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With Friends Like These, Who Needs Friends?

I’ve decided that I need to befriend an asshole.

Also, an idiot, a lazy teenager, a wet blanket, an unbalanced wacko, and a holier-than-thou skeptic. And, if I can find one, someone who looks as much as possible like the Elephant Man. With really bad hair. And moobs.

It’s not that I want to hang around with a bunch of outcasts, malcontents, and freakshow rejects. But if I’ve learned one thing from a lifetime of watching sitcom television, it’s this:

Every group of friends has an idiot. And a slacker, a boor, a crank, a cynic, and somebody really ugly. And absolutely, every group has an asshole. Sometimes two. And sometimes hundreds.

“Some of them are definitely too attractive. You’d think just one could contract leprosy, to let the rest of us off the hook, but no. Some friends these are.”

This is the message that’s been fed into our soft, pliable brains for decades. And it’s human nature to assume that if there’s no obvious asshole, for instance, in one’s circle of friends, then whoever’s most assholish must be the culprit. And therein lies my problem:

My friends are too nice.

And hard-working and interesting and sane and reasonable, and quite possibly too attractive. Some of them are definitely too attractive. You’d think just one could contract leprosy, to let the rest of us off the hook, but no. Some friends these are.

So I look around the room at parties thrown by friends, and see the grim truth — no crackpot. But here I am with my theory that Jerry Springer is an interstellar version of Steve Irwin, come from Aldeberan to study us.

(Hey, think about it. It just makes sense.)

Then I check for ugly people. Sure, there are a few cockeyed eyebrows, and hairs out of place, and — did she really think that would look good on her? — but nobody stands out as eye-avertingly horrific. So I check the mirror — oops, I forgot to shave this morning. On the left side, anyway. And how’s my hair doing that without a stiff breeze or a gob of Elmer’s glue? And man, I should really have that growth looked at. Otherwise, I’ll have to name it soon, and get it a Social Security card.

I scan the room again, and there’s no slacker. Especially my wife, who baked brownies for the party, made a salad, and bought two bottles of wine. All of which I made her lug inside, because carrying things makes me tired. Damn.

Speaking of my wife, don’t get me started about her friends. She’s working in a law firm now, and quite successfully. If anything, her crowd is smarter, prettier, more rational, and successfuller than mine.

Also, they don’t use words like ‘successfuller’. Seems I need to find an illiterate friend, too.

If it’s true that life imitates art, then I know my new circle of ‘friends’ is out there. I’m looking for George Costanza, for Eric Cartman, and for Screech. I’ll need a Homer Simpson — a Milhouse wouldn’t hurt, either — a Balki, an Urkel, a Meatwad, Cliff Clavin, and a Bill Dauterive. With that posse of pathetic persons for comparison, I should look good in any situation.

Only, who wants to hang around with those people? If those were the friends I had to choose from, I think I’d just forget the whole thing and stay home.

So apparently, I need a snarky antisocial friend, too. Does anybody have Bender the Robot’s home number? I can have my wife bake him some brownies.