The price of friendship

So for all you regular readers it will come as no surprise to you that 1. I am extremely keen on ALL of my friends (no jealousy please there is far more more than enough of me to go around especially after a recent gorge is Za Za Bazaar, if anything there is is a little too much of me.) And 2. I am extremely poor (probably not as poor as the man who sells Banksy cards outside Bunker in the early hours but still pretty penniless.)

(This picture does not do Za Za any justice, I literally nearly burst into tears with pure greedy joy)

You will also know that I take after my far too over enthusiastic mother in the way that I can literally not say no to anything, I am a yes man. My mother recently perked up with the fact that yes, yet again she was going to have to produce props for our local village play within a week. Did either of us say no? Of course not so rather than spending the last week of my festive period (I am not referring to a christmassy menstrual cycle, sorry that was pretty revolting but the joke was just there ya know?) drinking silly amounts of wine and drunk texting my Bristolians (this auto corrected to Brazilians that would be more interesting) I would in fact be constructing a cauldron out of an olive barrel.


It is on my recent arrival back at uni and a stolen idea from Grazia later that I realise that in fact being a yes man and a good friend does not always mix and gel and it becomes very hard to be both and sometimes even to be either.


According to this rather interesting and particularly useful article we spend on average £11,395 a year on our best friend, this obviously does not apply to me who tends to be a bit stingy and if I had that kind of money would definitely not be spending it on silly companionship (Jagermeister should write me a cheque for the amount of jager bombs I've sold for them.) This is obviously a guestimation for the working woman, which, as we recently discussed will soon be us.

(The friendship we wish we could afford)

Does this mean that soon enough I will be up to my neck in debt so I can keep a few chums sweet? Or worse off I wont be able to afford my friends any more? I remember those days when you were little when you could literally sit for hours pissing yourself over bear shaped candle having a bit of wax that dripped to look like a willy (not my story a northern friends), and that with a chocolate biscuit would have been enough to keep you happy for about 6 hours. Whereas now we're far too sophisticated to admit that candle wax willies are funny so we require a glass of wine, or a trip to the Boston tea party rather than name yourself Tapanga and pretending that you are climbing a mountain with a snow monkey (one of my favourite child hood games.)

(The lady on the left is staring into her espresso wondering where her next month's rent is going to come from.)

So my point is it all adds up, and don't get me wrong I love the Boston tea party and drinking wine but when you have quite a few friends and you cant see one and then not the other and you want wine with all of them (and lets face it we do) because you can't say no, then before you know it you're spending money like you're Richard Branson and the irony is you are in no position to pay your virgin media bill this month.


Everyone always selfishly chooses to have their birthday either in months of October/November or February, even if their birthday is not during these months they some how move them so they are (erhem certain 21st in London.) And because I am so poor from everyone Else's crippling birthdays I am never conveniently away that month in  Cannes and therefore promise to bring back a gift so I tell them I conveniently chose to buy them something like scissors or a pen knife that unfortunately got confiscated on the flight home. So I have to cough up


This was all fine when I was six when everyone was really pleased with like the shietest present like a slinky, or a malfunctioning whoopie cushion, or a pencil case! I mean who on earth ever in their life has sat down and thought to them self, 'you know whats on the top of my list this birthday? a pencil case in the shape of a tiger' no one that's who (though maybe Tracy Beaker she had a pretty deprived child hood so probably fancied herself one.) But people definitely don't want those things anymore and you cant use the excuse 'well my mum picked it out' anymore either. A birthday gift needs to be pretty snazzy and if you're a best friend it needs to mind blowing i.e. Tiffany style.

(We've definitely all had one of these, and look how many there were to choose from! So why was it always the tiger?!)

This is all fine by me because of course the favour will be returned in march for those of us who don't place our birthdays in October, November and February. But when you have quite a few good friends who you really care about then Tiffany's stops becoming your local and you have 0800 OVERDRAFT on speed dial rather than your bestie. This never used to be an issue, I never used to be this popular (there's not a way of me saying that without sounding like the worst person.) Back home home, not uni home but actually home I only have like one friend so she's quite welcome to my money. But in Bristol I have been blessed with many incredible friends so getting gifts can often turn into a game of keeping up with the Joneses.

(This guy has his facebook friends tattooed  to his arm, that's one way to keep track)

And so you end with the lifelong conundrum, live a rich but lonely life (I would use Daniel Radcliffe as an example here because honestly he's not cool enough to be any ones friend but he has some how managed a long term relationship?) or be poor but in good company. Well to end on a completely irrelevant note that proves this whole blog wrong, although I have argued that friendship has its costs, it is priceless.


Bet you feel like you're on a MasterCard advert now 'ey?




And before any of you go to try and kill yourself because of your huge debt here is a reason to stick around a little longer. Some amusing cats, these are all from a website called 'fuck yeah pussy gifs', says a lot about my google searches doesn't it?

We're so kooky here at fashion nerd.