My only best friend growing up was a damaged girl who had a diddler dad and a crackhead mother who'd take their foodstamps and go on drug binges for months at a time. She was my mary magdalene full of motherly love and affection for everything around her. These types of friends are usually penned as the "mom friend" always there for you to pick you up. I really loved her and during my fucked up childhood we formed a bond where we fed off of eachother like leeches, extracting the parts of us we never got from our own lives. I fed off of her motherly tender love and she became a sort of mother in my head to me one that loved me no matter what i did or said. She fed off of my strictness, my stability, my discipline. She'd make stupid decisions or get in bad situations and i was there to set her on track in a way her mother never was. When youre a selfish child living in a state of survival you dont take into account how feeding off of someone might also benefit them but its happy coincidence of mutualism that occured and im very greatful for that. To say i didnt still miss her to this day would be a lie. We spend our adult lives playing fetch like a dog chasing after the stick of percieved lack of whatever from our childhood. Sometimes i feel that i am closer to female friendship irl than i ever have been but still lack it entirely, BUT i feel close. Like perhaps my mindset is almost perfect to cultivate this but my execution is still not ready. I dont want to look back at this one friendship and think "this is the best ill ever get, this is the only one ill ever get". this age of puritism has left me feeling like a filthy dirty male unable to ever connect to a woman let alone manage to not offend/shock. like a dirty and worn teddy bear i am flawed but still have love to give