The Lonely One types through the tears:
In the last ten years or so, I have actually had several guys ask me directly to be their friend. Hmmmm. To me friendship just becomes…one day you both notice you are friends, and it feels right. Maybe at some point, you make some sort of a commitment, perhaps engage in some sort of bonding event, and you realize you have become more than friends, have become in fact Best Friends. A group of these, hanging together, is a joyous thing. And it has been a very long time since I’ve experienced such a thing.No, it has been my experience that a friend is just some guy who will f— your wife/girlfriend/sister if he gets a snootful and half a chance. Some guy who will borrow your money and your stuff and then balk when the favor needs returning. Some guy who will listen to you drunkenly spill your innermost secrets, and then laugh about them and share them with people you do not like.
It’s not easy being green, Kermit. Friendship can be difficult for many men, though it’s not really that hard. It’s just about having someone you trust watching your back, and watching theirs in return. But to have a friend you must first be a friend.
It’s a two-way street. You have to accept the fact that sometimes you have to put them first, whether that involves not hitting on a smoking-hot girlfriend who’s good-to-go or listening to the world’s most boring soliloquy on the arcane minutae of import-export law for 45 minutes and occasionally asking questions instead of slitting your wrists. And in return, they won’t even think twice about rolling you out of the drunken innermost secrets that have risen from the pit of your stomach thanks to the evils of the shot glass*, lying to anyone that needs lying to, and wading in to beat down someone they don’t have anything against just because you can’t keep your stupid mouth shut.
They’ll never once tell you how much they care about you – something on the order of “you’re seriously a complete asshole, do you know that?” will instead be heard, and often – but you never doubt, question or even think about it. You know it because they show it.
I don’t need to hear my friends making declarations of undying affection. Sweet snow-capped mountains on high, I absolutely don’t WANT to hear anything even approaching that and would think less of them if they did.** And I could easily write an encyclopedic chronicle of their flaws, shortcomings and annoying idiosyncracies, seeing that they are respectively a prickly bastard, a latent freak and a mama’s boy. But if they say your ass needs kicking, my foot is already on its way. If they need something, the answer is when, not what. That’s just how it is.
I know some unfortunate men who are friendless, and it’s largely because they expect things to revolve around them. And sometimes things do, but you have to understand that unless you give something back to another person, there will soon be nothing left to take.
And besides, Bane forgets that he’s got the whole virtual gang, Nate, Gypsy, Zod et al. It’s like having real friends whose favorite sport is shooting the breeze and ragging on each other, with the added benefit that they won’t drink your beer.
*That they bought, the bastards. And landed you in jail. On your birthday.
**The correct response to any such mawkish womanly sentiment is, of course, a classic schoolyard standby expressing one’s opinion on the speaker’s unfortunate lack of heterosexual orientation.