Having--and Being--a Best Friend : Most People Have One, but Not Often of the Other Sex

Most people have at least one, and across all age and sex barriers, people tend to agree on the qualities that make a good one.

The “one” in question is a best friend, that hardy individual who seems to have bottomless reserves of patience, tolerance for tantrums and time to spend when no one else seems to care. Who else would agree to spend a sunny Saturday at the stock car races when the beach beckons, or sit through “The Music Man” for the umpteenth time just because you want some company?

People define these special friendships straight from the heart.

A best friend is “someone you can talk to about anything and not worry about how it will sound,” says newspaper editor John Wall, 30, of Altoona, Pa.

“At the risk of sounding like Oprah Winfrey, a best friend is someone who will be there when you need them,” says Wall.

‘Good to See You’--Always

“Somebody you feel free to tell something unflattering about yourself to; that’s a best friend,” says a 64-year-old North Carolina artist and homemaker. And, from a 44-year-old male author in Washington, a best friend is simply “someone who is always pleased to see you and be with you.”

Age doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference in how people perceive best friends or diminish their need for them.

“Best friends are so necessary,” says one older woman. “Sometimes you just need to unload, but most people in this world have their own problems and just don’t want to hear yours.

“Time is the most marvelous gift you can give to someone. My best friend has just let me talk when I needed to; to spill my guts,” she says.

Overlapping Lives

In best friendships, lives overlap, like in a marriage, says Paul H. Wright, a professor of psychology at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks. Best friends “commit otherwise uncommitted time to one another. You are interested in all facets of this person,” he says, and like a spouse, “this person is irreplaceable.”

Best friends are in fact the people we yell at when we’re upset--and we know they’ll let us get away with it; the people we cry on without losing any dignity; eat disgusting food with, because we’re too embarrassed to do it with anyone else; and feel free to own up to tacky tastes in movies, music or art.

But what makes a best friend different from other friends? For one 27-year-old Washington man, the difference is in the degree of sharing. “With a best friend you aren’t afraid to hold things back. Call it intimacy if you want to; it’s being able to let your hair down.”

However, he admits there are things he wouldn’t tell another man--even a best friend. Things that fall into this category: financial problems and loneliness. Keeping those things under wraps is “just a matter of pride,” he says.

The companionship aspect of best friends, at least same-sex best friends, is among the top three qualities people seem to want in the best friend--but companionship is outranked by empathy and altruism, according to studies done by psychologist Margaret Gibbs and her colleagues at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, N.J.

Usual Configuration

A best friendship, whether it’s between same sex pairs--the usual configuration--or cross-sex pairs, is similar to a marriage in the intensity of the feelings involved. “The support you get from a best friend is like the support you get from a love relationship,” says Gibbs.

And the demise of a friendship is akin to divorce. The breakup of such a close friendship is a devastating thing for most people, she says. “I know people who have gone into therapy after losing a best friend.”

Although men and women say they want the same thing from a best friend, the tenor of the relationship changes with gender, say the experts.

Effects of Gender

“Let’s face it--men don’t make very good friends for men or women,” says Wright. “When men want emotional support, they go to a female relative or their spouse. On average, men’s friendships with other men are just not that strong,” he says.

Cross-gender friendships tend to work to the man’s advantage, he says, because men tend to confide in women.

Washington psychologist James Youniss agrees: “Women are targets of intimate messages.” Their own friendships tend to be more intimate than men’s friendships because they share feelings in a very open way, says Youniss, a professor of psychology at the Catholic University of America.

“Men say they share intimate feelings with one another,” he says, “but they really don’t. They don’t admit faults to their friends.”

“If you just met a guy who swindled you out of $200,000, you might not want to admit to a male friend you were taken for your life’s savings,” says Wall, who confesses he would be more likely to take such a tale to a female friend.

Friendships at Work

Cross-gender friendships are on the rise as increasing numbers of women enter the marketplace--a prime fishing hole for friends--but these male-female friendships tend to operate on a fairly superficial level, Wright says.

A true friendship between a man and woman is rare, says Claude Fischer, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied relationships.

Such relationships are uncommon because of the sexual undertones that accompany a male-female pairing, Fischer says. Differences in interests, even men’s and women’s dissimilar conversational styles, can work against a successful cross-gender friendship.

“You’d have to be like Alan Alda to have a woman as a best friend,” Wall says. Yet he admits that women bear the brunt of men’s emotional confidences, while their male friends tend to hear more about innocuous sorts of topics--movies, sports, the job.

“Even if you don’t have anything in common with her, you can talk about emotional stuff,” Wall says.

According to psychologists, men, even best friends, often tend to shy away from discussing each other’s relationships with girlfriends or wives.

Wall describes a typical exchange:

“ ‘How’s Margy doing?’

“ ‘Fine. Boy, she’s spending a lot of money.’

“ ‘Well, you knew that before you married her.’ ”

End of conversation.

Emotional Support

Best friendships, male-female version, may not be common, but they do exist. Emotional support without the goad of sexual attraction is one of the real benefits of having a cross-gender best friend, says one single male living in the nation’s capital.

“You’re sitting there having a drink and you’re not thinking that four hours later you’re going to be in bed with her,” he says. “You also can ask them different questions, like ‘Am I behaving like a jerk in this (dating) situation?’ ” he says.

Whether women will remain the target of intimate messages, as Youniss says, is uncertain. As more and more women enter the marketplace with its competitive pressures, women may make some emotional concessions, trading an open sharing of feelings for a more superficial--and safer--way of dealing with co-workers.

Regardless of the type of confidence shared, or the gender of the person receiving the confidence, the experts are unanimous in their contention that best friends are important to people’s emotional health. And there is some data to suggest that best friends are important to their physical health as well.

Most people tend to have only a few best friends throughout their lives, although their circle of other friends may be very wide. “I would say two or three is a big number,” says Wright.

College Years

For friendships that tend to last through the lifetime, Youniss says, men especially tend to make friends among people who are very much like them in terms of education and socioeconomic background. And many of these friendships were formed during the high school and college years, he says.

Wright agrees and adds: “What I think happens is that during this period teen-agers find out what they are all about--they’re in the process of crystallizing an identity--and their teen-age friends give them a lot of support.

“By golly, you think, these people had a lot to do with shaping my identity.”