TIJF Goes Interactive!

Okay, so lately my blog has been more of a bl-ugh. I guess I'm just burnt out after the holidays and it's hard getting back into a routine. After some gentle nudging from a frustrated reader I've decided to shake things up. That's right, I thought Mr. Smarty-Pants might like to know how hard it is to come up with ideas and I made him decide what I should write about. I promised that if he came up with something I would write 4 paragraphs about it, that it would be funny, and that it would include pictures. Any topic he wanted. The world was his oyster to shuck as he pleased, so to speak.

Instead of shutting him up as I had envisioned it would, he went and gave me an interesting, fairly difficult topic to write about in 4 paragraphs. And he did it within the space of, like, 2 minutes. (Hmph. If he's so smart, why doesn't HE have a blog, then?)

Anyway, here goes...

Today's experimental topic
Friendship: How Deep is Your Love?

When you're a kid making friends is easy. Pretty much anybody with a swimming pool makes it onto your buddy list no questions asked. This is because kids don't know a whole lot, are incredibly selfish, and, most importantly, are bored out of their minds. But as we age we become more and more aware of the concept of "wasting time", and suddenly hanging out with the spazzes you knew in high school to listen to tired old anecdotes of when you were "soooo high" takes a distant second to just sitting alone in the dark listening to jazz.


These fellows are bound together in friendship by an innate love of ridiculous head gear.

Naturally, the older we get the better we know our minds. By a certain age we've taken the time to question ourselves about the likes, morals, ideas, tastes and behaviours that we either accept or disapprove of (for instance, one might be a pro-gouda, anti-littering, horse-lover, or an anti-seafood, pro-flossing melon-thumper) This is when the liver-spotted hand of intolerance starts to make an appearance. By the time the average person reaches 30 years old they've worked alongside, hung out with, or been married to so many negative, stupid, obnoxious, mean, unthinking, vapid twats in his/her lifetime that any human that displays one or more of these qualities is in serious danger of being permanently ignored, if not punched in the nose.


These mortal enemies still manage to share a passion for ultra-violent hardcore porn.

Once you get to this stage and start choosing your friendships based on more than just how many cool video games you'll have access to, life becomes both easier and harder. Easier because you get to spend more of your free time with people you actually like and want to know better, harder because you have to learn to say no to the people in your life who drive you crazy. This doesn't mean that you can't still have superficial friendships based on a common hobby, addiction to alcohol, love of fried foods, etc. with these people. Sometimes you can just ignore the serious personality flaws in order to have a nice evening together and no harm done.


One of these friends is faking it.

But this brings me to the vital question of this experiment: are these two kinds of friendships mutually exclusive? Are the friendships that mean the most to a person, the ones that give you an opportunity to learn something about yourself and the other person, the only ones we should allow time for and really work on? Similarly, if you have a lot of superficial friendships, does that mean that you cannot have deeper friendships in your life? The answer is no. Er, yes. I mean, yes you can have both. They both serve a purpose in their way, and I've found that superficial friendships have taught me a thing or two about life, too. Given the choice, I'd pick my really close friends to spend time with of course. But the other friendships are valuable, too, if only to remind yourself how lucky you are to not have to hang out with them all the time.


Friendship knows no shame.