My Best Friend-I Just Met-For Five Minutes-And It Was Dark

Disclaimer-This is no one any of you know.

My Best Friend-I Just Met-For Five Minutes-And It Was Dark

Say what you will about social media, and an awful lot has been said, but there are advantages despite the dire warning we are becoming increasingly isolated by our false sense of belonging. I for one am “clinically addicted” to it. I say “clinically addicted” because my career in the political arena is nothing but social media. Which is how I met my new best friend.

It was an introduction, of sorts, by several mutual friends, who after we agreed to “like” each other purportedly called in Civil Defense and predicted the end of civilization as we know it. That part I liked. I liked the idea of having a friend who apparently could possibly be worse than I am at flinging hissy fits. (She is almost.) But I liked better the daily interaction that occurs with her friends and my friends and of course us. It’s like having a perpetual sparring/comedy partner-you know like Laverne and Shirley-at your fingertips.

I am afraid to take it much beyond the cyber basement apartment in Milwaukee (see Laverne and Shirley reference). There is something to be said for living purely in the written word. Heck, how many friendships do you have where dialogue can be reviewed and edited before it’s spoken? How witty one can be when one can arrange one’s thoughts ahead of time, carefully crafting the message-the story-the witty reply.

Kenneth Grahame, in his masterpiece “The Wind in the Willows” put it nicely, “Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?”

Exactly.

We met once, I mean in person, months after jointly plotting to overthrow the government, expel ill-mannered Yankees from the city, and crowning Julia Reed the Queen of Our Order. It was kinda weird. I didn’t know what to say and she seemed hesitant and it all deteriorated into a, er, let’s get together some time-which we never did. We are both people of the written word-although I’m quite certain we can hold our own in any verbal debate. We just choose to choose our words carefully. Now, that in no way means choosing decorum or good sense. It just means well edited for the best possible style.

One day we might really throw a Julia Reed party, but even that has its hazards. I mean we could get into an argument about table decorations and flowers and how martini glasses should be utilized. She might think I drink too much and I might think she obsesses about political hacks and it could just ruin a perfectly good friendship.

I think we’ll just stick to the Sally Field method of relationships, “You like me! You really like me”. At least you mashed that button.