there are two types of people in this world….those felt that omar was easily the most implausible, most annoying, and least compelling character on “the wire”, and necrophiliacs. there’s no grey area, and where you fit in either of those categories will basically…wait. i’m sorry. wrong topic. lets start again.

there are two types of people in this world….those who are friends with ex-lovers (“fexes”), and those who aren’t. with the exception of dissimilar libido, this may be the most consistently underrated cause of relationship disharmony. diametrically opposed to each other, each camp feels as if the other is being unreasonable, and each camp has a justifiable argument. today, in true vsb.com fashion, we’ll examine each mindset, and hopefully come up with some sort of a resolution

***tale of the tape***

the basic premise

fexes: “i mean, if we were cool beforehand and the relationship ended on mutually cordial terms, i don’t see any reason why we can’t stay cool”

the aren’ts: “for the life of me i dont understand why anybody would want to stay cool with someone they used to fu-k, unless they still planned on f-cking in the future.”

the respect factor

fexes: “its mad disrespectful to tell me who i can and can’t be friends with”

the aren’ts: “its mad disrespectful for you to expect me to be cool with the fact that your *borders buddy* used to blow your back out on the reg”

the trust factor

fexes: “what…you dont trust me??”

the aren’ts “its not about trusting you. it’s her scandalous a-s that i don’t trust”

***btw, this makes absolutely no sense to me. you can’t qualify trust. if you truly trust someone, then you’ll trust them around people you think are untrustworthy. why? because you trust them. if you don’t trust them around untrustworthy people, then you DONT trust them. why don’t people understand this?***

the violin (the go to “guilt trip” move)

fexes: “why are you putting me in this position?? of course i’d choose you, but why are you even making me make that choice when you don’t have to??”

the aren’ts: “i guess you value her friendship over our relationship”

the verdict

although i’ve come to understand the justification behind the thought process of the “aren’ts”, i remain a member of the “fexes” camp. if you trust your mate, then it shouldn’t matter who he happens to be friends with. if you dont trust em…you shouldn”t be with em anyway.

honestly, though, my membership is somewhat conditional. basically, if she’s had strong enough feelings about the dude at one point to admit something along the lines of “you know, i honestly considered killing him and his entire family at one point. i was ready to do the jail time and everything, but I managed to get past that and we’re great friends now” while sober, then maybe a red flag or ten might pop up. other than that…i could honestly care less.

how about you?

—the champ

five reasons why truly platonic friendships can never exist.

1. Unless online or in college (two paradoxical universes where the usual rules and regulations of social discourse are thrown out of the window, like mop water and caustic midgets) men and women don’t actively seek friends of the opposite sex.

2. If given the opportunity, most men who aren’t in a committed and monogamous romantic relationship will sleep with pretty much any reasonably attractive woman. Yes, any. We may not actively want to, but, in the right situation, we happily would. That pesky “would” kind of has a way of always completely contradicting the whole platonic thing.

“Well, what if the guy harbors absolutely no physical attraction at all towards the woman, and vice versa? A platonic friendship can occur then, right” I hear you asking, which leads us to…

3. No unattached man is going to willingly spend a good amount of his free time with a like-aged woman he is completely unattracted to. It will never happen, a fact which actually “fits”, especially when you consider that…

4. …A women (notice I didn’t use any qualifiers such as “most women” or “a typical woman”) would get extremely (read: EXTREMELY) frustrated and annoyed if made to interact regularly with a guy who found her completely unattractive. Don’t argue this. It’s science.

“Well…” the same imaginary anonymous questioner from before asks…
“…what if you have a man and a woman who are both already in romantic relationships? Why can’t a platonic friendship occur then?”

Since I’ve already established that we don’t actively seek opposite sex friends while we’re single, the only way two people in separate romantic relationships can become truly platonic friends would be if they happened to first meet each other after they both were already in the relationship, an impossibility due to the fact that…

5. …No man or woman is going to be okay with their significant other making new close friends of the opposite sex.

Note, I didn’t say you couldn’t have close like-aged friends of the opposite sex, but just don’t call that shit platonic. it’s not, and will never be.

Now, you may disagree with some (or all) of what I’ve said, but, to quote my favorite reptilian drug kingpin, Marlo Stanfield …. “You want it to be one way….but it’s the other way”

**the champ finishes his snicker and slowly climbs into a ford excursion driven by a very unkempt panama, who glares ominously at the imaginary anonymous questioner as they drive away**

–the champ