Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Friends With Benefits

I was listening to the radio the other day on my daily commute to Costco when I heard an advertisement for the upcoming movie, "Friends with Benefits. I caught the tail-end of the ad, but the gist of it was that sometimes friends can be more than just friends. They can be friends with benefits. I assume "benefits" refers to some sort of intangible set of qualities that puts that friend a head above the rest. The one friend that comes to mind for me is Annelise.

Annelise and I are "friends with benefits" because she and I have the benefit of having a friendship without the work. From an outsider's perspective, Annelise and I probably don't look like friends because we don't have to behave like friends without benefits.

For example, most friends post on each other's walls for their birthdays. Annelise and I are such good friends that we have the benefit of skipping that exchange of internet pablum.

The worst part of having a serious friendship is having extensive time commitments together. One minute it's just a few hours longer than normal, and then all of a sudden your weekends, holidays and vacations are sucked up into the friend vacuum. Annelise and I made a deal up front that we would only hang out as friends when we wanted to, which as it turns out, was a surprisingly little amount of time.

Some friends talk on a daily basis and ask questions like, "How was your day?" or "Why can't you keep your hands off my boyfriend, b****? Annelise and I don't even bother acknowledging one another. We mainly communicate through a series of blinking, arm scratching, and coughs.

Ever since Adam and Eve, friendships have been weighed down by hours of boring conversation and endless commitments. That's why friends with benefits is so much better. It's like choosing store bought cookies over homemade; no work, no worries, no sweat.

1 comment:

  1. dear seth, i am proud of you for having thoughts...and having had come up with the clever combination of your name and the word thoughts. brilliant. now read my blog! www.lbminnich.com

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