Adult friendships

[lookout123]

Yesterday Lil Lookout and I had one of those normal 7 year old type conversations that you don't remember with much significance. He was talking about who his best friends are this year. He is very detailed in listing ALL of his friends and explaining how he knows them, where he met them, things he's done with them, and what category they fall in (soccer friend, church friend, school friend, neighborhood friend) so I had pretty much just gone into zombie mode - listening but not really paying too much attention. Then he asked the question.

"Dad, who's your best friend and why?"

OK, that's easy. I explained that Mrs L is my best friend as I enjoy spending time with her more than anyone else in the world and we've shared things that would be impossible to duplicate with anyone else. He nodded and then quickly said, "yeah, but mom doesn't count. You have to say her, but who's your real best friend that's just a friend?"

That took just a little thought before I had to say my friend A. He's only met A a couple of times because A is still in Illinois and I only see him about once a year. A and I have been friends since our earliest memories, but became best friends and inseparable in early high school. After 21 years and having spent 13 of those years living in different states the guy is still the greatest friend I can imagine. When we were younger we could finish the other's thoughts, followed the same music, and all that crap without being clones of each other. He's a huge black dude and I'm a skinny white guy. He's naturally athletic, musically skilled, and draws people to him with ease. I'm pretty much the opposite in all ways. As adults he's become an extremely liberal and obscenely underachieving mystery to most, while I've become a pretty conservative and somewhat overachieving heart on my sleeve type. Strangely, as different as we've become we still know exactly what they other is thinking and trying to say. Anyway, that's A, my best friend.

That was the end of it. We got home and went about life. Or so I thought. We got in the car for the drive to school today and he picked the conversation right up where we left off.

Doesn't it make you sad that you don't have any real friends that you see?"

Hmm. Well, it didn't until he made me think about it. I work by myself and for myself. I talk to clients but you can't really call those real relationships because business and friendship just don't work well together. After a lot of thought I realized I have the soccer people. I enjoy many of them an awful lot, but I wouldn't call them close friends. Very friendly acquaintances, sure, but my heart won't be broken when our kids drift away and we inevitably do the same. The adults on my team are all 5-16 years younger than me and are simply teammates, I don't see them off the field. The closest thing to friends I have are all in the cellar. I know more about some of you guys than I do the people I see face to face on a regular basis. I've actually known some of you longer than I've known pretty much anybody I see regularly.

Is this what adult life is like for everyone or have I become some bizarre creature that only exists on a website and a soccer field?

I'm not sure what the point of this thread is, other than just kind of typing out the thoughts my kid got rolling. Damn kid.