So the owners called the other night.
Actually they texted. Nobody calls anymore. They said I was getting too many friends, too fast.
I said no, there’s a mistake, I only have three friends and two of them are our rabbits — Sam and his live-in girlfriend.
No, Friends, they said again, with a capital F.
Oh, I said. Those people. Then I confessed I didn’t really know what I was doing around here, that it’s all new, that I thought more and more and more and more and more and more friends was good for all of us: me, the owners, everyone.
I said that I was a Daddyo writer, after all, and why bother with it all unless someone reads me. Look at what happened to Van Gogh when nobody bothered to look at his paintings. He lost both his ear and his mind.
It doesn’t work like that, they said. I could only be Friends with someone I knew.
Like Sam? I said.
No, I didn’t have to know a Friend like that. I just had to know them, they said.
That cleared it up for me.
But with fewer friends, I mean, Friends, can I still feel good about myself? I asked.
They said that wasn’t their concern.
Do I have to like my Friends? I finally asked.
Not if I don’t want to, they said. And my Friends don’t have to like me either. Sometimes people are too busy to like each other, they said. Liking takes time and some folks don’t have much of it.
Say hi to your wife, they then said.
Do you know her?
No, they said, she’s just our Friend, that’s all.
Oh.
It was three in the morning. I gave my wife the message. We always take our phones into bed with us. You can see why it’s important.