5 Rules to Being a Good Friend
Rule #1: Always Make it About You
Because your friends love you so much, they love hearing all about you — in fact, it’s practically a gift you give them every time you launch into a 17-minute monologue about how your barista almost spelled your name right today. After all, why burden them with the tedious details of their own lives when yours are clearly so much more fascinating? A truly good friend knows that listening is overrated, and the best way to support others is to make sure the spotlight never strays too far from your direction. Remember: their problems can wait, but your stories about what your cat might have been thinking are urgent, essential, and obviously the emotional glue that holds the friendship together.
Rule #2: Keep Score
Always keep track of how much you’ve spent on your friend. They used your sink? Have them Vemno you 50 cents. They drank your juice? That's $2.
Rule #3: Show Up When It Benefits You
Since your friends care about your needs they’ll understand that you should only appear when there’s something in it for you. Make sure to vanish the moment effort is required, so they can appreciate your mysterious, ethereal presence. And of course, return triumphantly whenever free food, attention, or emotional labor is available, your timing is the real gift
Rule #4: Offer Unsolicited Advice
Because you're friends, you get to offer them unsolicited advice now the kind they never asked for, don’t want, and definitely won’t use, but that still lets you feel wise and superior. Make sure to phrase it as if you’ve unlocked a universal truth they’re simply too silly to see. And if they look confused or annoyed, gently remind them that this is what good friends do—dispense enlightenment without consent.
Rule #5: Make Everything a Competition
When your friend gets good news immediately respond with something slightly better, preferably delivered with humble-brag energy. Congratulate them, of course, but only as a segue into explaining how you achieved the same thing faster, cheaper, or with dramatically less effort. If they seem too happy, reassure them that you’re almost proud of them, for someone who’s still a few steps behind you.
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