I just read this article about how people have fewer friends now than they did twenty years ago.

“Nearly a quarter of people surveyed said they had "zero" close friends with whom to discuss personal matters.”

I don’t discuss “personal matters” with friends. That’s why I have friends. I suspect that if I started calling them up and bellyaching all the time I would be a royal pain in the ass.

Yes, part of that is me being facetious, but there’s a lot of truth to it. I really don’t have many friends. I have, perhaps, six, close friends. Most of them I have known for over twenty years. I have a close friend that I met in kindergarten that I still talk to a lot—a guy that can be depended on in case of nuclear winter or other highly dramatic events where it’s kill or be killed.

I’ve had a lot of acquaintances over the years. I guess I still do, but it’s not really the same. I was one of those people who knew “everybody” but I was never foolish enough to think most people were my friends. And once you leave high school and start working your way through the world you have a tendency to cut people loose.

The guy who always drank too much in college and was “a blast to hang out with” sometimes turns out to be a pain in the ass alcoholic in later years. There comes a time between high school and age thirty where people are forced to become responsible adults, earn a wage and stop playing quarters every night. And it has been my experience that a certain percentage of these guys never make the cut. They are failures as men. They either cannot or will not provide for their young families or stay locked in a time warp forever and expect you to do the same.

I had a very close friend that never grew up. First it was funny. Then it was a pain in the ass. Before long it was sad and eventually it became dangerous. I was forced to set him adrift with a hard kick in the ass. Many people are faced with betrayal from friends, be it in the form of girlfriend stealing or cash theft. Some people make the transition from friend to giant sponge.

I have never slept with a girl that friend was dating, though I was accused of it constantly. I did sleep with a girl who had a serious boyfriend but I didn’t know the guy except to maybe nod at if I saw him at a party. It’s an interesting story actually because she took advantage of me when I was buzzed and then started making appointments with me to have sex and it’s a long story but she would get off on me going into the bar she and her boyfriend worked at and talking dirty to me while the boyfriend was close by. Both she and the boyfriend were annoying and stupid and I extracted myself from the whole sordid affair when she attempted to give me a hand job while I was sitting at the bar and her boyfriend was across bartending two feet away.

But I’ve gotten off topic if there ever was one.

I read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil yesterday. It’s one of those books everyone has read but me. I liked it a lot, probably due to the setting. I’m a sucker for Savannah. Definitely a city with feel all it’s own.