On my very first date with my boyfriend, I didn’t know if he was going to kiss me. I didn’t know yet that he loves Concord grapes, plays the saxophone and has never seen a Woody Allen movie. But I did know for certain that I wanted this person with whom I’d just eaten dinner to be in my life, somehow. I remember sitting across from him at a table in a Portuguese restaurant, smiling, and thinking, “Whatever happens after this date, I really hope we become friends. You’re cool.”

Flash forward six intense, crazy-in-love months and this man is not only boyfriend—he is my closest friend now, too, the one who knows everything about what goes on with my family, what goes on at work, what weird dreams woke me up in the middle of the night.

And I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.

On Wednesday, Ashton Kutcher announced that his best friend isn’t Demi Moore—it’s Kabbalah leader, Rabbi Yehuda Berg. “My best friend? Yehuda Berg, To me, he’s not a rabbi. He’s my friend,” said Ashton. “If you truly want to change the world, you have to start by changing yourself. [Berg] taught me that and it’s been the most important lesson of my life.” [People]

Are we being “Punk’d”? As random as that might be, many celebrities are capable of maintaining friendships with normal people, even if those people get increasingly famous by association.

I have been truly lucky in my life in terms of the quality of female friendships I have experienced. As much as I love being in a romantic relationship with a man, the love in a girl friendship is somehow much sweeter. I tenderly look back at the hours on the phone every night giggling and gossiping over a shared secret. I remember long summer evenings at summer camp on the screened-in porch playing jacks. I can’t look at a piece of chocolate and not think back to the nights of gorging on Reese’s Pieces and watching all six hours of the BBC’s “Pride and Prejudice”... on VHS. Due to many circumstances, best girl friends have wandered in and out of my life for years. I moved, they moved, the event which brought us together ended—there are a myriad of reasons why a girl friendship can die a natural death. It is always a sad event, but when distance or time is the major culprit, these girl friendships often dissolve as innocently and seamlessly as they began.

I love my best friend, I love my boyfriend. These two people who hold such special places in my heart should love each other like I love them. In theory, if I have enough in common with both of them to have such a strong bond with each, shouldn’t the two of them also have the potential to form a real relationship with each other?  It should be an all out love fest whenever the three of us get together…except it’s not. ‘Tis sad but true, my best friend and boyfriend do not quite get along. If I am honest with myself, I could have easily foreseen this. All they have in common with each other is me.

“Thank God you’re not with him anymore.” My friend rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how you dated him.”

Whoa. What? My friend’s distaste for my now ex-boyfriend was news to me. How my family and friends feel about the person I’m dating is almost as important as how I feel about him. So if my ex had been so unpopular with my inner circle, why hadn’t someone said something before?

Whether or not to clue a friend or family member into the fact that her significant other is lazy, noncommittal, mean, a couple sandwiches short of a picnic, or dealing something shady out of his basement can be a delicate situation, but it doesn’t have to end your relationship.

Get your Kleenex ready girls, we’ve got a heartbreaker here. Oscar, a dog, and Arthur, a cat, were totally BFF’s—they were inseparable, even cuddling together every night as they slept. Then Arthur died at the ripe old age of 17. His best friend buried in the backyard, Oscar was inconsolable. So heartbroken was he, that one night he went into the backyard, pulled up Arthur’s remains from his little grave and carried the kitty to his bed and cleaned him up, laying down next to him as he had so many times before. Now that Arthur has been reburied, Oscar’s owners have taken steps to mend his wounded heart—getting him another kitten playmate named Limpet to keep him company. Sniff. Even though there was no way that Oscar and Arthur could ever reproduce, we’re pretty sure that this is the most romantic story we have ever heard. These two beasts were in love in that special way that only interspecies gay lovers can be and that we celebrate. [Metro.co.uk]