The difference for me is that even though Sam is isolated and probably feels it a lot of the time, he has always made outside connections. Even as a child, per After School Special. He probably wants someone now, too, but it's also not the best time to be making new acquaintances on the outside, you know? But for me, he *knows* he has that capability, whereas I don't think Dean did.

And with Dean and Cas, I was mostly going off the fact that Dean actually told Zachariah that Castiel was his friend. Even if they're not poker buddies at the moment, there was a time when Dean realized that Cas meant something to him no one had before. I just find it noteworthy for him, and ridiculously touching.

Well, Dean doesn't run around having more profound bonds with everyone. He's not an emotional slut.

Oh, I loved that scene so much. Every last word.

End to end, it was a thing of beauty.

he has always made outside connections. Even as a child, per After School Special.

I thought that particular school was an aberration precisely because Sam made a friend there and because a teacher took an interest in him while he was there. It showed that it was not a usual occurrence for him.

Sam's good at talking to victims and putting on a veneer of charm and getting along with people. But other than Rebecca way back in "Skin" how sad is it that the closest thing to a friend I can remember Sam having developed over the course of the series is Ruby, who turned out to be demonic bitch that needed to be stabbed to death with the phallic knife of doom? Sarah from "Provenance" had so much potential, but they never brought her back for more than the one episode.

But that's more than they've shown Dean being able or willing to manage. He has no Rebeccas, people he lost touch with, no Ruby that stalked him for two years and lived right up there with him every day, nor a Sarah that they might swing round to--not until it was revealed he had a holy grail of a pre-packaged family. Where he made a friend. And look how that turned out. Castiel was the first shot at connection past/without sex.

Well. There was Cassie and the homicidal racist ghostly truck. (That obviously wasn't a past without sex, but then Ruby wasn't a past without sex either.)

And she dumped him twice. Double your pain, double your money.

And aren't we all secretly glad that she did? God, they should have cast her better.

She was on 1100 and she couldn't act then either.