Why Are Friends So Hard to Come By?

Then there is Stewart.

When we spoke on the phone I felt like I was home. I felt like I was speaking with a real friend…Can I just tell him that? He was awfully quiet on Sunday—even morose. He didn’t say much, but I was gutsy. I left the piano after the sacrament hymn and walked across the congregation to ask if I could sit beside him. He was just sitting there alone. I can’t imagine why no one else would rush to sit beside him.

I am going to be his friend.

I’m going to call him tomorrow and tell him that. I’m going to say, “Stewart, I wish we were friends. I’ve tried making friends for months now and still you’re the only person I've met who is any fun. Why can’t we be friends?”

And he’ll say, “I thought we WERE friends." They always do.

I will roll my eyes, which he will not see, and I will respond hesitantly, “The kind of friends who speaks to each other outside of Sunday School; The kind who support one another, and entertain one another, and know something about one another.”

He’ll pause for a moment, and breath in, as he processes the craziness I've presented. Then he'll answer, “OK?”

And I’ll continue,“But I'm paranoid. You know why I'm paranoid. It’s just that there’s a severe shortage of anyone remotely entertaining around. And it HAS to be a real waste to purposefully ignore anyone you actually get along with, because you don’t find people like that very often--at least I don’t.”

Then the awkward silence that should exist at this point will not exist, because there are no awkward silences with him, and he’ll say, "Let me think about it," and we’ll say our goodbyes, and I will never hear from him again. BUT, at least I will have told him.