Friends, How Many of Us Have Them?
When I was in sixth grade I almost got beat up.
I’ve never been the outgoing type, and growing up in a small town where most people never leave, my friend group consisted of cousins around my age, the kids of my mom and dad’s friends, and since I was into basketball at the time – anyone who needed a girl on their team during recess (also, any manish little boy who’d seen Love and Basketball and wanted to be the Q to my Monica). As luck would have it, I was in the same class as a few of my best friends that year.
During a talent show, featuring a hilarious rendition of Destiny Child’s “Say My Name,” a group of girls with suuuuper crunchy hair, 8 layers of the rolly lip gloss from the beauty supply store, and even one with her THUMB IN HER MOUTH, approached me and my friends in the bleachers and confronted us for supposedly gossiping about them.
I was immediately terrified. Outside of typical sibling wars with my brother and sister, I’d never been in a real fight. And if this girl had no qualms about sucking her thumb IN PUBLIC, IN THE SIXTH GRADE…she could obviously beat my ass. Thankfully, at some point during the altercation, my cousin stepped in and said something to make them go away.
It was obvious to eleven year old me that they were jealous of us and just wanted to be in our friend group. For the remainder of the school year, when our class would leave the cafeteria about 15mins before theirs, we’d walk past their table singing, “Friends! How Many of Us Have Them?” Don’t ask me what we knew about Whodini, or how we managed to not get jumped for taunting them with an 80’s Hip-Hop classic for a whole year. All I can say is favor ain’t fair!
This was my introduction to true friendship. People having your back, sharing your enemies and obviously your taste in music. Over the years, my requirements for friendship have changed, but a few of those are staples.
Imagine my dismay when I watched the new Fyre Fest documentary on Netflix and was introduced to this guy:
Here I am, 28 years old, thinking I have a solid grip on “what it means to be a friend,” but knowing I have a few areas I could improve on. Like, there are few legal things I wouldn’t do for my friends. I’d like to think they all know they can reach out to me for just about anything. Maybe I spend too much time looking at myself on Facetime instead of paying attention to what the other person is saying, but who doesn’t do that? I would definitely still consider myself a great friend to have, even with that tiny flaw.
Boy was I wrong.
If you haven’t watched already, stop reading this and watch the Netflix documentary (because that’s where you’ll see the scene from the still above, but there’s one on Hulu and I highly encourage you to watch BOFUM.)
Andy King, the “fearless gay leader” of Fyre Fest, and friend to the sociopath of an entrepreneur, Billy McFarland, actually considered performing fellatio on a customs agent to get Fiji Water to attendees at a music festival with no musical acts, thinking it would save the event. Andy was taking sixth grade Bianca’s cafeteria anthem to a whole new level!
“Friends, one’s we can depend on?” Sign Andy right up.
I’ve done my share of being there for a friend.
In college, I let sooo many people use my 50% off employee discount at the Gap
I’ve spent a small percentage of my parent’s money getting something from the snack line in highschool for someone else
I’ve stayed on the phone for hours listening to someone cry over a breakup
One time I even shared the Netflix login of someone who was waaaay more into me than I was into them
All things I thought were normal things to do for your friends.
So now, here I am questioning just how good of a friend I really am, and whether or not I would even want someone as bout it as Andy in my circle. And after about 2 seconds of contemplation, I figured this was confirmation of my calling, and another opportunity to plug my crazy feminist agenda with some advice to Andy:
Stop making sacrifices for men.
It always comes back to that, really.
