COMMITMENTS : Love Across the Miles : No Hang Ups About a Friendship Held Together by Telephone

I’m standing up for my best friend when she marries this November. She calls me her “witness” because, after three reluctant taffeta trips down the aisle, I have vowed never again to be known as a “bridesmaid.”

When she tells other friends I’m in her wedding party, their eyebrows probably go up, because each has spent more time in person with her than I have.

Six of the seven years we have been friends have been spent long distance, our cheeks indented with the phone keys we have pressed against them in marathon conversations.

Although my friend and I met in college and bonded to a certain extent, the real closeness came after graduation, after I moved away. As we both struggled into young adulthood, the phone became our crisis hot line manned voluntarily by and for each other. We prefer this type of counseling, although we could have paid for professional therapy with the money we spent on phone bills.

My friend--I’ll call her Beth (not only for anonymity, but because she’s always wanted that name)--has lived in Kansas, Montana and now Texas since I’ve lived in Southern California.

It’s a rare friendship that survives such a separation. I’ve tried to keep other friendships and romances alive via AT&T;, but they usually wither over time. Most relationships require proximity and the mall, movies, eating out and concerts.

All Beth and I have had is talk, and we’ve done plenty of it. I’ve noted some $10 to $20 conversations on my phone bills. We have opened each other’s Christmas and birthday presents over the phone. We have analyzed romance and criticized our jobs. But I think quality phone time is the key to the success of this long-distance friendship. I hesitate to call other friends in other states because we have to play catch-up on life.

I have told Beth that she is about the only person I know with whom I can talk completely and comfortably. This admission may be a mistake. Beth knows everything about me and has threatened to reveal all to the tabloids if I ever become famous.

One of the beauties of our friendship is that we have nothing on which to base our opinions of each other’s lives except what we convey. “I can’t stand her,” she’ll say about some enemy of mine she’s never met. “Do we love him or hate him?” she has asked about my volatile emotions toward some man.

Through our discussions, we became aware of the parallels of our childhoods. It was in one late-night conversation that we learned we both came from families with alcohol problems. It’s been solid ground to stand on, to talk freely about such experiences and know we are not alone. We’ve also been fortunate to share talks about relatives coming to terms with their problems and recovering from addictions.

Beth has been a patient ear, during both my obsessive ramblings and the dead silences of my depressions. She has always tried to help me overcome whatever trial I was dealing with.

Beth called me when she was found to have multiple sclerosis. It was hard for both of us to understand. But Beth is doing well, physically and emotionally. She’s the kind of person who doesn’t dwell on negatives and has a far greater spirit than I.

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We’ve had a lot of lighter moments too. Just the other day, Beth laughed so hard she cried as I recalled playground accidents of my childhood, like being dragged by a whirling merry-go-round and injuring my groin by slipping on the monkey-bars ladder. We wondered together: Why were little girls always dressed impractically for play in those too-short dresses, knee-high socks and slick dress shoes?

We’ve laughed in person, too, managing to meet over the years. Beth visited me in Venice. She was in the rental car screaming along with me as I took my first stab at freeway driving. I went to her place in Montana, christening her new apartment’s bathroom by throwing up in it after we overdosed on cheap wine. The next day, we toured Yellowstone and watched hundreds of people watching (and torturing) nature. One spring, we met up north when she was there on business and decided to plan out the rest of our lives in her hotel room. As I was formulating my destiny, I looked over to find her snoring in bed.

And of course, there have been the regular trips home, where we drive across the Plains, playing connect-the-dots from one greasy spoon to another, talking much as we do over the phone, memorizing each other’s expressions and gestures for visuals in later phone chats.

I have given Beth a hesitant thumbs up on her upcoming marriage. She has made her husband-to-be aware that our phone calls will be a part of their lifestyle. I do approve of her man, but I hope the marriage does not squelch our chats, although they will probably diminish to a certain extent.

I know a Mrs. Beth will have a lot more going on in her life. But for friendship’s sake, I hope it doesn’t mean a busy signal.