What's up "friend?"
In the novel/movie Fight Club, the unnamed main character (alias Tyler Durden) laments how disposable and temporary things in our lives are, and when he "meets" Tyler on an airplane, he considers him a single-serving friend.
While Ed Norton's character viewed short-term friendships with the same disdain he saw the rest of the world, I'm going to defend them.
What do I consider a single serving friend? People you bond with intensely for a short time. People you meet on vacation. Sharing a class. A group at a tailgate. Work friends.
What works in these friendships? Shared memories. A person to attach a moment in time or a place - I'm thinking the movie Lost In Translation is a perfect example. Mutual interests and common goals, like high school or college friends. Great singular memories of memorable people not marred by the conflicts that taint longer-lasting relationships.
I've had quite a few vacation friends. I made of bunch of these type of friends on spring break in Daytona Beach back in 1987. I met MSU Dennis on the beach while he was playing Frisbee. In an effort to avoid plowing into me during a catch, he snatched me around the waist instead. Ah, the sweep her off her feet move. Yes, it worked. Yes, we made out. And yes, after he found out I was in high school and not college, I never saw him again. Thanks Carla!
Then there was Mike and his gang from MSU and LCC we met when they invited us into their room for beer pong. Rachel dated him for a while, and then once they stopped seeing each other - and I exhausted his stock of single friends to double with - those friendships petered out.
I was fascinated with a girl named Keely in photography class, a tiny bird-like girl with a sing song voice and a hippie fiance. She was a mentor to the intro students, and we struck a quick friendship based on her love of color. She had a bright thrift store wardrobe, a love for the Grateful Dead, and a talent for capturing joy with her Pentax camera. She was the first to remark on the attraction between P and I (Feb angst, 2012). She also happily shared her plans for a honeymoon: spending the summer following the Dead after graduation.
I also met a group of folks tailgating at the Madonna Who's That Girl show at the Silverdome. We shared a picnic lunch, kept a mix of dance tunes going as we bonded over a mutual love of music and educational aspirations. One boy, Jimmy I think, lover of all things Madonna/Marilyn/James Dean, exchanged letters with me a couple of times before the friendship ran its course.
But sometimes, these single-serving friendships endure. When I was 9 or 10, I met Nancy at the Holiday Inn/Sandusky, when our day at Cedar Point was rained out. She and I met at registration and bonded immediately, playing in the pool, the mini golf course, the video game room, bumper pool and begged to be able to have dinner together. Once we checked out, we became pen pals, sharing stories of school life until graduation. Our correspondence sputtered to a stop once I went to college and she married her military boyfriend and moved overseas. Sometime in the mid-90s, I received a letter from a base in Oklahoma. A wedding invitation to her was met with a wedding gift in '97, a picture frame from the photographer. A trip through New York met with a chance phone call to her parents home in Buffalo, where her brother gasped with surprise, saying I just missed her visit home, and how she had read through a pile of my letters she had saved. A quick Internet search and I found her, so I think I'll surprise her with a letter.
The common thread with each of these friendships, whether they burned bright then simply ran its course over time, was the sudden and intense bond we shared.
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