What friendship is … NOT

I read articles on how I’m supposed to behave, because I don’t give a flick about what people think about me, but I do care about not hurting others.
I read articles on psychology to check if I’ve not totally crossed the line which divides sanity (a.k.a. boringness) and total insanity (a.k.a. stripping naked on the road – an interesting idea really).
I read articles on personalities, to be sure I am not the only one with a personality disorder.
I read articles on love (identifying it, difference between love/lust/infatuation) so that each time I lose my head over another loser, I will be able to identify my feelings as infatuation and move on. I have read articles on friendship, singlehood, parenthood, fatherhood (yep because I have to be mum and dad, now I’m supermom!) … I’ve read practically every topic under the sun for various reasons (and some for none!).
Each of these articles try to tell me how to live, what to wear, what’s hot and what’s not. Sometimes there’s so much information flowing through my brains I just shut down! Anyway, my revenge on the world is this article on what friendship is not.
Actually this is more about talking to myself than anybody else, these are the rules I believe I should follow if I’m to have friends and not die a friendless old maid (although the old maid side will probably not change!) So here we go

Friendship is not

A ship – although the word is made up of friend and ship, the ship part is definitely not true. I know some of my friends who can compete with a ship when it comes to their girth (I mean their waistline), but really they ARE NOT SHIPS. You are not to board them and expect to be entertained (this seems to be what all that we want these days, to be ENTERTAINED). Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, your friend is not D’banj (you should be so lucky), so sentences like “oh she’s sooo booring”, “Don’t you ever do anything else but read/watch videos/surf the net/ beat your …em?” etc. does not apply

Fun: Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying friendship shouldn’t be fun, but I’d be careful when all my friends “just wanna have fuun!”. Go clubbing, go swimming, laugh, laugh, laugh, screeeeeeeeeam, gossip, feel better than everybody else, get high, get laid, look down on anybody unlucky enough not to be included in your circle of (myopic and silly) friends … nah friendship is not all about fun. Friendship should be serious too you know, when you get to discuss matters of grave importance (like the kind of clothes you should wear to church on Sunday). Friendship is actually a lot of work, sweat, tears, rage. You invest your time, money and emotions in it.

Cheap: this is a lesson I’ve had to learn over and over again. Friendship is COSTLY, it is VERY expensive and not only in monetary terms. It will cost you your time, emotions and money, and what do you reap? Fierce loyalty. If you cannot do anything for anybody, give anything to anybody; help anybody … that your selfish body will continue feeding on itself.

Have I tortured you enough? I can actually go on and on, but I think I’d better save the rest for another day.