I love Bestie, I do. Who doesn’t love their best friend? We’ve been friends, truly great friends, for about ten years now and I think she’s wonderful. She’s one of very few friends for whom Boys was rarely a topic of discussion. We very occasionally talked about boys or “girlie” things in high school or college or now (even when one of us had/s a boyfriend/husband). We never talked about makeup or dresses or celebrity gossip or shoes. What did we talk about, you ask: Books, mainly. We’d hang out and go for walks and talk about books and our lives and our friends and music and food. We were teenage intellectuals, philosophizing and speculating and being silly and smart.
The thing about Bestie is she is a planner. She likes to speculate and plan and make up lists. She’s all about New Year’s Resolutions and striving to be a better/healthier/greener person. She likes to make five-year-plans and gauge how well she’s adhering to these plans she’s made. A real Odd Couple we are with her Life Plans and my Live-In-The-Moment/Go-With-The-Flow approach to life.
I don’t mind that she’s a planner and a list maker, but sometimes (only sometimes) her list making can made me feel wildly inadequate and unproductive. She makes her lists, outlines her goals, goes back to them after a few weeks/months and evaluates how far she’s come and re-evaluates her priorities and decides whether or not she wants to continue with whatever plan she’s working on. This works for her.
This would not work for me. I don’t plan. I take things as they come. I make vague plans as far as diet and fitness and work and living go, but I don’t list them or gauge my progress. It’s just too much work. And generally I’m OK with this. But every now and then when I read about Bestie’s productivity I start to feel lazy. Like I should be deciding where I want to be in five years (I hate this question); or looking for a career; or checking out grad programs again; or, or, or…
It will pass soon enough and I will go back to my carefree, beach-bum-who-doesn’t-currently-live-at-the-beach outlook on life. It is good to have a friend like this though, because sometimes (sometimes more often than I care for) she tries to manage my life and she gives good advice and has smart insights. She is the reason I work where I do and the reason I’ve read Hitchhiker’s Guide and the reason I’ve seen The Science of Sleep - all positive decisions, if you ask me.
RE The Big Bang Theory picture: I’m not trying to say that I am Penny and Bestie is Amy Farrah Fowler (although it wouldn’t be too far off), neither am I trying to say Bestie is weird and I’m annoyed with her (there just don’t seem to be any pictures of the two of them where Kaley Cuoco doesn’t look weirded out or annoyed with Mayim Bialik).
