Friend Or Faux? (or The Unexpected House Guest)

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Sean Sandulak

Let’s be friends with benefits (Photo credit: Cali4beach)

So, my cable provider wants to be my friend. At least that’s what they seemed to be saying in a recent email that they sent me. Great, I could always use a new friend.

Do you want to go out for a drink or maybe get some dinner together? Oh yeah, that’s right; you don’t eat. Because you’re a company, not a real person. Hey, maybe we could stay in and watch a movie. You seem to have a lot of those.

Actually, I’m a little worried about you, friend. It seems like I’m the only one paying when we spend time together. If you were really my friend, you could at least meet me halfway and spring for some popcorn and drinks. Sometimes I feel you’re taking advantage of our friendship and using me for my money. I don’t want to enable a dependent relationship. You really need to start pulling your own weight. In fact, I think we should take a break and see other people. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’ve had my eye on this little satellite dish for a while now.

What’s that? If I join your Friends program, I can enjoy the exclusive benefits. So now you want to be friends with benefits? That’s just like you to try manipulating me with sex. You used to be all about the content, but now all you do is show me the programming for channels I don’t subscribe to. You’re such a tease!

You’re just like all those people on Facebook, who claim to be my friends. Sure they’ll click a button when it doesn’t cost them anything, or when they want to sell me something, but as soon as I need to borrow twenty bucks, they disappear down their digital rabbit holes. And I’m the weirdo for asking?!

Friend has officially become a meaningless word along with nice and sale. A friend is someone who will let you sleep on their couch (at least for one night). A best friend will help you move a couch into a four-story walk-up. A Facebook friend will send you a picture of a couch, but only if they just bought it and they want to show it off. Or because their cat was sleeping on it and kinda looked funny.

Also, I may be a bit short on my payment this month. But what’s a few dollars between friends?