Sunday, October 17, 2004

Another Fortune Cookie Post

This evening's fortune cookie: "The secret to good friends is no secret to you. Lucky Numbers 1, 6, 13, 19, 30, 44" Hmm... you know, the fortune might have been a little more useful if it actually contained the secret to good friends.

Meanwhile, in Marilyn Vos Savant's column in the generally insipid, right-leaning, status-quo-maintaining Parade magazine, a thirty-one year old loner asks Marilyn what advise she'd give to someone destined to be forever forlorn. (My paraphrasing, not hers.) Marilyn tells her lonesome reader to go out and take a class or volunteer for church or civic organizations; it's a great way to meet people and have some fun. To me, there's an answer that feels hopelessly naive.

And that's coming from a pessimist who's tried both. Because as all us loners know, it's not like we're monkeys during mating season. You can't just hang around others of the same species and let nature take its course. You've gotta be proactive and endearing and a little suave and a little intrusive, qualities that some of us just don't possess. I guess we could learn, though. Maybe Marilyn meant for her reading to take one of those Learning Annex courses about how to make friends.... What a refreshingly self-referential suggestion!

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