My Rules

It occurred to me that, over the years, I have a small set of working rules that govern my friendship, or at least who I consider friend-worthy:

• Don't be crazy/psycho
• Don't be an asshole
• Don't be pretentious
• Don't be phony/affected
  
• Don't be chickenshit
• Don't be lame

Seemingly not very hard, and yet, it is, I suppose. One might argue that all of those things are subjective, subject to interpretation, and that I should be more tolerant of the craziness, assholery, pretensions, affectations, chickenshittery, and lameness of others, or that I'm too harsh a judge of human character. That we're all human, nobody's perfect, blah blah blah. True, nobody's perfect.

But it doesn't give people a license to slack off, to be assholes, and it doesn't obviate the need for standards in one's associations, and doesn't obligate me to tolerate shitbaggery when I face it. My friendship is a gift and a treasure, and should not be thrown aside lightly.

I'm forgiving to a point (and loving to a fault, unfortunately), but I pursue an inductive, empirical approach to friendship where I just pay attention to what people say and do: I look, I listen. If somebody has a redeeming quality, I will cut them some slack, but if they force me to pay attention to my aforementioned "rules," I will distance myself from them. I can sometimes forgive one or two of the above (and even then, only if it's not too strong), but more than that, and they're out, or at least consigned to the distant reaches of my psyche -- curbside, on the wrong side of the velvet ropes of the Studio 54 of my mind, heart, and soul.

You know the line about you being judged by the company you keep? Well, I think of that now and again. People strive for excellence in so many things -- why not excellence in friendships, too? I don't believe in "settling" for love, and I don't believe in "settling" in friendships, either. So, taking the opposite of my "rules" above, one can at least hypothetically divine what I value in a friend:

• Be sane
• Be kind and compassionate
  
• Be honest and modest
• Be natural, unselfconscious, and authentic
  
• Be bold and spunky
  
• Be fun

I don't think that's asking too much. It's not the Ten Commandments, but being those things can't hurt. Looking at the above, it's also possible for someone to be exceptionally strong in one area (or, ideally, many of these) and that balances out some of the negatives. Like if someone were exceptionally kind, I'd forgive them for being exceptionally lame -- I wouldn't judge them for that, because their kindness would offset the lameness. Exceptional virtues can (up to a point) forgive faults, so long as the virtues outmatch the vices.

I think it's natural to have an aesthetic -- it just makes sense to me on a deep and intuitive level. To know beauty, you have to understand it intuitively. And I think it applies to friendships, as well. Friendship is a beautiful thing, and I treasure it -- why cheapen it by lowering my standards? Mediocrity in friendship is as damning as mediocrity in anything else.