Your Thoughts Requested

[deelaundry]

House and Wilson are best friends. Canon fact.

[Poll #1322748]

Comments

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

Additional addition to my poll comment: can one have two best friends? I think Wilson and Cuddy are good friends and genuinely like and respect each other, but if House is Wilson's best friend (which he is) I think Cuddy would just be a good friend.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I left the definition of "best friends" open because I wanted to hear what y'all had to say. It's been enlightening!

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

I have two best friends, but I don't think Wilson and Cuddy are best friends.

[spoopy.livejournal.com]

I think Wilson is the best friend Cuddy has, but he's not her best friend. If that makes sense.

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me, though I might think of Wilson as Cuddy's closest confidant rather than "best friend."

[spoopy.livejournal.com]

I think he's also the best friend she has, too, which is sad. We don't really get much of a glimpse into her life outside of work, but I get the impression she doesn't really have much of a life outside of work, ergo not many close friends, if any.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Your reply makes a lot of sense. I hope that Cuddy has a nice circle of girlfriends outside work who she only gets to see in person infrequently, but who share a lot of emails and have an internet board together. : ) That's not supported by canon at all, though D:

Do you think she's a good friend to Wilson?

[spoopy.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's ever stopped and really thought about it properly. Which is therefore why she can seem to brush his friendship off at times.

Wilson and Cuddy is an interesting dynamic because they're close friends without being close. It's weird.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Somebody said once their relationship is like divorced parents trying to co-parent their kid (House). I don't know. Maybe along those same lines, Cuddy is birth mom who gave kid up and Wilson is adoptive dad, and now they're trying to co-parent?

[spoopy.livejournal.com]

That's one way to look at it, I guess. For sure, they wouldn't bother with each other if they didn't have the common factor of House to unite them. If House wasn't a mutual tie, Wilson would likely be just another doctor on Cuddy's staff that she sees around at meetings and nothing more.

[spoopy.livejournal.com]

Also, she knows Wilson will always put House's benefit over hers in the end, no matter what the situation. So, I think she always approaches Wilson with a level of self-preservation intact because of that, which can also make her seem like she's brushing him off at times.

Which is, again, the reason why I find it sad that he's the closest friend she has. She's a very lonely woman.

[bammel.livejournal.com]

I suspect House would have a problem with anyone encroaching on his ~BFF space~ in Wilson's life, ahahah.

Cuddy is still alive!

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Trufax.

[m-supercomputer.livejournal.com]

I think they are friends, in a way, but mostly their relationship is about both of them having a connection to House, which will almost always overrule their own relationship. My impression is that Cuddy confides a great deal in Wilson and that he's supportive of her, but to be honest I don't get much of a sense that either of those things are reciprocated. I'd *like* them to be better friends than I think they are, because god knows they both could use it, but I just don't see that in canon right now.

Really, IMO, if you look at who Wilson confides in other than House himself, there's a stronger case to be made for Wilson and Cameron's friendship.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about Lucas' report to House on who had gone by to see Wilson after Wilson left PPTH -- Didn't Lucas say Cameron had gone by more than Cuddy?

I really like getting others' analyses of canon to see where it matches up (and doesn't) with my impressions... and your analyses in particular are always very level-headed. Thank you.

[ixquic.livejournal.com]

Of all the things we lost in the aftermath of the Triter debacle, the tentative and yet revealing relationship between Wilson and Cameron was probably the one I mourned most.

It has taken a lot of time for me to get over Cameron's attitude towards Wilson during that arc. But their conversation in "Dying Changes Everything" was a nice reminder of what could be.

[m-supercomputer.livejournal.com]

He did - if I recall it was something like Cuddy came over a few times, while Cam came over regularly to discuss their dead loved ones. ...which sounds like a fairly horrible way to spend an afternoon to me, fresh grief or no, but I guess they're both just weird that way. *g*

Also, aw, thank you. *blushes*

[hry2007.livejournal.com]

Wilson's behavior toward Cuddy has more to do with chivalry, and "doing the right thing", than friendship per se. He cares about her, but he cares about every woman in his path. He's just gotten to know her better because of work and House.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

That is a very good point. Best friends need a special relationship, don't they?

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to how this question even arose.

As to whether it's possible to have more than one best friend, I would say yes, it absolutely is, because I have two or three and which one is closest depends upon when you ask.

Obviously this isn't the case for House or for Wilson, though.

I think Wilson and Cuddy got closer in the last couple years, but they don't have the easy familiarity with each other that House and Wilson have.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Your analysis makes sense to me! Emailed you.

[jdr1184.livejournal.com]

Before recent seasons, I wouldn’t have even called them friends, more like work buddies that confide occasionally. I was really disappointed with how little support Cuddy gave Wilson during the Tritter horror. I know everything is about House, but how about offering him a ride to work or get him a car rental. Wilson had NO ONE during that time. What changed it for me was when they each let the other comfort each other. Wilson talking with Cuddy after House’s horrible ‘bad mother’ line and Cuddy hugging Wilson when Amber was dying. Actually, I think Cuddy not pushing Wilson to stay was also her being a friend, giving him the chance to walk away even if it might hurt her hospital. Mostly, I think they could be really close friends if House would let them. But that’s not going to happen. He's too selfish and they love him too much. :)

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Good point about House getting in between them. He certainly showed his tendency when Wilson took Cuddy out to the play and the art exhibit.

(And, honestly, after the conspiring they did to make House "humble," if I was House I wouldn't even want them talking to each other, much less getting close. But TPTB hit the reset button on that, the way they seem to do on every major arc.)

[hibernia1.livejournal.com]

It's so interesting reading everyone's take on this! Wow.

I LOVE the way House (the show, not the person) gets people thinking about stuff! ♥!

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

That's why I phrased this as a question, to see what people would say. I'm so pleased. : )

[peapods42.livejournal.com]

Further comment: Were House taken out of the equation then I think they would naturally cling to each other, but I don't think Wilson would ever be the same if he did.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I want to believe Wilson would never be the same after House's death... and then I read thedeadparrot's The One Where House Is a Zombie (http://thedeadparrot.com/fiction/story/house/the-one-where-house-is-a-zombie), where Wilson is not traumatized by House's death, and got massively, massively depressed by not finding Wilson out-of-character. D: