| intro | present | past | profile | host |

And I want to say "The concept of the best friend is dead. Long live the best friend(s)!"

Because I haven't ever considered the position of "best friend" as something you have to have filled by one person only. (Okay, so maybe when I was seven, I thought you could only have one best friend, but I quickly discovered otherwise.)

Because my close, close, close friendships growing up had their ups and their downs, but they were overwhelmingly positive. I still keep in contact with most of those friends (and not just through Facebook). The two close best-friends-forever friendships which ended did so gently and painlessly. I think I've been lucky in that regard.

Because I love having history with people. I like the in-jokes and the shared memories, but most of it, I think it is important to have friends who know who you were once, even if you aren't quite that person any more. And it's equally important to have friends when you know their story, their journey.

Because I'm better at socialising with a couple of close friends, rather than a large group. I'm reserved in large groups. I feel like a lesser version of myself, somehow.

Because I have friends, more than I can count on one hand, but those close friends that I can count on one hand are the ones that matter.

I miss talking to my small group - and it's not a group, just a handful of individuals or may or may not know each other - of close friends regularly. I miss knowing the minutiae of each others' daily lives, I miss the random conversations because we've caught up on the important stuff and have all the time in the world to fill up with our chatter. I miss the sharing - of books and DVDs and music - and the insisting that someone read this, or come and see that movie.

I miss having best friends.

So yes, I think it is possible for a few close friends to fill all of one's friendship needs. It's just kind of difficult, when you grow up and get jobs and partners and lives.

It's not that I feel I lack enough friends, it's that I don't see enough of the friends I do have. The end result is similar - the feeling that I could do with some more friends - but the nuances are different.

I suppose - along with being a small-friendship-group person - I want depth to my friendships. Which isn't say that the other friendships in my life are worthless, because they're not, not at all.

But I take time to get to know people and don't expect myself to suddenly adopt a large group of friends overnight. In the interim, I try to keep the friends I've got, I try to be less reserved around the people , and I don't beat myself up because my friendship group doesn't look like someone else thinks it should.

Dear world: I am ME, not you, and so I'm not going to conform to your expectations just because you think I should.

Long live the small groups of friends. Long live accepting the differences of what others' friendships look like. Long live the imperfect friendships which persevere. Long live the best friends.

It's not really a good article anyway.