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We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

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Billy Baker

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“In a wonderful essay for -Salon-, the sociologist Lisa Wade wrote that 'to be close friends, men need to be willing to confess their insecurities, to be kind to others, have empathy and sometimes sacrifice their own self-interest. "Real Men," though, are not supposed to do these things. They are supposed to be self-interested, competitive, non-emotional, strong (with no insecurities at all), and able to deal with their emotional problems without help. Being a good friend, then, as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly.”

“Just like that, we started to see each other most mornings, which meant we quickly went from two guys who liked each other and kept saying they wanted to hang out to actual full-blown bros. This of course meant that every woman who knew us...was falling over herself to label our relationship a 'bromance.' That's a term that was coined in the nineties by the skateboarding magazine -Big Brother- to describe skaters who spent a ton of time together, but it has morphed into a gentle insult for any guys who dare to get too close. It's not as condescending as 'bros,' and it doesn't cut quite as wrong as being shouted down with 'gaaay.' No, the bromance lived in the category of the oh-aren't-you-cute pat on the head.”

“The distance between us and the maleness of our friendship precluded revealing anything that truly mattered, and at the time I was too naive to know that if you were friends with someone––truly friends––then you told him what was going on ("It's called 'catching up,'" my wife informed me when I asked how it was possible for her to yap with her girlfriends for as long as she did and share every innocuous detail of her life). Instead, I thought that by concisely presenting the most easygoing and put-together version of myself, I was being "all good." Really, I was just fronting. And Rob was doing the same.”

“Most of us acquire and shed fractions of narcissistic traits throughout our lives. The teachings of Jesus help us shed narcissistic traits. It’s part of a natural life cycle. Victims of true narcissists often leave a church, rather than stay to refute the defamatory whispers from overly defensive leadership. True narcissists comprise about 2% of the population. That percentage skyrockets when sampling corporate leaders. Lamentations, pg Intro”

“He and Volnay are two shades of the same color, her deep auburn a complement to his brighter, brasher cinnamon. He has light hazel eyes, squished-up floppy ears, and a large square head atop a body that is built like a little tank. He looks a lot like a miniature orange mastiff. His paws are enormous. Not to mention some other obvious parts of his anatomy. This isn't going to be some elegant little thirty-pound girl. This is a serious BOY dog. And he's going to be HUGE. But he does have the advantage of being a puppy, and all puppies are adorable so that you don't kill them. He's curled up in Benji's arms, licking his ear, and I can't help it, he is pretty goddamned cute. I'm in real trouble.”