The Best Friend

I read something once on the internet. "Someone important to you deserves to be important to someone else too." That's pretty good internet advice, as that usually goes. It was in an article about things that Toy Story teaches us. I'm still learning this, though. I watch other people make the same mistakes as me and I try so hard not to do it, but it's natural. I have to keep reminding myself of this though.
A lot of people naturally want to be loved the most. They want to know someone best, be the person that they always turn to, know all the secrets, be the most important to them. People want to be THE best friend. I watch it happen all the time. People answer questions for each other, they do this weird competition thing with knowledge about their friends, and they try to be the one that hangs out with someone the most. You can't claim people friend wise in this society. When you're dating, everyone knows you have that position and anybody decent will respect that. When you're friends, there's no reason someone can't also be that person's friend. There's no reason that person can't become even better friends with them. So we get jealous. People like to be loved, this is nothing new.
But in my own life, I'm trying not to do this. It's not a competition. Every friendship is different, and there isn't one list ranking of friends for each person. I have a hard time with this. Naturally, I want everyone to like me the most. I want everyone to pick me, to think I'm worthy of their friendship. But it's unreasonable. I can't expect everyone to pick me first, because I can't pick all of them first. On that note, not everyone I pick first will pick me back. That's okay. As long as you don't put all your faith into friends that aren't actually there for you, you should be fine.
I have a best friend. One friend above all the others. Not everybody has this, but I do. I've even had people say to me "I know I'm not Austin, but..." and then they proceed to tell me why they should be able to care about me. It's a little ridiculous, because of course they can still care, and I can still care about them. But they have a point. I'm never going to love any of them more than I love him, which is a hard thing for some people to accept. We know abstractly that most people we interact with love someone else more than they love us. With me, I just hold that out for the world to see. It makes it different.
I also tend to get jealous of him. When other people are really close with him, I worry, because I can't be around him and they can, and it's really not fair at all that I don't ever get to see my best friend. But he's important to me, and he deserves to be important to them, too. As long as they love him.
Anyway, I have to remind myself of this with most of my friends. Yes, we're really close, and no, that does not mean they aren't close to people that I don't know.
We've got to spread the wealth of friendship. Once I started to see each individual friendship for what it was, instead of trying to make them all the same, I saw that my friendships are beautiful. Sure, maybe I don't see them every day, but I do love every moment we spend together. Maybe it's not the friendship I expected, but you can't plan your life out like that. I love my friends, and they deserve as much love as they can get. So I'm happy that the people I know know other people. If I love someone, how could I keep them all to myself? I've got to let the world experience the wonderful people I call friends. Not that it's my decision. But I should be happy about other people loving them, not jealous or threatened or upset.

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” 
― Alice Walker

I don't want to deny anyone's right to grow by being a jealous friend. I just want to be your friend, and let each of us love each other and others as we will.