Book of Friends

I have friends. All kinds of friends. Don’t listen to that stupid-faced kid on the bus. He’s just starting nasty rumors because his parents are getting a divorce.

Maybe consider becoming his friend. He really needs one. I can’t do it because he keeps telling everyone he hates me. Not sure why... I was only tying to help when I encouraged him to forget about his parents getting a divorce.

This little fictional scenario was brought to you by the sketch comedy podcast I’m developing. My comedy friends and I are currently working on an episode that explore friendship mistakes, which is forcing me to take a deep dive into my history with friendships.

I learned about the concept of friends when my parents first presented me with my “baby book”. The publisher of the baby book created all kinds of sections to track memories, including first teeth, first walk, first fist fight, first friend, and first wrong choice deserving of mommy’s guilt-trip. You know, all the stuff you will want to remember for various reasons, such as reminiscing, and of course, as a reference during therapy.

My first friend, named Paul Flood according to the Baby Book, (keeper of my historical records), lived on our block. Living within walking distance seemed the most important factor when choosing a candidate for friendship. So, I went to his house to play.

We didn’t know what to do, so he offered to play a game of 52-pickup. I had never played such a curiously-named game, so I enthusiastically signed up for a round of 52-pickup. In the very next moment, when he threw a deck of cards in the air and commanded me to “pick it up,” I had some immediate questions about friendship.

I suspect that growing up as the youngest in a family of 10 kids may have contributed to his behavior and sense of what we should consider appropriate. Regardless, we didn’t make any further play dates as far as I can remember. Since we went to school together, we continued to cross paths, but not as close friends, although he did eventually teach me the very graphic meaning of certain curse word, popular with 6th-8th graders, which shocks me much more in retrospect than it did at the time.

I soon wised up and made friends with the kids who lived even closer walking distance - across the street and across the alley. These two families became an intricate part of my childhood, involving field trips to the museums, pool parties, night basketball, vacations from Wisconsin down to Florida, and long obsessive talks on the porch about The Twilight Zone. Most of these childhood memories didn’t make it into the baby book, and somehow still managed to stay with me decades later.

While proximity continued to play a significant role in who became friends, it took me a long time to figure out how to “play nice.” Despite my many regretful choices and obnoxious behavior, I managed to hold onto some fabulous friends over the years.

For example, I once got so excited to tell the perfect joke, that I ran over to a friend in the middle of a performance, tripping and jamming his mouthpiece into his mouth, because he happened to be playing at the time, and it really was not at all the right time or place for joking. I don’t even remember the joke. Maybe I would have remembered if I recorded it on the friendship mistakes page of my baby book.

Another time, I freaked out because I found out my roommate decided to drop out of college, and I couldn’t imagine continuing school without such a close friend. I exploded into a complete melt-down like a two-year old in a twenty-year-old body. Oddly, not captured in the baby book.

When social media busted onto the friend scene, I fell back into the comfort of recording my friendships in the adult version of the baby book. The face book.

Without leaving the house, I could watch my friendships from a safe distance without the fear of making any mistakes. I became obsessed with writing little fun thoughts to release into the ether. Yes, like my parents, I had plenty of random thoughts to share. But, we all soon discovered the comfort and simplicity of posting flippant memes or making half-assed comments about the sunset, going through the motions of friendship while we simply disconnected.

One massive friendship mistake.

So, I look forward to getting back to more traditional connections with friends, not just emojis passing in the night. Join me as we walk off into the half-assed sunset meme together, and I’ll add you to my baby book.