How to Lose Friends and Disinterest People.

I am incredibly unpopular. In fact I am so unpopular this blog by analogy is similar to Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks in Cast Away. I am the oscar winning Hanks of course (albeit a younger, less attractive version), but this blog is Wilson, my blood-smeared beach volleyball. Though it serves a purpose, it is not something that people look at and say: "well that guy has it all together... The beach volleyball merely represents existentialist angst and is an artistic expression coming from one of the greatest minds of our generation... He therefore does not need kindred spirits, for they would limit his intellectual scope on the world. What a way to live. I'm truly jealous... And look at those abs! Malnutrition has done wonders for Chuck Noland aka Tom Hanks".

No. People do not say that. Instead they say: "look at that guy carrying the volley ball around talking to it, that guy is fruitier than bat-poo... Oh my goodness, is he actually trying to feed it!? He'd probably not look like he was starving to death if he didn't keep trying to spoon feed a volley ball half of that raw fish, seaweed and sand he could be eating."

Sure they blur the lines between fiction and reality, but they still show acumen in their observations of Tom Hanks/Chuck Noland and his volleyball/me and my blog. I don't want these things for my life. I don't want my good friend Wilson the blog to be treated with such perniciousness. So I have opted for change and self improvement. That is why I have picked up the book How to Win Friends and Influence People from my local library! A wealth of knowledge of how to charm people already started to enter me purely by osmosis before even reading the book. Reading the cover alone made me more popular! I had one library attendant actually look me in the eye*! The book is a success!

Within the book it teaches and trains how to win friends (obviously) and as I have looked around I see that there are potential friends EVERYWHERE.... YOU could be one right now!** I even noticed the other day that some people don't even NEED to know the person for them to be friends with someone. This is quite a radical idea, and it isn't even in the book! Let me explain:

After church the other night upon cornering a couple and forcing them to sit down and have dinner with my girlfriend and I (I shall call them Jack & Jill), we had an old friend (I shall call her Sonya) approach us from school to serve us. As it turned out we all knew her from school, but it was Jill, Jack's girlfriend that Sonya was interested in talking to. They talked for a little while, getting along, discussing the old times, the good times, times that they had shared together. They laughed, and we sat and watched, nodding politely and smiling, having no idea what they were talking about but wanting to be polite as we listened in on a couple of old friends' conversation. Sonya took our order, smiled one last time at Jill and left. It was at this point Jill turned to us and asked "Who the heck was that girl?. As it turned out Jill had never seen Sonya before in her life, had not attended the same school and really had no idea where Sonya was getting the idea she was old friends with Jill from. But Jill's little con worked and I marveled at how easy it was to not only MAKE friends, but to convince people that you have BEEN friends for the last 16 years without either one of you ever having met the other.

Now THAT is what being friends is all about! Lies, dishonesty and cunning in an attempt to fool people. This book may have won hundreds of awards and been named as one of the greatest books of all time, but I very much doubt Dale Carnegie ever pulled such a swifty. His thoughts of being kind, considerate, never harsh or critical and very complimentary are quite good, but friendships need very much to be based on lies, deceit and criminal dealings at times to work a real treat in this day and age.

So with that I bid you adieu, for I am off to find friends... Good luck in your friend hunting too.



* Or they at least acknowledged that I had eyes when they shouted: "Stop looking at me like that you freaking unpopular weirdo!!!", so they must've looked at my eyes at some point... Though her head was turned as she yelled it, as though she was trying to look away from the sun or something hideous, and I was looking at a slightly wilted fern on the library counter also at the time...

** This would mean so much more if people actually read my blog... but in-case I fool some Germans into thinking this blog is educational again (quite a few of them stumbled upon the blog I wrote entitled "My mental illness", hopefully then deciding to not reference it in any academic writing!) I have kept the idea that someone COULD one day read this.