The Friendship Litmus Test
You want to find out who your real friends are? Then, have a 3rd child and learn who derives joy from more kid manifestations of you.
Lucky for me, I have those friends. Imagine the horror of your baby birth announcement getting no likes on Facebook. By modern day standards, it would be as if the kid was never born at all. You’d think, that can’t be right. Not one like on Facebook. I never believed in fake news till now.
If your new baby photo announcement gets no likes on Facebook, you have to feel like a total loser. A total waste of life, an empty suit, a deplorable, disingenuous, arrogant, backstabbing, sneering, elitist intellectual. But Hillary and Obama won the popular vote in California. So they can’t be that bad.
My new son, Samuel Teddy Kornbluth has been alive for more 12 days and I still haven’t heard a personalized, follow up message from my own Dad about his feeling on being a Grandparent for the 3rd time. Which would make me feel like a 3rd time loser, if I wasn’t fortunate enough by the grace of God, to receive a solid mix of calls and texts from friends both old and new. These friends of mine went out of their way to express their awe, joy and amazement in me becoming a dad again for lucky number three. My mom posts a baby picture on my Dad’s Facebook account with no comment. And he thinks that secures his loving father status.
Some say, you should lower your expectations after you have a 3rd child. Others would argue, that it starts getting a tad ego-centric for you to think the world can’t deal without more gargantuan spewing’s of your fully formed seeds after having 2 kids. Especially, when most of your Jewish friend’s parents from the baby boomer generation, stopped at 2 kids, because of the common sense mathematics of it all.
I say f you fake friend. That thinks it’s in my best interest to not expect my own father to praise the latest addition to my Kiss Army family. When I have a kid, I shout it out loud. Then again, perhaps you have to love yourself big time, in order for others to think they should care at all, about your latest Gizmo creation in the 1st place.
This week, I saw the new Lego movie with my other son. They end the movie with a song about how friends are the family you chose. Or best yet, friends are the family you chose to be closer with. Because they celebrate and encourage your own brand of specialness. Despite your lack earning power since your stay at home fatherhood stewardship fell upon thee.
How do you not count your lucky stars for having a friend call you the moment you learn that you won’t be moving forward in the interview process for a Staff Writer job on the Howard Stern Show? Especially when another utility, so called work related, new friend, tries to act enlightened and give a dose of tough love by saying it was a stretch to expect getting that job in the 1st place. Whatever, I did an open mike on the balcony of a country club in Yorktown Heights that night and killed. Plus, I’ve never viewed that guy as a real friend since. So he failed the friendship litmus test before I created this new one moments prior.
I recently rekindled a friendship from a long lost bud from college. He just texted me seconds ago, saying dude, we need to talk on the phone, enough with the jokes. I want to know how Samuel is doing. Now, that’s a dear friend that passes the friendship litmus test with flying colors.
Texts are nice. We’re all busy except Phil Jackson. I get that. But reserving the time for that call to show interest, concern and happiness over your latest genetic offshoot of you, means that you can lean on them when you need a friend. I pray that my 2 sons will be blessed with lifelong friends that he’s known for 20 plus years. To give enough of a shit to call or express some modicum of unsolicited, personalized, well-wishing sentiment. After they’ve been graced with the birth of a healthy, glowing newborn. That doesn’t look like the Elephant Man just yet. Not that I have zero self-esteem. But thank god I got those responses from my friends without the assistance of any guilt ridden hashtag campaigns on Facebook such as #I’m a Gen X Dad that still suffers from sexually repressed teenage angst to
As you get older, you appreciate the ones you’ve kept close, especially the ones that have stuck with your ego-centric temper tantrums along the way. That have been brave enough to point out the weary tiredness of your hateful, defensive bile. When someone from your inner sanctum of text chain friends, dares to deem one of your myriad stabs at new jokes as mere meh. You have to be grateful for that old Sherman Oaks roommate. That stayed firm in his belief of you making it in show business in some comedic capacity. Despite the incessant, depressing monotony of him walking in on you after work. Rehearsing your atrocious, unfunny, amorphous, sorry excuse for a so-called stand-up comedy set list, in front of the mirror again and again.
As you get older, you appreciate the ones that have stayed close to you despite your past efforts to go nuclear on them because they instructively pointed out that you needed to write more jokes because only 10% of them worked during your last bringer show at the Broadway Comedy Club. You appreciate that same tight group of brothers, that howled with sheer laugher from a new set of different material at the Broadway Comedy Club at a friend’s bachelor bad in Chicago only one year later. Of course, the bottles of Grey Goose helped.
Look, I’m not saying that you have to be a narcissistic prick with creative ambitions to truly appreciate the real friends that have stuck with you. Despite your scattered, ultra-defensive, scathing responses to anything less than glowing feedback to everything you produce.
What I’m saying, is that when you have kids, your real friends will let you know that they’re excited for more mutations of you. The friend they’ve remained committed to loving before you got married, had kids and fell off the heavily lubricated social grid of yesteryear.
Look, all of our friends have limitations or mini failings, some bigger than most. But having kids is always a big deal, especially when you’ve known that friend for 20 years longer than your latest offspring creation. Especially, when you remember pounding Zima’s to Offspring at some dumpy townie bar with those friends, during your high school, trying to kiss a girl for the 1st time years. That’s a living, breathing history that you’ve shared together. How can you not get sentimental over those pivotal bonding moments? That helped cement those iron clad grips of friendship, before having kids f-upped the party for good. While your steady stream of new baby pictures managed to rob whatever sexy allure and rocking vibe your friends Facebook feeds used to offer.
So what’s better friends or kids? Kids are great and I love to hang with my new crew. Still, a friend that you have a history with has a special grasp on your heart to. And to hear those friends derive pleasure from news of more kid manifestations of you is priceless. It proves that they loved the original you, warts and all. That’s how you pass the friendship litmus test. These friends of mine, make my heart soar. Life is too short to spend your free time with bummer bores. Or with a Dad that acts like visiting twice a year to see his grandchildren is a chore.
By,
Josh Kornbluth
