How to be Beloved of Your Friends
Posted on September 16th, 2008 by admin
A mouseburger’s friends are, in some respects, like her lungs or liver—she can’t get through life without them. Friends are almost a bigger deal than lover or husband. Those you can get through life without, at least for long periods, but friends—they are a staple of every functioning mouseburger.
Once in a while you meet somebody who doesn’t have many, who tells you he/she doesn’t have the knack for making friends. That, to me, is like not having the knack for breathing. Friend-making works on principles as reliable as geometry—and a lot easier to get the hang of. You have things in common, then you are good to that other person and you’ve got a friend.
Attracting a lover is more difficult. You have to have the sexual lure for some other person, and romantic love produces all those emotional spills we’re always getting maimed from and picking ourselves up and starting over from, but friends—well, they are the best life has to offer. As we’ve said, friends can actually be more helpful than family members in life’s grisly moments. Partly it’s because they don’t belong to you, aren’t joined to you by blood or contract. When you fail, they don’t have to feel ashamed, because nobody connects them with you. Nobody says pityingly, “Oh, that’s Daphne’s friend—you know Daphne, the one who put the suede coat on her expense account and got fired.” No, you can sneak away from cheering up Daphne and nobody even knows you’ve seen each other—but a husband, a family member or even a lover is immediately brought down by your trouble. . . . People associate you with him. They don’t hold your troubles against him but there is that connection. Also, the loved one may be so affected by your pain he can’t give sound advice—all he can do is hurt.Enough cannot possibly be said about the wisdom and efficacy of friend-counsel when you’re coming apart. You can also come closer to telling your friends everything than you would a husband or lover. I mean, who else are you going to talk to about your husband or your lover? And aren’t men funny?! They lay on you a heavy load . . . husband depressed and howling in pain, lover married to another woman and he’s killing you, but no matter what they’re putting you through, they will say searchingly, “Hey, you don’t talk to Bonnie about me, do you?” Listen, do they prefer your talking to Bonnie (and getting defused) or getting themselves pushed off the roof?—a man has that choice. Whatever has fallen on you, friends make you feel whole again . . . not so stupid, not so klutzy . . . and not alone.