The friend of my friend is my...
Kris Miranda
Issue date: 2/18/09 Section: Opinions
Over the weekend, a friend of mine (hereafter L) had a guest of the Good Pal from Back Home variety. I was only in the company of said good pal (hereafter Friend One) for about half an hour, but I got a good vibe. Spunky but in an understated way, friendly without trying too hard, clever and quick-witted without being exhibitionist about it: sort of an Ellen-Page-as-Juno thing.
It brought to mind the last visitor I remember L having. That time, the friend in question didn't seem to hit it off with everyone quite as well. To be fair, as I said I didn't spend much time with Friend One, but my hunch is that I would've liked her better anyway. Not that the other girl (hereafter Friend Two) was a bitch or anything. Also, it was an exam period when Friend Two visited so no one was in a good mood anyway. Even so, I have to say I wasn't a particular fan.
Not that L is the only person who's had this happen. A guy friend (hereafter J) also had a Good Pal from Back Home visit, three years ago. I wasn't part of this experience, but for the next several months, everyone who was would periodically bring it up and whine about how much of an ass they thought J's friend was. It probably didn't help that he'd apparently warned them that they wouldn't like his friend, but still. If you're meeting a friend's friend, you give the guy the benefit of the doubt at the very least. If the others thought he was an ass, chances are he was, on some level.
So why is it that we can be friends with Person X and then not get along with Person X's other friends? Why shouldn't everyone whom Person X likes be compatible if Person X is compatible with all of them? Is there some weird inversion of "the enemy of my enemy…" at work here? (Probably not; I just really wanted to write that phrase.)
Well, we all have friends who are asses. (If you don't think you do, maybe you're the ass, but then again, I think a fair number of asses are pretty self-aware on this point.) And we're often not shy about saying this, whether to their faces or not. "Oh, Jack? Yeah, he's a dick. Gotta love him, though." We know it when our friends are "terrible people." So why are we OK with that? If we can answer that, maybe we can figure out why we don't like some of our friends' friends.
Maybe it's just a matter of familiarity. If you know an ass for long enough and he's never too much of an ass to you specifically, maybe the ass quality becomes endearing. You see it as a personal quirk, like talking to yourself, rather than a character flaw.
Or maybe it's a matter of compartmentalization. You have multiple sets of interests, and you have a group of friends who understands one set but not another, and another group of friends who understands the latter set but not the former, and ne'er the twain shall meet, for fear of some sort of matter-antimatter cataclysm.
Makes sense, I guess. Still, I kind of feel bad that Friend Two's visit didn't go as well as One's. Not that Friend Two cared. But maybe for L's sake I should've tried harder.
…Nah.
It brought to mind the last visitor I remember L having. That time, the friend in question didn't seem to hit it off with everyone quite as well. To be fair, as I said I didn't spend much time with Friend One, but my hunch is that I would've liked her better anyway. Not that the other girl (hereafter Friend Two) was a bitch or anything. Also, it was an exam period when Friend Two visited so no one was in a good mood anyway. Even so, I have to say I wasn't a particular fan.
Not that L is the only person who's had this happen. A guy friend (hereafter J) also had a Good Pal from Back Home visit, three years ago. I wasn't part of this experience, but for the next several months, everyone who was would periodically bring it up and whine about how much of an ass they thought J's friend was. It probably didn't help that he'd apparently warned them that they wouldn't like his friend, but still. If you're meeting a friend's friend, you give the guy the benefit of the doubt at the very least. If the others thought he was an ass, chances are he was, on some level.
So why is it that we can be friends with Person X and then not get along with Person X's other friends? Why shouldn't everyone whom Person X likes be compatible if Person X is compatible with all of them? Is there some weird inversion of "the enemy of my enemy…" at work here? (Probably not; I just really wanted to write that phrase.)
Well, we all have friends who are asses. (If you don't think you do, maybe you're the ass, but then again, I think a fair number of asses are pretty self-aware on this point.) And we're often not shy about saying this, whether to their faces or not. "Oh, Jack? Yeah, he's a dick. Gotta love him, though." We know it when our friends are "terrible people." So why are we OK with that? If we can answer that, maybe we can figure out why we don't like some of our friends' friends.
Maybe it's just a matter of familiarity. If you know an ass for long enough and he's never too much of an ass to you specifically, maybe the ass quality becomes endearing. You see it as a personal quirk, like talking to yourself, rather than a character flaw.
Or maybe it's a matter of compartmentalization. You have multiple sets of interests, and you have a group of friends who understands one set but not another, and another group of friends who understands the latter set but not the former, and ne'er the twain shall meet, for fear of some sort of matter-antimatter cataclysm.
Makes sense, I guess. Still, I kind of feel bad that Friend Two's visit didn't go as well as One's. Not that Friend Two cared. But maybe for L's sake I should've tried harder.
…Nah.
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