Favourite Best Friend Pair

[liss31d]

Who is your favourite best friend relationship in the series and why?

[greer]

none--the bsc always made me feel inadequate for not having one.

[macca]

Mallory and Jessi always seemed pretty close, even if their only connection was that Mallory was the awkward redhead dork and Jessi was an outcast. Can't remember why, though ;D

j/k! Or have the Jessi's Black jokes passed?! ;D

[sotypical42483]

Well I was going to vote for MA/Kristy because i love that they've been friends for so long and love how protective kristy seems over ma, but then you had to go and throw dawn and sunny in there and my love for each of them individually trumps any ma/kristy fondness i have!! dawn seems more like herself around sunny and i love that. also the whole hippie veg thing...

[aln1982]

I really like Mallory and Jessi and also think they are both two of the best friends to the other girls. I also really like Kristy and Mary Anne and think Stacey and Claud had a pretty good relationship - with a few big exceptions - but just not nearly as good as Mal and Jessi.

[lark]

I voted for Dawn and Mary Anne. They seem the closest to me, probably because they're sisters.

[Sweet City Girl]

I agree that Mal and Jessi are probably the best friend pair as well. Kristy and Mary Anne seemed really close in the beginning of the series, but somehow I got the impression that their relationship changed as the series progressed. I don't really remember a particular later book that actually showed them doing something together and being all that close outside of the club. It just seemed like they were mainly together during meetings.

Stacey and Claudia were a pretty good pair, too- but, I agree with aln that they did have some major issues. Especially with guys. What ever happened to Stacey's promise to Claudia at the end of "Stacey's Lie": "I won't let anything, not even a boy, come between us again."? Yeah, right, Stace. Just look what happened to your friendship in "Stacey vs. Claudia."

As for Stacey and Laine- that's probably my least favorite pair. Laine was so awful to Stacey and I never felt that they shared any true friendship. It always seemed, even when they first met, that Laine was little miss snob and Stacey was like the girl who just hung out with her because she was "cool" and Laine had chosen her for her own convenience. And Stacey was nervous around Laine, too- worried all the time about Laine's "temper" or how she might look "uncool" around her if she did something Laine wouldn't approve of. If you have to worry about that stuff with somebody, then that person isn't a true friend.

[liss31d]

Laine and Stacey fell into the whole "Our mums were best friends so we are too because we would play together while our mums spent time together." Sadly childhood best friend pairs don't often last or at least don't sustain the close bond they had as children, because they grow up and usually develop different interests.

I think this slightly happened with Kristy and Mary Anne... I always feel sad in Mary Anne and the Great Romance as MA basically says to Kristy in that note that they'll change and go different ways but that she'll always remember that she was her first best friend... in a sad, it's almost as if they were closing the old door of their childhood friendship behind them. They didn't seem to hang around together as much after that except when MA was mad at Dawn and would go over to Kristy's house or hang out with her somewhere... aw poor Kristy! On a happier note, in Mary Anne's Portrait, I love reading about their friendship as kids.

[alula]

none--the bsc always made me feel inadequate for not having one.

.

Heh. Me, too, especially after my childhood best friend and I "broke up" when we were nine.

Actually, I was thinking about friendship in the BSC because of Mary Anne in the Middle--in a lot of ways, I had trouble relating to the all-encompassing, absorbing nature of the BSC friendships. Even when I was that age, I can't imagine acting like a friend didn't have the right to get her hair cut without consulting me or go away to boarding school if that would make her happier--little alula was like, "lol, you people are crazy!" (I mean, I had my share of stupid middle school/high school drama, but it wasn't over our right to run each other's lives by consensus). I can't tell if that's a reflection of my having low self-esteem (as in, thinking that how I felt just wasn't that important, which was true even in areas where it kind of was) or just common sense.

Anyway, I would probably say Kristy and Mary Anne--I like the way they complement each other's differences. I know it doesn't seem like they hang out as much later in the series, but there are some nice moments I remember, like Kristy calling MA for advice in "Kristy + Bart = ?" and in SS#14 when Kristy sees her dad at the ball park and Mary Anne says that if she doesn't go talk to him, she'll regret it, and Kristy says, "She was right. She always is." I feel they have one of those friendships with such a strong emotional connection, and that they shared so much in their early childhood, that they're able to give each other a lot even without necessarily being together 24/7 all the time.

[aln1982]

Agree with you all about MA and Kristy's friendship. I also loved reading about it in the Portrait books and liked MA's note to Kristy in Great Romance. Also agree with sweetcitygirl about not liking Laine/Stacey and have the same impression of their relationship. The way Laine treated Stacey after she was diagnosed with diabetes pretty much crossed her off on my "good" list. ;D I just don't see her as a good friend. As for guys coming between Claudia and Stacey, I hadn't thought of that and was actually thinking about Missing Ring when Claud doesn't believe Stacey 100%. You are right about the guys, though, like in Stacey's Lie (I haven't read FF) MA and Dawn fight way too much for me ;D, am pretty neutral about Dawn and Sunny, and didn't see enough of Jessi and Keisha to really like those friendships as well. Also, Keisha kind of made me mad in the one where Jessi went back to visit Oakley (I think it's Dawn's Big Move) and she wasn't all that nice (or was at least different, which I guess is understandable but still didn't make me like her any better) to Jessi)

[fluffy]

Dawn and MA seemed very close and trusting when they weren't fighting or acting bitchy towards each other, but that friendship doesn't really seem to be there after the CA diaries kick off, like Dawn visiting Stoneybrook in #114.
I agree about Stacey and Laine. There was something fishy about their friendship to begin with. They weren't really ever very close.

Not a best friends pair, but Kristy and Claudia got along great. Kristy and the Sister War and Claudia Gets her Guy are two great books for Claudia/Kristy interaction.

[aln1982]

^ I liked that one between Kristy and Claudia, too. I always liked seeing the non-best friends pairs interacting. I especially enjoyed Jessi's interaction with the other girls - like with Stacey in Jewel Thieves and how she writes Dawn the letter in Big Move. I would have liked to have seen more interaction between the non-best-friend pairs.
Poor Abby doesn't have a best friend at all, does she? Maybe Anna since I really wouldn't say Kristy. But somehow, I don't see her as being all that concerned with not having a best friend since she seems pretty independent.

[starrynight]

I liked Stacey and Claudia best, because I always wanted to be sophisitcated and cool like them!

[Deleted]

I always really liked the friendship between MA and Dawn, for some reason. Until Dawn started her coast-hopping, I think it felt like the best-developed and most 'real' one in the series. I totally understand what people mean about them fighting too much, but I think it's inevitable - if my best friend and I had been living together when we were 13, we'd probably have driven each other insane! Plus, a lot of the time people argue most with the ones they're closest to because they feel more comfortable about it. It seemed to me that the reason MA and Kristy didn't fight as much was that they just weren't all that close.

It's funny, because you get the impression that MA/Kristy was originally meant to be the central friendship of the series, but it petered out very early on. I think they were both kind of sticking together for security more than anything else - Kristy liked having someone to feel 'brave' and 'grown-up' in comparison to, and MA liked having someone to hide behind. Once Dawn and Logan showed up, she didn't really need Kristy anymore. Even after Dawn left, MA didn't seem much closer to Kristy than she did to the other girls, and Kristy actually seemed to spend more time with Abby.

Stacey and Laine were another example of the 'friendship-of-convenience' thing. Dawn and Sunny, however, were a nice counterbalance - they'd known each other through childhood, but their friendship stayed strong as they grew up as they still had a lot in common.

[sotypical42483]

I would never say Stacey and Claudia because their friendship is so superficial. They're friends because they're so cool and sophisticated and like to shop. I can't see that friendship lasting, it's not rooted in anything real.