Blind Friendship

I recently attended a business meeting as the newest member of the team. One of the attendees looked at the person who had been good enough to introduce me to the group and said, “Oh, this is your friend, Gail.” I immediately thought, Well, does she really think of me as a friend? I certainly see her as a friend, but I don’t want unwanted labels pertaining to me forced on others. (Yes, I think too much about ridiculous things—yada, yada, yada.)

Anyway, this occurrence started me thinking about the concept of friends. Most people throw the word around loosely, but actually limitless friend-type categories exist, along with multiple combinations thereof. Here are a few broad ones from my experience:

Friends you talk to over e-mail or phone almost every day, and if you don’t, you imagine that they are angry or hurt. (The best thing about these friends is that you can call and ask them.)

Friends you can have a huge political debate with even to the point of yelling and then go have a drink together.

Friends who only want to talk about their political opinions but don’t want to hear yours. (These people can be good company if you avoid politics and hold conversations to much-ado-about-nothing subjects, because if you can’t express your own political views as well, then what’s the point--demagoguery?)

Friends you can argue with, and then both concede the errors of your ways and move forward. (These are the best!)

Friends you can’t argue with because they’ve never done anything wrong and can’t even conceive how any of their actions could be offensive. (Very annoying, so avoid confrontation of any kind.)

Friends you only know through work or shared professions. (Very valuable, especially for grousing together, and these can also grow into other friend categories.)

Friends who make you laugh and vice versa. (Top of the line!)

And then there’s my great Aunt Curtis (now departed), a true old maid if there ever was one, probably doomed from the onset with that name, and the fact that even in her childhood photos she resembled an angry Pitiful Pearl doll. Her one boyfriend, according to her, was tragically killed in WWII, but no one could ever confirm this story and she spent the rest of her life as a nurse. At holiday dinners she insisted on telling the most horrific details of cases involving bodily fluids so that usually foods such as sweet potato casserole began to elicit the gag reflex. Thank God I never cared for cranberry sauce!

Anyway, as the years passed and she almost set her apartment and herself aflame on several occasions, she had to be moved to a nursing home. On one of our visits, a frail and ancient old blind woman mistakenly wandered into the room and Aunt Curtis began to bellow like an old grizzly, “Get outta heah! Go on get outta heah! This isn’t your room, get OUT, OUT!” We were trying to counter with “No, it’s okay.” “Can we help you?” and so on as this poor soul tapped her way out with her blind stick like the bassets had been sicced on her.

As we turned to Aunt Curtis with looks of horror and admonishment she smiled broadly and without an ounce of irony or introspection declared proudly, “I’m the only friend she’s got!”

This of course falls into the category of “With friends like that…”