anybody else have a lifelong friend?
 

My best friend Andrew and I met when I was 2 and he was 4. Our houses backed onto each other growing up. We started playing guitar together in our teens. We still have a lot in common though we have had different life paths. We'll be talking Monday night and we text often.
45 years as friends.

Do you have any lifelong friends?

Yep... My best buddy and I have known each other and been best friends for 48 years. We've seen and shared all of our changes through the years. I've known one other buddy for 57 years. One of my golfing buddies and I have been friends for 48 years. Amazing... I've been very fortunate in my life having a fantastic set of friends. :)

No. The half-life of people liking me is about 18 months.

Nope. I moved too often but I do have a few I keep in touch with from high school. From there on yes, as they are, or were, musicians or in the industry.

Yes, since high school. On the tennis team the coach paired us as the men's doubles partners. We went separate ways after graduation but stayed in touch. Eventually we lived in the same area and then city. We were always there for each other in good and bad times and life events. Both of us were only children so we became brothers. I was a real estate developer he was an architect and since his office was on my way home I'd often drop in on the way home to talk shop or do some problem solving. Sometimes we'd meet for lunch with other high school friends. Last fall his wife passed away. At her celebration of life his children pulled me away to quietly tell me my best friend had been diagnosed with alzheimer's. This summer has been empty because I'm losing John.

Yeah, I have a couple of long-time friends. One, I met when I was in the third grade. We don't live all that close these days, but we keep in touch. The other we added to our group when we were 15/16. I talk/text with him all the time. Heck, we worked together for 20+ years before I changed jobs. Several years ago, we all went fishing and as my 3rd grade friend and I were sitting in the boat by ourselves, I think we both flashed back on how often we'd been together like this in the past. It was a weird feeling, but a good one. Like we were kids again instead of retirement age.

That's a terrible disease and am so sorry for you and your friend,

None. I never lived more than 2-1/2 years in any location until I was 17 when I left home to start traveling on my own (military). I did not put down roots until 12 years ago (I'm 64). The 52 years before that were all broken up into various locations across three continents.

I would not trade any of it, having become self-reliant and schooled in a stoic independence that isn't socially obligated in any manner. But, that isn't necessarily a good thing to some people, or a bad thing to others. It comes down to whether you need close friends in your life, or don't.

I moved from the East Coast to the desert Southwest when I was about 9. I had a couple of friends from the east who I saw a couple more times when my family would go back to visit, but I basically lost touch with those friends, who I knew from the time I was 4 or 5, maybe earlier.

But I still have a handful of friends I met in Elementary School, Jr. High, and High School. I guess I knew them all by the time I was about 13. I'm still very tight with two of them and in pretty good touch with about 4-5 more. So I consider them pretty much lifelong friends. I don't live near any of them anymore, a few of them still live in the town we grew up in but most don't. But we all get together periodically and we shoot emails and texts around a lot and talk some. My high school friend who I sort of started playing guitar with (although I didn't start until a year or so after high school, but we played together a lot from about 18-22 or so when we lived in the same area) we still send each other stuff we've recorded, so we still sort of keep up with each other's playing, although we haven't actually played together since probably the mid-80s...

I don't see a lot of these guys, but they still mean a lot to me. The only people I know other than my brother and sister who knew me before I had defenses. I can't BS them and they can't BS me and we get together and it's like we've never really been apart... Good stuff. A couple of old girlfriends I'm still in pretty good touch with also, but not as tight as those guys, since the relationships necessarily changed a lot...

-Ray

Yep - in fact I play in jam sessions with friends I've known since before kindergarten (66 years).

Yep, two friends for the past 51 years. We were all 12 at the time but they hung in different circles from each other. Because of me, they know of each other, but have never actually met. For the last 25 years, I attend a biannual overnight poker party. For some time, I’ve been after one of the longtime friends to come out, but he hasn’t gotten around to it. He is supposed to for our upcoming Sept. night, so the two will finally meet.

I have a friend that I met in second grade. We visit from time to time and have meals together with our wives. I call him my best friend. We're 66 now. I have other friends from middle school and high school that I run into from time to time. Though I can't say we are close really. But it's always a pleasure to catch up with them.

Nope. We moved during my mid teens and left what early life friends I had made. Never really got close enough to anyone else to consider a true friend.

Wifey, on the other hand, has a very close friend that she has shared life with for over the past 50 years. Even though they live about 4 hours away, they manage some sort of exchange (text, email, phone call, etc) several times during the week.

D

Nope. But just my best friend of the last six years, my Bernese Mt Dog. :cry:

Military Brat. I didn't have any childhood friends that lasted longer than a year and a half.