The protagonist's best friend

[Maps]

I have the “opposites attract” best friends in my novel. I made it work because they are both from the same country and are being held against their will in another country. They bond over being from the same place and grow to protect one another. But I love making them bicker.

[dawgofdawgness]

I mean it depends on what KIND of best friend they are and what you’re planning on doing with them. If they’re the best friend with similar goals of “becoming the best cook EVER” then they might develop some kind of rivalry (healthy or toxic) it just depends on where you want the story to go and what role you want the bff to play.
If you want to write BFF character simply to accompany the MC and bounce back ideas on them then I guess the most common ways are

• “gay best friend” a trope where the best friend is basically just there as a sidekick and usually doesn’t have a bigger role in the story. I say “gay” because it’s a cliche that ensures that the BFF (usually the opposite gender) won’t be seen as a potential love interest for the MC. Obviously they don’t have to be gay, you just have to make sure that the audience knows that the BFF character isn’t going to be a very important character plot-wise.

• “unlikely friends” there’s a reason why the opposite attract trope is so common, it’s because it’s a really easy and effective way to characterize the MC by making them interact with someone who has completely different views or personality than them. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be fighting all the time, it can be more superficial ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[Lucca_Vendramel]

I never actually thought about the details of my MC's "best friend", since he is more of a tertiary character. But I think if I were to say the reasons they are friends even though Cozmata is more daring than her friend Henry are mainly:
1. They live close to each other
2. They have no friends because Cozmata is hyper-active and Henry is too shy
3. They both are kids who like to explore places and play games

[joannekwan]

Speaking as a person who's never kept a best friend from childhood, all my characters have met their best friends in the latter part of their lives, from high school onwards, when they're closer to how they currently are as a person.
I know for a fact I'm a much different person now than say when I was 10.

For my characters …
Tula and her friends, Faiza and Ferran all met in college. Faiza was guildmates with Ferran in an mmo they both played, and then Faiza bonded with Tula in a freshman course. Then she introduced Tula to Ferran and they found out they have a shared interest in period dramas.

Andreas. He's isn't particularly close with anyone. He was always somewhat of an outcast with his horns, and he was put even further away from any genuine interaction once he became a model. The couple of friends he does have, he met through his job. Alex is a photographer he occasionally works with, and they like playing games together. Dusana is a fellow model, and they've essentially become each other's 'gay best friend' (she's lesbian and he's bi) LOL.

Church has been friends with Janique since high school. He was stuck in that 90's grunge phase and kept people at an arm's length, Janique was similar but more subtle about it and they befriended each other that way and bonded over listening to records.

Patience has known Schuler for several years, but he was away for four of those. Up to the beginning of the story, he was her one and only confidant, helping her get through her parents' deaths, and just being generally supportive.

In general, all my sets of friends aren't based on how each person complements the other, rather, it's based simply on how well they hang out together. And looking at my own relationships, it's very much the same.

[OttoGruenwald]

The Trespasser and the Architects of Dreams | Tapas

The Trespasser's best friend is his lover Lorna Childe, debutante and cultural anthropologist specializing in death. They're naturally attracted to each other as they both appreciate how the other sees death. The Trespasser has an involuntary relationship with death. His bloodlust drives him to take life. Lorna has a voluntary relationship with death. She studies it like a scientist studies any phenomena. She's a biologist and he's a unicorn.