A Friend In Need

Thursday is National Best Friends Day, and I am going to celebrate it with my best friend Jon Stewart. (He was downgraded from "husband" after he got married without even checking to see if I existed.)

I'm also going to honor those of you who have taken time out from your own busy/empty love lives to show concern for a friend in need of a busier/emptier love life. Of course, sometimes said "concern" is more for your eardrums than for his/her eternal happiness, but still. You're writing to figure out how to handle it -- whatever "it" is -- best. Which is what makes you guys the best friends of all.

Especially because: a friend who's anyone but That Bad Person is a friend, indeed. Whether or not you "succeed" in helping someone bail, it does, I promise, make a difference to your friend to feel that friendly love, tough though it may need be. Being "right," being the one who got him/her away, and being a friend are all unrelated. Hint: go for the latter.

In that spirit, here's more from the best friend files:

• Forever hold my peace?! How not to settle for a friend who may be.
• Hate him, love her! Staying true to your friend and your convictions.
• Broken heart (friends'), broken record (your advice): When "LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING" counts as love.
• 911: How you could save a friend's life by just standing by.

Bottom line: tell them how you feel, not what to do. Because remember, as Bridget Jones' non-smug-married friend Magda observes, "People's relationships are quite mysterious. No one from the outside ever really understands what makes them work."

Okay? Now leave Jon and me alone.

 
FIRST LETTER >