Conversations between close friends

[Anonymous]

What subjects are most typical in your daily or weekly conversations with close friends? Do you talk about the same things with different close friends or does it change according to their education or personality or whatever?

I just found out that my close friend loves to dissect books, debate politics and talk about the news with this other girl that she kind if has a love/hate friendship with. She knows I like to discuss those things too but she always seems bored when I bring those topics up. But she's closer to me than she is with her other friend (way closer). We talk about personal life stuff, our career frustrations/goals, and then light hearted fun stuff.

I just want to know if there is a conversation subject pattern that comes with different kinds if friendships?

[Anonymous]

I talk about mostly the real personal stuff with my really close friends when we have limited time to talk (like phone conversations every other week or something). But for the few close friends I see regularly (which sadly is none of them at the moment), anything is fair game. Some of my friends love music as much as I do, so we talk about that. Parenting is ALWAYS a conversation, no matter how much time we have, but if we have a lot of time, it may be the funnier/sillier parts of parenting or our kids.

Politics I actually find Facebook to be strangely good for, since you can share things you love/hate and comment on them and see where your friends stand. There are a lot of political posts flying between my FB friends, so if I were to see any of my close friends who post on FB for a rare lunch/dinner, I doubt politics would come up because we can talk about taht stuff online.

Also, depending on what is going on (like, some friends have aging parents they're supporting... some have older/college age kids, while others have babies really young kids... some are going through job transitions) so depending on what's up for them, there will be different trends in topics but that's just about what is happening, not because I only want to talk kids with the ones with older kids or I only want to talk personal stuff with friends who have older parents.

So I guess my sum up answer to your question would be: mostly what we talk about depends on how long we have to talk/how often we see each other. It just seems a waste of precious time to talk about stuff that isn't deeply personal with a really close friend that I hardly ever see/talk to. The whole point of really close friends is to be able to talk about stuff you can't/don't talk about on a day to day basis. We talk about stuff in the news/on t.v. at work, nothing personal about that. I treasure the in-depth catch-ups with close friends.

[Anonymous]

Oh yes, most definitely.

For example, I have my BFF from high school and we talk about EVERYTHING under the sun. Our sex lives, our dreams for the future, our fears, you name it. There is nothing I cannot tell her and I know she doesn't judge me.

Then I have other friends that I can talk to, but cannot discuss politics or other stuff like that w/. Like I am pro-choice, and I have this friend who is adamantly opposed to abortion and anytime I mention anything regarding abortion...She starts ranting on and on about how it is murder, etc. So I choose to not mention it at all, but I got pregnant last yr. and when I told her that I was considering it as an option, she told me what a huge mistake it would be and how I had so many other options and all. I realized that she didn't really have my best interests in mind, she just wanted me to agree w/her beliefs so I had to end that friendship.

Most of my friends are people I can talk to w/out being judged and those that I can be open and honest w/and not have to worry about them forcing their opinions about politics or social issues down my throat.