Senior accounting and finance major
With the end of my college career in sight, I’ve started to take a hard look at my relationships and wonder what’s going to happen to them once I finish college. The more I think about it, the more I come back to a scene in the South Park episode “Canada on Strike.”
The episode discusses three types of relationships : friends, buddies and guys. Together, these categories describe almost all adult relationships.
The first, and most easily explained, relationship is the friend. A friend is someone to hang out with anytime. The question isn’t, “Are you free Friday?,” it’s “What are we doing on Friday?” This can be a conversation between one friend, several friends or a larger group. Friends are the people you always keep around, through thick and thin.
Next are the buddies. Buddies are the people who you don’t see all the time but don’t mind spending time with. They can be a significant other’s friends, people from work, a junior year apartment mate whose statuses you like every once in a while — anyone you’re friendly with but wouldn’t really consider a friend. Buddies are the people who you would call to say, “We haven’t hung out in forever, let’s do something,” but who you’d rarely, if ever, actually make plans with. However, they’re the people you’d buy a drink for if you saw them at the bar or sit next to on a crowded bus. And, of course, they’re the people whose names you sometimes forget — the people who you end up greeting with, “Hey, buddy!”
Last but not least is the guy. A guy (gender neutral here) is someone who you would never spend time with nor really talk to — unless you need something. You could have a tax guy, a plumber guy, a graduate school applications guy, a public-transportation in the Midwest guy — a guy for every need. You’ll say hi to a guy when you see him or her, but you’ll never go out of your way to do it — unless your sister is looking for a new car or your roommate needs a recommendation for a new doctor. Guys are the people who you stay in contact with for your mutual benefit — after all, you’re their guy for something too — but who you wouldn’t ever talk to otherwise.
It’s important to keep track of your friends, buddies and guys and make sure you’re not your friend’s buddy or your guy’s friend. Otherwise, things can get very awkward. In a perfectly ordered world, every relationship type would be mutual; in reality, it’s never that easy. Only by keeping track of your friends, buddies and guys can you hope to catch a situation before it gets too awkward.
Friends, buddies and guys are most of the relationships you’ll have as an adult, but there is one final category: family. Family is more than can be described in words; it’s the people you always have around, who you come home to every night and always have in your mind. They’re the people you make all your most treasured memories with, who you make silly inside jokes with. They’re the people who would be the main characters in your sitcom. Family is so much more than any simple category could describe — and way more important than any friend, buddy or guy.
Friends, buddies, guys and family — these are what you have to look forward to as you get older. The list of who falls in each category might change, but as long as you keep track of everyone, you’ll never have trouble managing all of the relationships you’ll make as an adult.
Ezra Fishman is a senior accounting and finance major. He can be reached at efishmandbk@gmail.com.
