The One Where I Don't Have Any Friends

I wish I had a friend.

Just one. An amigo to cruise bars with, to frolic with in meadows, to stand with me when I face my personal El Guapos.

A pal. A chum. A bosom buddy.

I said “bosom.”

I mean, I guess I have a few friends, but none where I live. All the people who can tolerate me in short bursts live about two hours away.

So I sit here most days, alone in my apartment, hugging a pillow and weeping. I watch “The Naked Gun” trilogy alone, and it’s not as funny. I beat the computer at John Madden, and it’s not as much fun as beating my old friends. I drink alone, but George Thorogood’s no fun without friends.

I check my e-mail, and find my only friends are 844Homebiz@drkalv.comt, who is enough a pal to help me makeANDsaveM:ONEY; and Roger, who has heroicDealsOnDrugs!; and (I swear this was in my inbox today) HomeOfTheWhopper, who promises to “Supersize your fry.”

I moved to Indiana last year to be closer to home. As often as people come visit me, I might as well have stayed in Mississippi. The only person who has walked this way is my friend Travis; everyone else says they’re too worn out after work to make the trip. They all have friends 10 minutes away.

And it’s hard to make friends in a new town. When you’re my age, you either have to find a single dude who likes to play video games and drink to country music without thinking he’s wasting his life, or you have to find a married couple that you can watch interact without wanting to gouge your eyes out with a spork.

You have to find someone that’s not too lame, and not obviously too good for you, so they don’t tell you they’d love to hang out, but they’ve got to organize the sock drawer.

That’s too much pressure. So when people from work are having a clambake, and they ask me to attend, I usually say no and then organize my own sock drawer.

I e-mailed my friend Erica, who works in Elizabethtown, about how nobody likes me. It went like this:

Me: Nobody here likes me. They think I'm lazy.
Erica: Yeah, well, nobody here really liked you either. And you are lazy. Maybe if you actually did something instead of being a big whiner and stopped talking about fantasy football and "Smallville," people would like you. Or you could try doing work instead of sending me e-mails about how no one likes you and everyone thinks you're lazy. At least you have your fiancee.
Jacob: Yeah, but we don't have anything in common.
Erica: Maybe it’s because you don’t like people. You're not going to tell people we're friends are you?

So no one told columnist Jacob Bennett life was gonna be this way (clap clap clap). His job’s a joke, he’s broke, his love life’s DOA. It’s like he’s always stuck in second gear. It hasn’t been his day, his week, his month, or even his year. Be there for him at jacobmbennett@hotmail.com.