From as early as I can remember I’ve had a best guy friend. Thank you to Nathaniel, Tony, Nick, Bill, JR, Chris, Adam, Bobby, Jake, and Mike. These boys (well, they are all men now and the last couple were men when I met them) have helped shape my life in ways then probably don’t even know.
Nathaniel was my first at age five when I moved to a new house and did not know anyone in the neighborhood. He was the peanut butter and I was the jelly and I cried so hard the day he moved away. But, it opened the door to my junior high male best-friend Tony and me kicking “football” notes back and forth to each other and making fun of Mrs. Cobb for two years. Nick made my freshman year and that summer so memorable talking on the phone till 3 a.m. watching “Loveline” together … to this day I cannot hear a Blackstreet song and not giggle and remember that time.
Then there is Bill (or Billy in the day) who taught me not to trust guys like I once did, my first kiss (and then some), my first heartbreak, and my real first recovery from a friendship to relationship and back again. So much more can be said about B, but then again things were always complicated. As Bill was the first friendship to lust relationship, JR was the first friendship to love relationship. The love was short lived but the friendship was great. He helped me get over my first love (not Bill), saw my first tattoo, and helped me realize that even though all my closest friends were staying home to go to college, that moving away for college was what I needed to do.
Chris, there are no words to describe him … he has been there for me for the last thirteen years, we have drifted apart and come back together so many times. He is a part of so many great memories and sad ones too. He might be an ass to any girl he dates but you will never find a better friend in hard times than him. He was there the day I heard my uncle died (long story but huge deal in my family), always good for a laugh, drink or random prank.
Adam was my MBF my freshman/sophomore year of college, he taught me patience and at the time I needed it tolerance. I’ll never forget the water balloon fights, flag football and racing each other up eight flights of stairs to my dorm room. Bobby is a guy’s guy. I spent three spring breaks in college with him (which should be enough said) but our senior year spring break he had just meet his future wife and it’s been all down hill from there (kidding) I love his wife probably more than him now but he is my go-to guy on politics and current events.
Post-college at a crappy job I could not have asked for two better guys to get me through the last four years at work than Jake and Mike. Jake brought back my random/funny side I had been missing and after hanging out with him again recently I finally realized the impact he had on my life … I had grown so uptight and dead set in my ways for the last few years that I needed him to bring me back to reality. I may not be the happiest most outgoing person but I have some great friends that love me and know I can be that person. Finally Mike, for the last year and a half he has kept me sane, been my confidant without judging, been a shoulder to cry on, put me in my place when I need it, taken care of my house and my dog when I’ve been out of town and enjoyed more beer and wings nights with me than I care to count.
I love my close girlfriends but they will never understand me the way my boys do.
