Adapted from "The Flatulent Mind"

your friend

don't give me quotable quotes on friendship, well at least cicero once said that "a friend is a second self."

what is a friend?

we value friendship even if they casually impede, intersperse or plain intrude in our own private lives. we allow this, the friendly interloper. what do friends do aside from suitably forgetting to return dvd's, tools and books? what do friends do aside from laugh at our peculiarities and revel privately at our bulging waistlines and receding hairlines? what do friends do aside from putting us down only to be put up again?

for one, they are not pets, other forms of the animal kingdom that would stick to you for as long as it breathes. pets who won't scorn or scold you, pets who take you as you are without prejudice, malice or that pride pumping resentment. pets who won't laugh at your torn socks, jamaican-colour emblazoned knickers, your wind-blown front-side-back toupée and dorky mid-life crisis reading materials. friends on the other hand could drop you like a hot tamale when something interests them and it's not you.

friends keep you from being that sorrow-joe holding that lonely cinema-ticket while queuing for a mush-central film. they keep you from being that spinster-like lady supping on pasta in a corner table in a noisy restaurant filled with snogging couples. they keep you from being that sorry looking figure that haunts the parks, the stores and the streets in painful undeserved solace.

so what are friends good for? well, you won't engage in half-imagined rumours from strangers while seated alone in a bus if you have friends with you, glossing your otherwise mundane ride with a few minutes of bliss. let's not go into that crying and need a shoulder thing just yet, you can do that to an alien too. consider the fleeting feeling of fear of solitude that you know wouldn't be that fleeting -- at all. ahhh. the single-person longevity factor. be it the obviously single, the recent divorcee, the separated spouse or the contrived loner. we long for friends, who'll stay and be there without being too hallmarky. there is no relief from introspection, having to think of past failed romances that took a nosedive in a year or two or even less, the thought of the almost non-existence of the 'friendship' that followed, the nagging sinking feeling of how long can we grip at the few years of friendship. the prolonged examination of one's life can be a deadly pursuit for the chronically alone.

you look at the young and they are still bursting with what life has to offer. you see the old and they seem to have smiles and just glad that they are living. then, you look at yourself at the doorstep of the middle life -- damn, you are so compartmentalized. you have so many tiny little subcultures so diverse that it hinders pristine friendships. i mean can a wallowing alternative-music listening back-office working you be interested with a party-loving hip-hop listening investment broker? that person may just be the sensitive type for you but the image of that person you want barely fits mr or ms. hiphop. you may want and be so blindly attracted to a street-smart alternative lifestyle-livin ultra-hip barely-employed artist. that person may not have the sensitivity you want but hey, it fits the image of mr. or ms. cool. you now think you have so many choices but in your innermost fears, you are almost running on empty.

women and women friendships seem to be a form of an ideal friendship. under most favourable situations, women use their female friends as therapeutic sounding boards for her relationship concerns. is he mr. right? he does have a weird scent in the morning. he's not at all sensitive. then the question of commitment arises and the finality of dumping him resonates from the decisions gleaned from those joyous girlie-chats. beware the single-woman whose friends bare their fangs at you with like a wolf pack to a cornered lamb. but then again, if the decision was entirely yours without the consensus of the female horde, consider yourself mature and most-likely keeps to yourself and bravo -- you just 'upped the stakes' in being a lonesome soul for the rest of your life. well, not too late, you can still be annoyingly cheery.

men on the other hand are not as intense. they could wind down the day in a watering hole and with a cold one to loosen the tensions of the daily joe-jobs. intimate discussions? forget it. need to cry? forget it. spousal aspirations? forget it, ooppss not quite. there's the talk of equipment package required. a talk about a nice pair jahoobies and the correct butt for a future wife would make the male's day. men tread on dangerous waters when it comes to men-on-men friendships. be careful to talk about the arts, fashion or the articulate and the sensitive. gossip may start to move around that you and your best friend are taking holidays together. unthinkable for most men but what the females of the specie enjoy annually. to be on the safe side, two alpha males have a need of a third moron.

to find that elusive balance between man and woman friendships that can be deeply satisfying and most likely the model for a platonic relationship, there is that thing called chemistry. did it just make you shudder? it's an overused pseudo-intellectual-romantic word for those who lack an articulated verbal brain -- just like i do. we can't have too much or too less of that. we can't have friends that erupts like vesuvius every time they are in the same room as you and we can't have friends that are so invisible it even annoys you to try and search for them in the same room. equilibrium is the word. that freaky word that eluded me a few minutes ago.

i still haven't answered my main question. fark. what's supposed to be a lunchtime musing has turned into something monstrous. so if a friend is one's second self, one must accept the fact that this second self may not always go the way you want. it's like a scruple on principles, on likes and dislikes, of silence and noise, of bickering... of things that test the extremities of your sanity at such close range. without these sporadic conflicts, there's hardly any friendship at all.

there, now what do we do with the ersatz friends? the quasi-friend. ahhh. they are the public version of pret a porter's. the ready-to-wear of the social world. these are individuals who can be summoned over to provide a semblance of friendship without the wear and tear. they relieve the monotony but sometimes can be irritating as a wicked skin rash. they supply us with connections, idle gossip, shopping tips, forwarded email jokes, sport events and practised canned smiles. they can be a group of individuals too, like transient comradeship or work peers with jokes told again and again. but most of us don't really mind this at all, there's no real loss when they go away. you can always find another or they will find you.

okay, here we arrive at online friendships. what the hell are they? can we generate an unwavering bond with people whose flesh you haven't even seen? you can't have a pint or two with them. you can't ride in the backseat with them while you moon pedestrians. you can't even see them smile, wink or laugh out loud even when they are typing =) or ;) or "lol". they may lack the physical but sure you can feel warmth. searching for platonic? there you go, you have them online. the best virtual companionship. these are an exultant convergence of thoughts and spirits, naked from the delineating confines of colour, race, accents and odour. they laugh with you, sympathise with you, appreciate you and disagree with you... they tolerate you as you are... even if you are useless to them... that is a definition of friendship.

again, i am not a nice person. again, i see nothing special about me. again, i revel in my third-rate ordinariness. but people confide in me, people talk to me, people brown their noses on me, people clash with me and people treat me as a friend. i thank them for that.

i don't expect anything from friends but i know i take them as they are.

i suppose i was born a cynic and i still am.

but milder, calmer and softer.