Down with the Hierarchy of Best-Friendness

What if calling someone your “best friend” is actually limiting your friendships — along with your self-worth?

Do you have a best friend?

Or does someone else call you their best friend?

Both are a lovely place to be…

And also I think it’s a trend that’s horribly damaging to women’s self-esteem, denies credit where credit is due, and stunts new relationships that could blossom into something incredible.

Wait—what?

In short, I think it’s really damaging to announce that you have a best friend or are someone’s best friend.

If you disagree, I’d love to hear your perspective. But first, let me tell you about how I got here…

Outsiders Get the Boot

It wasn’t until my young daughters started making friends and ranking those friendships that I recognized my own long-time struggles with this concept.

“Katrina is my friend, Mommy, but Bella is my best friend. But sometimes I like Katrina more. I just can’t call her my bestie because that’s what I call Bella.”

“We made a pact to be best friends forever. So she always comes first.”

“Allison got mad because I picked Jolie as my best friend, so now Allison’s not my friend.”

Of course these are normal schoolgirl conversations. It’s all part of sorting out friendship in general, and trying on meaningful relationships.

Except then we girls grow up and the hierarchy continues.

For example, I made a new friend a while back. We really clicked. We laughed and shared interests. I could see having loads of fun with her in the future.

But when she regularly shared stories about her best friend and things they did and things they had planned…

It kinda felt like being told: “You can’t compete. I’ve already got someone at the top. You’ll always be less-than.”

Is It a High-Achieving Woman Thing?

It feels silly to say (or write) out loud, but I’m not alone in this.

Research shows that high-achieving women tend to have fewer friendships, and fewer close friendships in particular, simply because of time and energy constraints. Thanks to packed calendars and chronic fatigue brought on by work and parenting and caregiving, there’s just less time for friends.

So the friends you have need to count for more.

Which would make it off-putting to befriend someone new and be told (more or less) that you can’t rank. When your time is already limited, why prioritize a non-promising friendship?

Or…

It could be that high-achieving women are less likely to be vulnerable. Because when your worth is tied to your performance, it’s harder to show up messy and needy and receptive to advice — all things that contribute to the intimacy of best-friendships.

Or…

It might be because high-achieving women are so darn competitive. If you’ll never be the best, why even try?

The Surprising Pitfalls of Having a Best Friend

A lot of this is ridiculous at first glance. We’re talking about friendship. Does it have to get so deep and complicated?

Well, yeah. Because that’s what friendship is all about. Deep, core-level connection.

When you over-invest emotionally in one person and call them “best,” it’s easy to neglect other friendships. Then comes the avalanche of potential pitfalls:

• It’s harder to make space for new, possibly richer connections.

• It leaves you vulnerable if the “best” friendship ever ends.

• It can prompt a perfect friend fantasy of total loyalty and zero conflict.

• It could lock you into a single relationship, where you hesitate to open up to other potentially fabulous and supportive friends because they don’t carry the title.

• It might put unrealistic expectations on just one person, expecting them to be your primary emotional support, crisis-consultant, and constant companion. And if they can’t meet that standard you’ve created, the friendship risks falling to pieces.

• It sometimes sounds like you’re trying to prove something, like you’re loved or popular and you just have the best darn and most well-connected social life.

• And it might come across as a friendship flex, where your repeated introduction of someone as “my best friend” distances other friends and acquaintances.

Note: Not for Lovers

Please note that I’m not speaking to calling your spouse or partner your best friend. That’s a different kind of title altogether, and in most cases is and should be reserved for the one person who stands above the rest as your most intimate, romantic connection.

This term gets abused plenty though, when people use the “best friend” title for someone who’s not really a friend but is transitioning or has transitioned into the role of intimate partner. Fine if you don’t already have one. Sacrilege when it’s a euphemism for affair partner.

But that’s a different topic for another day. Back to the challenges of true friendship and the tricky best friend label…

Like Tetrachromacy for Friendship

As I see it, there’s never a need or benefit for calling out, especially publicly, a single best friend as your one-and-only.

Because if you think about it… we could all always benefit from more deep friendships. So I invite you not to accidentally exclude any top-ranking future friendships.

And thanks to the genius of language and synonyms, there are plenty of ways to honor the closeness of certain friends without ranking or excluding others. Try these:

“One of my closest friends.”

“A favorite friend of mine.”

“My longtime friend.”

“One of my oldest friends.”

“We’ve been friends forever.”

“A dear friend.”

“A friend I really trust.”

“A friend I’m lucky to have.”

“A very special friend I have.”

“A friend I’m especially grateful for.”

You see what’s happening here? All of these phrases pay tribute to the distinctiveness of a particular friendship, but without the suggestion that “she’s in top place and you can’t be.”

Because you can have loads of close friends, and favorite friends, and longtime friends, and special friends.

Please note: This isn’t about walking on eggshells around someone else’s feelings when you talk about friendship. It’s about allowing space for more deep friendships in your life, and letting it be known to others that you don’t have a hierarchy.

I spent years in my girlhood and early adulthood wishing I had a single special friend I could go to with everything, who knew me inside and out, who trusted me with all her secrets and had my back through thick and thin.

But I was wrong in thinking that honor had to be carried by just one woman.

I’m eternally grateful for the flock of friends I have now. They are unique in their gifts, their backgrounds, their advice and takes on life, their feedback, the ways they lift me up, the things they bring to me for help, and their many varied jokes and ways of having fun.

It wasn’t until I stopped judging each individual friend by impossible parameters and realized that just about every connection of mine had something unique to offer me by way of friendship.

Letting them in and sharing vulnerably was the key to getting closer.

Being there and listening openly is the key to staying close.

And I couldn’t get by with just one, because they’re all so beautifully different, particularly in the ways they lift me up.

I’m wildly grateful for all the amazing friendships and incredible women in my life. 💗🙌🏼🎈

Here’s my ode to some of them:

MK – the friend who makes my life sweeter with steady love and edible gestures

NB—the friend I’ve known the longest and who tells me I’m a badass

MP—the friend who takes crap from no one and challenges me to be stronger

KB—the friend who’s held my hand through thick and thin since we were eight years old

KB2—the friend who’s seen me at my best and worst and loves me all the same

AJ—the friend who’s walked a thousand miles with me through life’s ups and downs, literally and figuratively

SB—the friend who brings me back to the basic beauties of life, from music to mountains

WS—the friend who makes me laugh so hard I nearly pee on myself every time I see her

JG—the friend who always tells me I’m beautiful. If I were a lesbian, I’d pick her.

JG2—the friend who always seems to know when I need a supportive phone call

TM—the friend who slaps down my negative self-talk and pushes me farther and faster than I think I can go

TM2—the friend who taught me that beauty and fashion and brains and financial success can mix seamlessly

AW—the friend I’d want to have roll with me if I ever got stuck on a dark road on a dark night

RE—the friend who showed me how to love my body

RM—the friend who taught me that wealth is accessible regardless of background

KY—the friend who always sees the best in me

BC—the friend who showed me what it really means to be there for someone

HR—the friend I can talk to for hours of laughter and squealing, even if we haven’t connected for years

MM—the friend who held up a mirror to my complaining and showed me how to flip it

DD—the friend who’s also a mentor and taught me how to find my self-worth

There are many more, but I’ll close with this: If I stuck to my initial desire for a single friend who reciprocated that title I coveted for years, I’d be missing out on all the goodness above.

I invite you to list the many friends in your life, along with the gifts they bring. I’d guess the boost you get from that outshines any bestie title a single individual could bestow.

Learning to be vulnerable and make space for more and better friendships is one of the steps that helped me flip my imposter fears and scale my business, wealth, and life. If you’d like to learn how I can help you do that, please click this link.