“Bad” is such a grim word to use to describe another person. When people do to us things that we consider bad, does it then follow automatically that they are “bad” people? Not that I don’t have people I have labeled “bad” myself. Perhaps what I don’t have are “bad friends”. Why have bad friends anyway? And how can a person be a “friend” who you call “bad” anyway? So in the place of “bad friends”, I have what I call “friends who are not-so-well-behaved”. “Jungle friends”. Who are these friends that are not-so-well-behaved? They are the friends that you would not be very comfortable introducing to your mum, for example. They are friends that if your mum were visiting you soon, you would warn, not just inform about her impending visit. The idea here is to make them know well in advance that some things will obviously have to change for the duration of her stay. If I tell a friend who is not-so-well-behaved about the impending visit of an important person, I’m in effect warning him to not come visiting me with blood shot eyes and cigarette fumes from a week ago. But on a lighter note, not-so-well-behaved friend is fun and easy to deal with when it is time for food. The problem with most “normal” friends is that when they visit and it’s time for food, they immediately switch to fussing mode. In fact, they now begin to behave like toddlers. At the very least, they have to be convinced to eat; at the very worst –forced. Common decorum demands of most “good friends” that they exercise a certain level of restraint when out visiting. So typically, when you invite a well-behaved friend for lunch, they are likely to start off by dramatically brushing off the proposal, usually backed with such claims as; “I just ate like …now now now!” After stretching your patience (and power of persuasion) to the limit, he may then reluctantly give in to your proposal. Then he will help himself to two slices of Irish potato that you are sure would leave a five year-old’s tummy only half-full. As he pretends to eat, he will still insist on reminding you that he came on a “full tank”. Friends who are not-so-well-behaved are the exact opposite. They know what they want and they go for it. They don’t complicate things, and they go with the flow – whatever flow. When a not-so-well-behaved friend visits and is hungry, he will waste no time in hitting the nail on the head: If he’s really hungry, he will just ask if there is “food”. If he is really, really hungry, he will ask if you have “anything to eat”. But recently, a friend who is not very behaved lived up to the name when he visited while I was away at the shops. In the ten or so minutes it took me to get back, he and his friend had burnt three out of my six Intore cigarettes which I had planned to consume sparingly.
