Fair-weather friends

I’ll take fair-weather friends over true-blue. The former are easy. The latter? They’re just not worth it.

For one, fair-weather friends are just a lot more fun. When things are good -- you’re young, rich, healthy, and worry-free -- they come along for the ride.  The times you spend together are boisterous and causal. You laugh, joke and have a good time.  You don’t have to listen to their problems -- after all, this fair-weather thing is a two-way street -- and, since you’re doing pretty well, you don’t have to burden them with any of yours.  Sure, fair-weather friends tend to mooch off of you, but that doesn’t matter.  You’ve got money.  And at least you’re eating well: Good steakhouses with big wine lists rather than that’ll-be-two-checks-please diners where you pick around your macaroni and cheese.

And then, of course, there’s the effort involved.  True-blues want to sit down with you and talk about stuff.  Not stuff as in “Hey, is it my imagination, or is that blonde over there looking over at me?” No, they want to talk about stuff like career choices and aging and cranky bosses and body aches and -- without question worst of all -- relationships. You know: What was she thinking?  Why’d she say that?  Is she really into me?

I know what you’re thinking.  That’s the tradeoff. You listen to them and then they listen to you.  They’re your sounding boards, your shoulders to cry on, sources of strength when you have doubts. But you miss my point.  I’m doing fine.  I’m not in need of anyone’s help. In fact, the whole conversation would make me uncomfortable.  After my true-blue unloads his fears and worries, he doubtless would ask about me.  What would I say? “Gee, I’m sorry your life sucks but I’ve really got nothing to complain about.”  It would make me feel terrible -- raising the odd circumstance that the only thing I have to feel bad about is that I don’t have anything to feel bad about.  Instead I’d probably make stuff up, which would make me a liar which would then give me two things to feel bad about.

Of course, I’m not so self-absorbed -- or so much an optimist -- that I don’t recognize that someday things might not be so great.  Then, I suppose one could argue, it might do me good to have a true-blue. And, you might point out, one can’t at the last moment find such friends.  Friendships -- real friendships -- need to be nurtured. Wouldn’t it be better to abandon all of today’s fair-weather friends and cultivate a few true-blues for the future?

It might if I believed they would remain that way.  I think that those we regard as true-blue are far more fickle than we suspect.  Look at marriage. Couples promise to remain together “through sickness and health, till death do we part.”  Yet half of those end up divorced. These are people who took vows, who dressed up in tuxes and gowns, who shoved wedding cake in each other’s faces. So what does that make the rate of fickleness for friends who never took a vow?  I’d guess at least 80 percent.

In any event, when things go bad, I don’t think I want a true-blue friend.  Everything with them is so serious.  You sit around, forever discussing your problems, morosely sinking deeper into despair.  Really, it just makes things worse. But fair-weather friends?  They don’t want to hear about it.  “My back is killing me,” you tell them, “I think I ruptured a disk.”

“Have a beer,” they say.  “So, you think the Sox have a chance this year?”

The truth is, if you talk about good times and keep thing nice and light, you can’t help but feel better.  Good friends drag you down.  Fair-weather friends keep you up.  I know all of this may make me sound shallow, but that’s the way I like it. When things get too deep, I feel like I’m drowning.