Your Response When Our Designated Bestfriend This Time Is Human

Garrus is not my Shep best friend. Is her man. And kaidan is the ex. Frankly, her best friends were Wrex and Jack, with Grunt as an adopted nephew. Liare was quite annoyng after a time, with her insistence.

Going with Garrus to shoot bottles is also optional... just ignore him and don't initiate the conversation with him when he's standing waiting for you in the Normandy docks.  You can also completely bypass talking with any of your squad mates on earth.  If you just don't start a conversation with Liara, there is no way for her to even offer her "goodbye gift" to you.

You can indeed not recruit Garrus in ME1.  In ME2, you do have to do his recruitment mission (as you do with anyone in that first list of dossiers - Jack, Mordin, and Grunt (although you can leave Grunt in his/her tank)... but after that point, you can just ignore him completely for the rest of the game.  Similar situation in ME3... you do have to do the Menae mission and you will wind up with Garrus if he survived the SM in ME2, but you can certainly ignore him after that point.

Even though Garrus can be ignored after Menae, he does get a cutscene after Shepard deals with the genophage

True... I don't think it's enough though to say that he's being forced onto the player as a BF.  I've never tried it, but can't you skip that one as well by simply not going forward to speak with Joker at all.

I'm just saying he has that cutscene no matter what, if he's alive in ME3. The scene cannot be skipped. The talk with Joker happens after the second dream and Shepard has talked with the salarian councilor.

I think you might have taken my comment to be serious? 'Twas but a silly joke. I understood what you were getting at.

I doubt they'll ever go back to the Baldur's Gate style of companions, though. Just doesn't seem their style anymore. Although there are certain companions in each BioWare game that you can refuse to recruit, so they still have a version of giving them "a wide berth in the woods" in some instances.

Exactly; Liara was my Shepard's best friend. He never felt any deep connection to Garrus who sort of seemed like a sycophant who just followed Shepard around. For whatever reason, I never warmed to the character, either. 

If Shepard hadn't romanced Kaidan, he probably would have evolved more into a rival colleague than anything. The two are always in disagreement, though they do care for and respect one another. Even before the romance is initiated, Shepard is driven to grief and distraction when Kaidan is injured on Mars (although some of that may have to do with having seen Earth being destroyed...).

I think the Shepard/Kaidan relationship is an interesting one, not friend, not rival, something in between. I love it.

(Can't speak for Ash since I always save Kaidan. Kind of a shame we have to make that choice. I don't think it added anything to the narrative, at least not the way they wanted it to.)

Liara was designed as the main love interest and Garrus as your bro, yes. I happen to love them both, so I happily let Bioware push them on me.
In fact, I should have romanced Liara right away. But, well, I didn't realize how superior a being Liara was until ME3 where I wished I could have ditched Kaidan's depressed ass. Liara stole my heart in ME3 with the time capsule and everything. And Garrus had me with that voice and sense of humor from the get-go. (I'm very fond of the entire ME1 squad actually, but Liara and Garrus are top of my list. Together with Tali.)

As happy as I was with the choices Bioware made for me, I agree that pushing characters on the player should perhaps be avoided in the future. I didn't feel like DAI had a designated best buddy. Which made it all the more sweet when Dorian told my Lavellan she was his best friend. I almost cried. It was so touching. And it felt natural. Bonding through jokes and mock flirtation. It was awesome!
Then again, the shooting contest with Garrus is my second favorite scene in ME3. I embrace all the friendships. Bioware is so good at this.

I still support story romances. I know there is a lot of Liara resentment these days (somehow), but her character arc together with the romance was just superior storytelling imo. And I'm a straight woman. God knows I hated to admit that my beloved Kaidan romance paled in comparison. Liara brings Shepard back from the dead. You can't top that.
Liara and Alistair are the best Bioware romances to me. And there is a great tragic element in the Solas romance (even though I didn't enjoy that one at all until the break-up scene).

I'm all for choice, but personally I find the romances that are connected to the plot most enjoyable from a narrative perspective. And that's why I do NOT want to see them gone. Even if that feels like pushing something on the player. If it makes for a great story, I'll happily play what Bioware envisioned. I'm playing characters, not myself.
Or that's what I should be doing. Pick the love interest who seems the sweetest and/or connected to the plot. It's when I want to romance a character based on actual sex appeal to me as a player, it often ends in frustration. (Looking at you, Fenris! *shudders*)
And anyway, never play a straight female character in Bioware games, it's bound to suck big time due to overblown drama! ;D (Except for you, sweet Alistair.) Seriously, I should play a male Ryder (oh, Dorian, if only you could have loved my inquisitor back!) or a lesbian Ryder. That's what Bioware games have taught me. *g*

(I'm half-joking, people. Don't bite my head off! I still love ME1 Kaidan and can never leave him on Virmire, poor Ashley...)

Maybe I just got "lucky" the writers pets work on me. I love Liara exactly because she's so sweet and perfect. Best friend/lover you can wish for. Garrus is a bit more flawed but like Liara he's ridiculously loyal and supportive and sweet. That's why they deserve the best buddy badge imo.
I know some people find such characters annoying. Each to their own. I LOVE Jack, too, ok?!
Tbh, pretty much the entire Mass Effect crew is loyal as can be when you play right. So maybe that's why I like them more than the DA companions. Some of them I adore too but this amazing sense of family I got out of the trilogy is special. I'm pretty sure that's because I got to know these characters over 2-3 games. And they fought at Shepard's side for years. Of course they grew tight. Every Dragon Age games means building up trust again. And unlike in ME, you can REALLY piss them off. So they aren't your buddies no matter what you do. Which is actually a "flaw" of the trilogy. Some of these characters should not be ok with a full-blown renegade/paragon. However, this flaw allowed for a truly inspiring touching hero story. In which ALL of these characters are amazing. Shepard shaped them into the best person they could be.

I'll happily sacrifice player freedom for another such experience.

I am polyfriendly or whatever.
All friends for me.
ALL OF THEM!!!

I've got no problem with critical companions who will hang around no matter what--it's squad-based gameplay; having a squad is kind of a crucial element--but I don't want or need Bioware telling me how to feel about them, and definitely not insinuating a relationship that I did not choose. Liara wasn't my Shepard's BFF, she was her fucking stalker. That was one thing I liked about the Friendship/Rivalry system in DA2; I enjoyed that I could have a bitchy, antagonistic relationship with companions I didn't much care for.

Garrus wasn't any "bro" or "bff" of any of my Sheps. My FemShep's BFF was Ashley and Dude's was Wrex. But I was still annoyed how Garrus was forced on us as ultimate bro-friend and Liara as LI. Honestly, I hope something like that won't happen in Andromeda, and if so, we should decide about something like this.

Totally agreed. Especially about hawke v alistair being extremely cruel. I always liked a lot leaving Alistair with the wardens, because I don't like hardening him and don't want to force him into being king... And then that   So, now I metagame that he might like being king after all, I think it beats dying in the fade when he's the only warden that was actually trying to stop all that 

edit: you can save mordin if you didn't save maelon's data, and if you don't reveal the sabotage and something else I don't remember. You will have to kill Wrex though. I, who absolutely love Mordin and sometimes feel like he needs to survive, sometimes metagame too that Wrex didn't really want to join me back in ME1 Everything feels right to me if tt's Wreav who is in charge