Is this the real life?
- What is your name?
- What is your quest?
- What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
What do you mean? An african or european swallow?
[Queue screaming]
What is your favorite color?
The nice thing about using that Monty Python quote is that if I don’t like the answer, I can then mime throwing myself into a chasm, and thus extricate myself from the situation.
My dad, when I was a kid, used to open the door quickly, look down at my visiting friend and say “Who the hell are you?”
Then he’d shut the door abruptly, wait 3-4 seconds, then open it, laugh, and welcome them in.
If you can do that and they don’t get offended, they’re friend material.
Wide implementation of this technique would certainly explain why anxious/nervous people would have fewer friends.
My dad, when I was a kid, used to open the door quickly, look down at my visiting friend and say “Who the hell are you?”
Sad story time.
A friend of mine was visiting one of our mutual friends nearby in the big city while I was in the far, far outskirts. He was such a positive influence that I agreed to come visit at the same time and catch up, as he was always a great time. This excellent friend always brought a gallon of stories, his usual infectious manner, and this time he brought a surprise new girlfriend.
I did the “who the hell are you” and she got put off. It went reeeally poorly. They left for home the next day, ahead of schedule, back to America. He shut me out. Over the years he kinda shut everyone else there out, too, as far as I know, as he focused on the birth of two kids in succession and then his wife’s affliction with an aggressive debilitating disease; it may have been ALS. He shut a lot of ancillary things and people out, and I get that of course, but I am disappointed that my last interaction was a bombed joke.
It’s been 18 years. I finally booted him from my social media about 7-8 years ago.
What is your favorite deck
What is your favorite joker
What is your favorite spectral card
Enterprise D - I like the carpet.
Heath Ledger.
Immolate - I’m not a destroyer, but $20 is $20.
That’s not how you make friends.
Yeah I know not to just come out asking them these three questions. I just had the thought of what kind of questions you could ask to quickly and greatly understand the kind of person in front of you.
Actions speak louder than words. How about three questions to ask yourself?
- Do I feel better when I have been with them?
- Do they respect me?
- Do I respect them?
I recently asked myself similar questions about two friends I knew for about 15 years. I thought I had been close with them, but I quickly answered No to all of them (plus a bunch of follow-ups I asked myself), and realized they were never real friends, or at least hadn’t been for a while, they were just people who were accustomed to seeing me and sometimes making plans together.
I always felt anxious after hanging out with them, never felt like they listened to or cared about anything I said, never remembered my preferences or things about my personal life from visit to visit, never believed me when I said I knew something, etc etc. It’s easy to get used to this kind of thing and to think it’s normal and healthy, but it was so exhausting and frustrating for me that I finally gave up and haven’t talked to them in over a year.
Sometimes these types of questions are super helpful in evaluating longstanding relationships as well as new ones.
Census-based friendship 😂
My only question is “What are the four essential freedoms of free software?”. If they can list them I know they’re alright
- Free as a bird, and this bird you cannot change
- Free to do what I want, any old time
- Free ride, take it easy
- Ok I ran out of songs now. Free as in
malloc?
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What music do you like?
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MAGA?
If you like music, and hate MAGAs, we can be good friends.
If you dont like music, and hate MAGAs, we can probably still be friends.
If you LOVE the music I love, but are MAGA, then you can fuck right off. I don’t hang with Nazis, no matter what your musical tastes are.
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