Friends

This will be my last blog of the day; I’ve done so much typing today my fingertips hurt.  Anyway, here goes…

I’ve heard a lot of great quotes in my life to date but there are two that I found are really profound.  Here’s the first:

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”  Bill Cosby (1937 – )

As great of a comedian Dr. Cosby is – and despite some of the controversial stuff he says, this quote really struck home for me.  But, here’s the one that, when I read it, it brought tears to my eyes:

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” – Stephen Grellet (1773-1855)

Believe it or not, I didn’t read this in any great work of literature – it was on a poster I found in a store in California…  There’s a old-school hip-hop group, Whodini, that came out with a song in the 80’s (if I remember) called “Friends.”  Good song – and I don’t care much for hip-hop.

All of these things serve to remind me that there’s no such thing as having too many friends and the best friend you could have is the one you never have to apologize to or really explain yourself to… but they’ll also put your in your place when it needs doing because they give a fuck about you.  There are acquaintances and associates, the people we deal with on a daily basis… but friends are very different.  And, contrary to popular belief, you can fuck them and not ruin the friendship… and sometimes they’ll fuck you better than the person you’re married to and without all the criticism and demands for perfection.

Most of all, a real friend will stick by your side through thick and thin without worrying about their own ass.  Yeah, sometimes they’ll have to walk away… but they never really leave you by yourself.  They might not be able to give you the shirt off their back… but they know where and how to get you that shirt if you need it.  It’s good to have friends and if you have one or more, cherish them; if you don’t have any, you have no idea what you’re missing.  If you are a friend to someone, you will defend them as if they were your spouse/partner; you worry about upsetting them more than the person you’re with at times.  Your partner might leave you – but a true friend never will, no matter what.

Lifestylers tend to avoid real friendships like the plague.  There’s the people they’ll fuck… and then there’s everyone else.  All they care about is the sex and as long as you’re willing to provide it to them, well, you’re okay… but the only time they’ll think about you is when they need another piece of ass.  But, thankfully, that’s not everyone in the lifestyle; some people are actually in the life to make new friends, you know, those folks that even if they never get to sleep with them, it’s still all good.

God, I don’t know why I’m so melancholy; maybe it’s because I’ve been up since 5:30 this morning and was out walking in the heat and humidity – the car’s broken for the next few days – and I don’t walk very well these days.  I was washing dishes and thinking about my blogging buddy on the site… and thinking about them, wow, suddenly I felt the need to blog about the necessity of friends in the lifestyle.  In my head, I was hearing a song from the “Waiting to Exhale” soundtrack – “Call on Me.”  I love that song and it can and will bring tears to my eyes, not only with the music, the beautiful harmonies, but the words themselves.  It’s about sisterhood and sticking together but you can easily mix the genders with this song.