in the second grade it is a challenge to use these tools as the primary method of maintaining a friendship. There are too many new experiences that your BFF cannot relate to and you have to start facing facts: This long distance thing is not going to work.

Enter Gemma.

Gemma was what some might call a high maintenance BFF. She pouted and frequently complained of boredom: “Chiiiiiiiiik, I’m boooooooored.” This astonished me because she had such an impressive collection of My Little Ponies. To this day, I’ve never met anyone so passive and so needy of constant stimulation. I did my best to invent ways to amuse ourselves.

It was during this time that I witnessed a bewildering sequence of jealousy and betrayals, an outcome of an imposed and unnatural exclusivity. Before my tenure, Gemma and Kimmie were the bestest of friends. But it’s the rule that you can only have one BFF. So Kimmie, who was initially sweet and welcoming, became increasingly hostile as Gemma began showing preference for me.

Gemma began complaining how “Kimmie is so conceited. She doesn’t ice skate and she has glasses.”

It is obvious that Kimmie would harbor resentment and hurt feelings, that I had usurped her place, if unwittingly. Still, I was confused why it was necessary for Gemma to repudiate her. I’m a social idiot—what do I know?

Kimmie got over it.

Then came my birthday, when I invited Jenne to stay over my house for the weekend. I had forgotten how good it was to hang out with Jenne, how little effort it required, and how she was happy and game for just about anything. So I was excited when she brought matching fluorescent sweatshirts—one for me, one for her.

-We could wear these together!
-At my rollerskating party!
-Let’s coordinate our outfits
-We could be twins!
-Woo!



I miscalculated. Jenne was my friend first and I had expect everyone to understand this. It wasn’t supposed to be at anyone’s expense. I felt sick about it afterward when I saw how upset Gemma was. It was the first time anyone had called me “such an ASS-O,” although I am positive she meant ‘asshole.’

All of it passed. Gemma had a brief reconciliation with Kimmie, but eventually forgave my transgressions. Eventually she moved away and we each found respective BFFs. During this time, for a period of two years, we stayed in touch and maintaining a long-distance connection. We went to camp together, invited each other to our birthdays, and accorded each other the official title of BFF even though we had since developed closer friendships locally. And then we stopped, tired of this double life, maybe—but more and more aware how little we had to talk about.

Jenne has the distinction of being my oldest friend (in duration not age). I’d say we are ‘best friends’ if I still used that term to describe members of my intimate circle. We don’t dress like twins anymore, though.