That’s What Sub-Friends Are For
That’s What Sub-Friends Are For
I just finished watching the first two episodes of J.J.’s "What About Brian." It’s a cute show. A one-hour "Friends." Beautiful white people with attractive jobs living in gorgeous apartments and houses overlooking the cityscape. And, oh yeah, they have problems too. Especially with love and relationships. Aww.
Clicking off the TV, I got to thinking about friends — how many we have, which ones mean the most to us, where and how they entered our lives. I realized there exists an unspoken system under which our friends are classified (Don’t we just love labels?). Why unspoken, you ask? Maybe we don’t want to admit and acknowledge who is important to us and who is an afterthought. Maybe we don’t want others to get an idea of how we perceive them.
Maybe I am overanalyzing and killing time while I wait for lunchtime to arrive…
First, there are the Best Friends. They are the ones who know our secrets and desires and laugh at silly in-jokes due to the long history we share. A Best knows what we’re thinking and possesses the ability to finish our sentences. "Bitch" is a term of endearment among us. Bests will tell us when it’s time to donate that hideous shirt to Goodwill (you know the one - it’s either dated like a No Fear trucker cap or never ever going to be a part of your "skinny" ensemble). All in all, Bests are our family.
The second level is populated by the Good Friends. These are the ones we think we love just as much as the Best Friends, but we haven’t granted them access to all of the private things our Bests know. We thoroughly enjoy the company of the Goods. Movie nights. Getting sloshed at the bars. Sunday sex-talk brunches. It’s all…y’know, good.
Next on this potentially pretentious pyramid we may find the Simple Friends. These we see on ocassion. We kiss hello, catch up on lost time, and comment on how busy we are while time just flies by. Simples are convenient when Bests or Goods are unavailable. They’re backup. We don’t mind getting a small dose of them once in a while. They’re slightly more than just an "acquaintance" (a term I purposely avoid because it’s so…old-school, y’know?).
Finally there are Pretend Friends (or Sub-Friends). These individuals come into our lives maybe once or twice a year (you know, when we bump into them in the aisles of Whole Foods), and during that brief sighting, we promise to do coffee or the proverbial lunch soon, thinking to ourselves, "I am never going to hang out with this person." Pretends are usually a result of meeting friends of friends of friends. The degree of separation is a bit much, thus preventing us from forming a tight bond. Pretends tend to be good at bullshitting, but there’s no hateration among us because we hardly see each other. It’s all about being civil without bad blood involved.
So, as many of you can guess, all of you are my Sub-Friends…wink, wink.
Now, get the hell off my blog and go have a productive day.
H.P.M.
