Manic Monday #16: Friend

Today's Manic Monday word is "friend." Check out Morgen's blog for other takes on the theme.

You know how it is on those social networks like MySpace and Friendster, where the user's popularity is measured by how many "friends" she or he has in the network? That's fun stuff, but how many of us actually have something like 839 friends in real life?

I certainly don't. The number of friends I have I can count on the fingers of one hand. And today I'd like to talk a bit about two of them.

Whaaaat? This is my blog, I'll post pics of myself whenever I want to. I'm just as much a publicity whore as these two, especially when I'm the one who's in control. :-D

I worked for almost ten years for a company that shall remain unnamed, and it was there that I met these two, Marnie and Rudy. Funny thing is, I only became really close to them a few months before I left that company (for reasons pertaining to management that sucked big time that shall also go unspecified). I don't want to get into the specifics of our friendship. Suffice it to say that they've never failed to be there just when I needed a friend most -- even those times I didn't raise an SOS. They're always there; it's like they have a sixth sense that alerts them when one is in need of another. I trust these two totally, absolutely. They're two of the handful of people with whom I can be truly myself. They don't go to pains to make me feel prettier or uglier than what I am; with them, I am free to be me, without recrimination. I can let my hair down and go naked. Well, maybe not literally. They would puke. Especially Rudy, who's gay. I can't even begin to describe the insults he regularly heaps upon female genitalia.

Anyway, we aren't the in-your-face kind of friends. Sometimes weeks go by without us talking to each other. But, there's this unspoken understanding that each one is only a phone call away and that nothing is too big or too small to share.

Laughter, there's always laughter. The side-splitting, cheek-cramping sort. Then there are tears too. A person should be able to count on true friends when she needs a shoulder to cry on and when she needs a sympathetic and compassionate ear, that goes without saying (but I did anyway). And provide a strong arm to support their friend as she hunkers down to embrace the toilet to spew her guts out because she drank a few more bottles than she was supposed to. :-) They provide those, sure. But they go beyond that. Sometimes they tell me things I don't want to hear, but which they believe I should anyway. I think it takes quite a bit of trust and love between all parties for them to be secure enough to say to a suffering person "You're such a pathetic dumbass" and for said suffering person not only to accept that statement but be grateful that said friends could say such a thing in a straightforward manner and still feel just how much they care.

I'm having trouble trying to encapsulate in a few words just how much these two mean to me. Sometimes I wonder and feel guilty that I'm not as good a friend to them as they are to me.

I love them.

I guess that's the best and only way I can say it. I love them even more than I love chocolate (or even *gasp* beer). I can practically hear them retching now. :-)

Oh, can anyone tell me what "Maximo" means? A beloved friend called me that recently and won't tell me why. The crazy smartass. Ohh, how he makes me laugh.