I’m often tell people I’m a lot of people’s 7th best friend. To me, this loose definition is a reliable, likable individual but someone you’re not close to day to day.
The original definition:
A 7th best friend is the person you would invite to your wedding but would never consider them for your wedding party
This really kicked off as I hit my late 20s and started to be be invited to weddings. Suddenly, my vacation schedule began to be dedicated to weddings. I’ve been to twelve weddings in the past three years and the engagements keep rolling in. 2020 brought the eventual stop to this trend but I’ve already attended my first in 2022.
My personal record is attending three weddings in seven days in three different states/cities, a surprisingly efficient endevaour and possibly an impossible record for me to beat.
My other notable record is I have yet to be in a wedding party.
My 7th best friend situation is pretty common across all my friend groups. I’ve made it to bachelor parties but while my relationships with these individuals are being “close,” the responsibilities on the wedding day are always limited to none.
A couple theories on how I got here:
No meaningful post-secondary experience After high school, I only did a single year of education afterwards then dove straight into the film industry. The 15-hour workdays there weren’t exactly a great way for me to keep in touch with my friends or make any new ones.
Moving to America When film ended, I made a big leap of faith and started a career in esports and moved away to the United States. I’ve bounced around a few different locations since but never enough to really make connections.
Bad Communication I am not a great external communicator with my friends. As an only child, you learn how to hang out by yourself and I find myself falling into a reliable friend. I never tend to never crack into the next tier of friend. Also 2020 ended up preventing me from developing more in person experiences but I think there’s a bit of my Pacific Northwest cold showing.
Being a 7th best friends is not all bad. I get to enjoy the weddings and the lack of duties is nice. There is so much stress around planning a wedding and being able to sit back while the event unfolds is an underrated feeling. I’m sure this won’t always have be the case but I am enjoying it while I can.
Nothing has been more rewarding than watching my friends grow their friendships into lasting relationships with the people they love. I hope that you too can become close enough to the important people in your life to be involved in their weddings, even if it’s just being the 7th best friend.