BFF: Forever Forgotten?
This trend was like the other waves in the ocean – it created a storm, leapt fiercely at our hashtagging capabilities and with time, became a calmer ripple that restored the equilibrium within the watercourse before a newly-stirred, ferocious storm grew again and the social media world was hit by a different trend with perhaps the same duration of attention. I don't blame us for our short attention span. After all, we are the vagabond-kind; the dumpers and rarely the dumpees of trends. With modern attainment and teenage mood swings, we paved a path for different, quirkier, non-boomer trends. But I don't think any of us truly understood the significance that this trend held since we've developed a Hit It and Quit It relationship with them. This nurtured our rebound tendencies and we outgrew attachment. We didn't take the time to understand the connotations behind friends and forever. They meld seamlessly, did you know that? But we let it dissolve into mediocrity and now, the only reason it's around is for sarcastic purposes and maybe to trigger a cringe expression.
I always thought that "Best Friends Forever" was a cliché. It thrived on Facebook and survived in an ocean of catchy captions and hashtags. I used to barf when I came across posts of people posing together, squished into one another, trying to fit into the screen.
That is so lame, oh my God.
Why can't you be a little more creative?
You don't even like each other!
I soon realised – and by 'soon', I mean last week – that I was ignorant, even jealous. Maybe all this while they did share something true, everlasting, and as preachy as it may sound, it might have been a relationship that sustained and reflected change. And now, at seventeen years old, I realise and envy that. During a time where social media was the pinnacle of pleasure and a representation of our identity (and continues to be), I think that we all missed the quintessential narrative of eternity and endlessness, perhaps even a sense of permanence that this trend brought along with it. You tend to make your life's most wonderful moments when you're in a friendship and I know that it isn't easy to find your person.
I don't know what urged me to write this. Maybe it was watching a show about three best friends suffering the consequences of an alternate reality (their choices) in a parallel universe (NYC) and enduring this emotional and mentally painful journey with the resilience of their support systems (each other). Despite living different lives, their normals were entwined together because their best friends constituted normalcy in each of their lives and so, as long as they were around and as long as they brought each other glazed doughnuts, their life remained consistent and eventually, established permanence and dependency. I admire that. They say, change is the only universal constant and I really want to disagree with this philosophy with monotonous facts and figures but you know I can't. Change is essential; it's important for you, like water. But to have a friendship that is consistent and constitutes normalcy but leaves space for growth and change is something else. It's something I can't label yet. It's...how you know you've found your forever-something or someone. You might think it's ideal and unreal. Maybe it is because you can never have the best of two worlds. Maybe it is a fantasy, the whole BFF thing. Maybe friends only enhance the sociability factor in your life. Maybe the idea of forever is ideal and fantastical and friends are temporary points in time. But what if they're not all of the above? What if the person who comes to your mind when you're reading this is worth the glazed doughnuts? What if, and hear me out, they're your BFF? But this time, they're more than filters and unimportant, externally validated likes and reactions.
A piece of advice from an emotionally unavailable and distant person: hold on to them. Permanence is undervalued because forever is always taken for granted.
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