Post 5| 041516 | FIVE FRIENDS
With infinite personality possibilities, these are just a few of the “friend staples” recommended for the obvious reason of dynamic friendships, as well as for making our experiences in this short little life much more well-rounded and full of surprises.
Whether you live in Vancouver, New York City, or Kansas City, you probably have times that you can’t be all the answers and need a community of people who can coax you out of your comfort zone, lift you out of a slump, and/or provide familiarity in a strange place. If you cannot relate, congratulations, you have solved the human crisis.
Plenty of people are a one-two punch combo of several of these categories, and many others I’m sure are overlooked here in efforts to keep this post to under 1,000 words.
Mix up the categories, create new ones, look at the brilliant people you already have in your life - make it your own. If you can fill a hand with friends, you are very lucky indeed.
The Energizer Bunny
When you can’t seem to get your head out of your mind, and spend hours planning what you plan to do –and then nightfall rolls around before you’ve transitioned into real pants, you need The Energizer Bunny to hold you accountable to actually meet outside your cozy apartment and run, paint, see, do. When you are waiting for that inevitable text of ‘so, my day’s been insane- feeling blah’ so that you can both flake out of plans and get in your bed sooner without ruining a friendship– make plans with the Energizer Bunny – they’ll be good for it, and you’ll be glad you took the unprecedented risk of staying out until 9pm on a weekday.. I promise.
The Entertainer
When you just need some fun circulated back into your routine, The Entertainer is always a reliable option. The Entertainer’s gift can come in the form of great stories, fabulously unpredictable nights out, improbable humor that re-energizes your inherently perfect belly laugh, or all of the above. We need to laugh, and emote the childlike wonder of being entertained by something other than a flat screen full of pixels. If The Entertainer is on a normal wavelength, you’ll find yourself facing anything from a very lively happy hour with a new circle of people (potentially complete strangers) to a side-splitting re-tale of his/her bout with a Russian fisherman who aptly summed up the meaning of life with 3 toothpicks.
The Explorer
It’s easier to know when you are outside of your comfort zone, than to be naturally aware of what your boundaries are since your homeostatic positioning is smack in the middle – well within the radius of your boundaries. The Explorer has an incredible vision of the horizon, and finds a way to move straight toward it to see what is on the other side of the Earth’s flat edge. This ability manifests itself in many capacities – finding a mostly undiscovered hiking trail and making a day trip out of the excursion, being somehow aware of every new restaurant opening in the area and managing to try them all within 3 days of opening, or turning you on to new books or music that you may find on the Best Sellers or Thrillist hot spots a few months down the road. They aren’t necessarily adrenaline junkies, but they maintain a fresh outlook, by filling their POV with new experiences. Hold on, and you may just discover a new love of salsa-dancing, or at least a more than average Tuesday evening.
The Gut Check
The Gut Check role is not necessarily an actual Empath, but they embody a higher emotional intelligence and ability to shut down the distance between your thoughts/feelings and your awareness of ‘what does your gut tell you?’. The Gut Check knows how and when to cut through the bullshit and tell it like it is, or be a neutral witness to let you cry, punch stuff, etc. without commentary or ‘advice’. Your empathetic friend should never be treated as an emotional dumping ground, but they are very good at helping those around them understand what the hell is going on, and usually they really enjoy deciphering the root of problems, and providing a pathway for finding solutions.
The Big Easy
Everyone has days, nights, weeks, when you just need to straight chill. Allow and forgive yourself for Netflixing, and chilling (note the purposeful Oxford comma there). The Big Easy will be down to do that with you, virtually anytime. They won’t skip a beat if you just want to hang out, zone out, pig out, whatever dude. If you’ve been cruising on full speed with The Energizer Bunny, The Explorer, and The Entertainer for weeks on end – your burn out may derive less from ‘getting old’, and more because you just need a break from stimulation. Our worlds are more chaotic than we can absorb so find a friend to sit back, sip on something, and just BE. It’s the gift of time stretched out when you can sit with a friend for as long as you feel like sitting. Significant to note that the Big Easy and Gut Check don’t always come in the same package – if you say you want to chill, and then emo-dump everything about how your last three boy/girlfriends are a metaphor for your path in life.. just pick your audiences wisely.
Other notable, awesome categories:
The Reader/Intellectual
The Career Junkie
The Creative
The Dance Partner
The Do-Gooder
The Foodie
The High Life (pinkies out)
The Fit Life
The Bouncer Bust (no lines please)
The Underground (how did you find this place?)
The Travel Mania
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