Friends....how many of us have them?

I want to vent a little about friends. What really is a friend? If you are reading this ask yourself how many true friends you really have. I like to break people down as friend, colleague, family or acquaintance. We all have some sort of family. I'm sure some are closer with their family than others....most are probably closer to their families than me but family is the category we can control the least. I want to talk about friends so I will move this along. Colleagues of course are the folks we work with. Some we like, some we don't but even though we may be "friendly" with them at the end of the day they are our colleagues. Acquaintances are folks we meet through other friends, through work, through just living our day to day lives. I have grown to truly like some of these acquaintances. I have gone to ball games with some, bars, casinos, even hit a little gin and juice with some but at the end of the day they haven't passed the true friend test.

Now if you are wondering how one passes the "true" friend test ask yourself the following question, "when I finally snap and the sleeping demon comes to the surface and instead of just laughing off the douche bag in the Ed Hardy tee-shirt that mocked me at the mall I followed him home and felt the warmth of his blood spray me in the face as I choked the life out him, who do I call to help me move the body?" How many names did you come up with? There are 3 people in the world that I consider "true" friends. The first, my wife, is the reason I needed to rant on this topic. Her "true" friend died 3 years ago this month. Honestly, her friend and I didn't really see eye to eye on much be we didn't dislike each other...maybe misunderstood each other, but didn't dislike. I remember the pain in my wife's voice when she called me to tell me of the motorcycle accident that took her "true" friends life. I feel for her because I know that is something that is almost impossible get someone in your life to achieve the "true" friend status once it has already been claimed. I try to be the best friend that my wife can have because we are both kindred spirits in the lone wolf world. It doesn't hurt that wither one of us would help each other move a body....REMEMBER....acquaintences help you move, "true" friends help you move a body. My wife has come to known many acquaintances but never a real friends. I hold hope that she will find one but I'm not sure. It was just last week that she was looking at pictures on facebook of all her (as she thinks) friends that were away together and just like the fucked up cliques that make us jaded in our youth I saw it all over again. The disappointment. The sadness and pity of why don't I get invited to these things. Why? Because the fuckers aren't your friends. Don't get me wrong it is good to have friendly acquaintances. We need people in our lives and some human contact is good but speaking for myself I only need my wife, lifelong pal that I consider my real "brother" and my other close good friend. There is one person that I think is extremely reliable and tight to my wife and I hope that one day I can, without pause, call her my wife's "true" friend. We need to somehow get our families a little closer but who knows what tomorrow will bring. All I know is that I'm glad I have my little circle. I never want to hear that disappointment in my wife's voice again. It was the same disappointment you get when you are semi-stalking a stripper and you show up on a night ready to make your move to the champagne room only to be faced with tragedy. I'm trying to do something special for her for our anniversary (11 years - damn) coming up and of course I do that with the help of one of my "true" friends. Whenever any of those 3 are let down, I'm here to pick up the pieces...and if any of you happen to read this - call me when you need me to bring the shovel and the garbage bags.

Until next time....