Olivet Theory’s Bad Advice Series: Chapter 2 — Friends and Friendships
Welcome to Olivet Theory’s Bad Advice series where we give you the worst possible advice on just about anything concerning your family life, parenting, romance, money management, faith, and social interactions. Advice that is so poor that you’ll have no choice but to do the exact opposite of what is mentioned here.
On Friends and Friendships…
If you think I’m here to talk about the poorly made, bland, and unfortunately well-circulated show, FRIENDS, I am not. That show has done enough damage to its own reputation by going on air for as long as it did that I don’t even have to go out of my way to disparage it.
But I will, just for a bit. It’s a guilty pleasure. FRIENDS is horrible. It’s unfunny. It’s bland. It looks foggy. The cast is very talented, as are the writers, but its reception, say, compared to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In Living Color, 30 Rock, The Office, or Walker, Texas Ranger, was just subpar. If there were ever a show that could topple FRIENDS from the list of poorly made and unfunny shows it would be That ’70s Show.
Hate me. Love me. I don’t care. These shows were horrible. Please, stop watching them. Watch, I don’t know. Like, watch a Richard Simmons aerobics video. There’s more humor, energy, and substance in one Simmons workout video than in the entire series of FRIENDS.
There. I said.
Now, Back to Friends and Friendships…
Do you have friends you can rely on? Are they readily available to take your call? Do they respond to a text within the hour?
Discard them.
Friends are worth nothing.
You need help moving? Do it yourself. Break the bank a little and hire movers.
Are you low on cash and unable to qualify for a loan? Rob a bank. Try not to get caught.
Thinking of having friends over for Thanksgiving dinner? Forget about it. Why host a dinner when you can eat your meal alone and save on the bill?
Are you emotionally unstable and need someone to talk to? Someone on the other end of the phone who can listen and admonish you further? Someone who can advise you on what steps to take next? What changes you have to make to help life along? Advice that can help you understand yourself in a new light? Or someone who will just sit, listen, and weep with you in your struggles?
Disregard them. Suck it up. Hold it all in. Push those emotions and thoughts deeper into your subconscious because no one needs to hear what is going on in your mind.
Chances are you’ll bore them with that sob story.
The shorter a friendship is the better. Fewer are the things you have to reveal about yourself and fewer people around to make sure you’re not a serial killer or serial kidnapper or serial organization freak. They’re all one and the same thing.
And if you suspect someone is trying to befriend you, that someone is trying to approach you with an air of kindness and amicable fraternization, please shun them. Mock their looks. Mock the way they speak. Mock their talents and aspirations. Disparage their ideas and opinions. Criticize their political ideology, mock their faith, demonize their heroes, and denude them, verbally, in front of others.
There’s no better way to lose those pesky friends than to be the most anti-social individual in your workplace, church community, public library, public restrooms, private restrooms, and social gatherings.
Lose your friends. Get rid of them. You can do life, love, and marriage without them. Also, if your spouse is tempted with the idea of becoming your good friend or a relatively okay friend throughout your marriage, you may need to oust them from your friendless circle and keep them in the acquaintance/sexual partner zone. There’s no need to befriend your spouse. They will serve their purpose in money-making, bed-sharing; albeit, avoidable as well, inconvenient sessions of copulation, and yes, the disgusting event where you have to interact and converse with one another.
It is preferable that you allow your spouse the benefit of continuous and almost uninterrupted monologues. Should the conversation become dull just chime in from time to time with hmm, yeah, no, sure, exactly, okay, and the all too dangerous but at times necessary, did he or she really say that?
Under no circumstance should you ever ask your spouse how they really feel about (fill in the blank).
Never entertain a conjugal monologue with a question. This is a trap. This makes the recipient spouse believe you are finally open enough to engage in a dialogue. This is unacceptable.
Therefore, do not answer calls from familiars found in your contact list. Do not return text messages. If so, keep them in one-word or one-sentence responses. Do not allow yourself to interact, divulge, elaborate, or engage with people who would dare enter your circle of one.
Friends are overrated and useless, really. Internalize everything. If at all possible, whatever emotional distress you experience from this internalization and compartmentalization must be repressed time and again. You may visit a professional, so they’re called, these word-holes that take what you say and bounce it back to you with questions.
Psychologists, some of them are called. Avoid them. They learned to deal with humans from dealing with insolent dogs and loud bells. If possible, ask to speak with a psychiatrist. Speak slowly, these sixty-minute meetings can seem like an eternity so allow only one part truth and one part falsehood to come out of your mouth so you’re prescribed with the most potent downers and barbituates on the market. Take these as often as possible so you’re less likely to respond to people.
You have no friends. You are no one’s friend. And should a friendship ever develop allow it to be between yourself and your misery, which, no one should ever suspect you of having because no one will know who you are.
Slip in and out of meetings, functions, social (yuck) gatherings, and networking events without the slightest suspicion that you were ever there. Work. Breathe, quietly. Eat, alone, of course, your spouse allowing. And then die.
The fewer the people at your funeral, the better.
Pay the church ahead of time and let the priest or minister; or gardener for that fact, know that your funeral service is canceled and that no one ought to speak on your behalf because no one knows who you are and you don’t care to have anyone there in the first place.
You will come into this world, with the assistance of a woman you do not care for. You will live in the world with the assistance of people you do not need. And you will die, hopefully, yes, the only hope desired and sought after, the hope that you will die alone.
Banish your friends and end your friendships. There’s no need for them in this life and God… pray you, there is no afterlife where in which you’ll have to interact either with angels or with devils.
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Originally published at http://olivettheory.com on June 4, 2021.
