You want their opinion on things and you want their understanding on things,” Bonior said. “Your best friend should be somebody that when something happens to you-good or bad-you want to call them right away. In the words of the Ghostbusters: Who you gonna call? According to Bonior, the answer is your bestie. Imagine something has happened to you at work-maybe you got a raise or maybe you had a disagreement with your boss. And that even though you show each other the most embarrassing parts of yourself, overall, there’s respect there.” 9 You tell them things first. So that means that you genuinely admire this person and they admire you. Maybe they’re living their life in such a way that you get motivation.

“They make you feel inspired and you inspire each other to do better. “A best friend should be somebody who makes you want to be a better person,” Bonior said. Motivation comes in many forms, and your best friend should really be inspiring you to be your best self. “Most of us just want friends who see us and affirm us and believe in us and if we could do that for each other, we will probably be able to survive almost anything,” she said. Nelson defines close friendship-or “frientimacy”-as “any relationship between two people where they both feel seen in a safe, satisfying way.” Similar to how a best friend truly gets you, Nelson noted that she believes “being seen” is of utmost importance. “They understand you in a way that your other friends might not,” Bonior said. You reveal parts of yourself to them that you might not reveal to other people-and they love you anyway.” 6 They really know and *get* you.īecause you’re open and vulnerable with your BFF, they may know you on a deeper level. “If we’re looking for the people who are going to be our ‘best’ friend, then we would be looking for people who we are sharing many different sides of ourselves with and practicing sharing vulnerable feelings, ideas, and thoughts with them.”īonior added, “There’s got to be a level vulnerability with each other-being willing to open yourself up to that person and know that they’ve got your back. Nelson noted that “the more we know about each other, the more we feel safe having shown ourselves, the more things we’ve gone through together, the more we’ve seen each other in different ways,” the closer we are. Both Nelson and Bonior brought up the importance of vulnerability in a best friendship.

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