There was some survey or other that came out today, that said British people are such hermit Billy no-friends, that we have fewer friends than any other country in the world. Or possibly Europe or something. Anyway, we were the worst. Excluding cheesy husband/wife/partner answers and of course Jesus, how many genuine friends do you have?
Of course, by definition you can only have one ‘best friend’; ‘best’ being a superlative adjective. In theory you can have an unlimited number of ‘good’ friends, but perhaps more interesting would be how many ‘better’ friends you have than the next man.
Couldn’t there a dead heat for first? I suspect irrational millennial exuberance has led to this bending of linguistic exactitude.