A Typology of a Typical Friends’ Group.
Holy Chalupas! Today is Friendship Day, the day dedicated to all people who have suffered through common miseries together, such as school, college, university, tyrannical teacher, breakups, boring university town, a hostel that doesn’t sleep, a mess that doesn’t serve edible food. You name it.
In the past years, I started categorising my friends in my mind to understand how best to deal with them. I developed a very detailed typology which, funnily will be applicable to all friends’ groups. So let me present the major types, the types that you should deffo not meddle with.
𝙇𝙚 𝙘𝙝é𝙛: It’s the one guy in the group who has assigned himself the task of cooking in all parties and feeding meat to the rest. He takes great pride in his meat cooking/ roasting/ barbecuing skills. Now you better not complain about his food ever, even though he might have decided to put eggplant in chicken. Without him, the group runs the risk of starving.
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙣: He will strum at every party few pegs down. He will talk about the birth of metal in Birmingham and he believes that his music is moving your soul, not to mention that he also believes that you are an inferior being coz you do not how metal was born in Birmingham.
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙤𝙨𝙨: Now that’s the person who falls in love so frequently that now the group wonders, if s/he actually loves being in love. S/he watches F.R.I.E.N.D.S. ardently and will take serious offence if you tell him/ her that Seinfeld is much better comedy and F.R.I.E.N.D.S. is a total rip-off of the former.
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙣:This person is a total papillon (French for “butterfly”), is simultaneously a member of several groups and can somehow manage to be in all gatherings looking fresh and pumped. S/he is a an excellent communication channel (albeit unknown) between the groups and the only thing you can do is wonder, how does this person ever manage time!
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙔𝙤𝙙𝙖: There is invariably one person in every group in whom, nobody has every witnessed any fluctuation in mood. S/he is steady, calm, smiling and never engaged in any skirmishes between the other members. Sometimes, Yoda gives the feels that s/he is from parallel universe.
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙧: Now that’s the guy who somehow assumes that he has attained a higher level of wisdom because of his “difficult life” and can advise and bring peace in anyone’s life. The advice can be complete gibberish and highly inspired from movies like The Godfather or The Shawshank Redemption. But somehow, where the collective wisdom of the group is itself limited, the rainmaker eventually manages to keep everyone at peace. Especially the heartbroken ones.
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧: This person is pure love! Ready for every outing. Fine with any restaurant, any cuisine, any travel itinerary, any travel mate. This person is the potato of North Europe and tomato of South Europe. Blends everywhere!
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙩: It will amaze you how much world knowledge a desktop job and a guy with a boring life can have. This person knows every damn thing on earth. S/he has been reading alternate news at work, YouTube comments and even Reddit threads. There is no end to this person’s out-of-work knowledge and drunk discussions. Brace yourself!
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚: S/he comes to parties from a racketball game and asks to replace rice with quinoa. And then drinks 8 beers. Yep!
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙅𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙎𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙚𝙡𝙙: This person is a wisecrack and makes situational jokes on everything, even the current tragedies of the other peeps. And somehow nobody takes offence. S/he is the heart of the group. The laughter generating AI. Jerry is amazing.
So, here goes the rich categorisation that I have constructed of my friends. I should have been making a different categorisation for my research. But hey! It’s Friendship Day. Everybody is having some form of shake and some for of pizza. And PhDs also deserve to have fun.
𝐻𝒶𝓅𝓅𝓎 𝐹𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓃𝒹𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓅 𝒟𝒶𝓎!
-Prarthana Majumdar
Co-founder, Dzukou
