My girlfriend's friends aren't forest creatures who speak in a series of clicks and whistles. They're English-speaking humans, and none of them have a deep, mystical bond with trees. Though there are two vegetarians, so close enough. At first, talking to them was more about listening than speaking. One of the big things that separates different cliques is cultural reference points, which, as I wrote about here, are a language unto themselves. If I say, "I am the one who knocks!" to someone who's never seen Breaking Bad, they'll assume I chose a weird way to open up discussion about my career as a pizza-delivery guy. So the first step was shutting up and soaking in who they are through their collective likes and dislikes.

From there, it became a matter of hoping I'm familiar with whatever these people are into so we can have some common ground. If I can't connect with anything, I'm potentially looking at a lifetime of shitty barbecues. If it turns out they're super into dog-fighting, I'm going to have to find a way to deal with that, and that sucks very much.

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Aerial dog-fighting. Did I forget to mention they're World War II fighter pilots?

Thankfully for me, her friends do not place bets on canine survival odds at their local bloody pit lined with cinder blocks. They enjoy things I like and know how to talk about. Arrested Development? I speak Arrested Development fluently. Overspending during Steam sales? I can speak that in all of its regional dialects. Wildly complicated European board games? Don't speak a word of it, but I'm open.

But then there was something I couldn't connect with: hummus. There was a lot of hummus.

I had never thought much of the khaki-colored chickpea mush. I always felt like it was better suited as an industrial adhesive. But I had to learn to accept this as an official "thing" of theirs. "Things" are a shortcut into good graces. They can just as easily be a sink hole to Hell. Their "things" are the greatest hits of who they are. Don't like one? That's a huge chunk of their long-standing group dynamic you recoil from like it's a pungent fart.

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"No! Please! No more Star Trek references!"

Worse comes to worst, fake it 'til you make it. But you're with your boyfriend or girlfriend because you've got a shit-ton in common; for the most part their friends will be in possession of at least a few nuggets off that ton of shit.

This good intention has a downside. The more I discovered about her friends, the more I couldn't resist the temptation to start ...

It wasn't until I gained dual citizenship in two circles of friends that I realized my friends, the ones I've had for years, are assholes. That's the way we like it. We're not gift-givers. We're not even ones to acknowledge each other's birthdays beyond a belated happy birthday text a few days later. My friendships burn low but far, like an ion thruster.

NASA
"Friendship Thrusters, Engage!"

Being in that friend-scape for so long, I assumed every group of friends was that way. My circle and our antics became my definition of how friendships are and should be. We are a stereotypical group of men: Empathy and sentimentality toward each other is inversely proportional to our high levels of cynicism and sarcasm. We've come to view that as a trademark of our crew. If we had a secret handshake that perfectly expressed who we are, it would be a series of mumbles and stern middle fingers. That's how I assumed everyone else was.

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"Greetings!"

Her friends are generous. They're thoughtful. They buy each other gifts, even when the gift-receiver doesn't have a birthday in sight for months. They're really nice people. It's kind of creepy, actually -- like they have a hidden agenda I'll discover soon after they try to murder me in a way that makes it look like a suicide. Even still, it's inescapable: What they have in kindness they lack in history with me. I'd get lost in the shuffle of their conversations, buried beneath piles of nostalgia. I had to try ...

The only thing left is to reminisce about all the crazy shit that used to happen. One guy swung from a chandelier. Another shat in a piano and then played it immaculately. Someone else fucked everyone in attendance to completion in seven minutes and all agreed he was a decent lay for four of them. By all accounts, this was the friendship to end all friendships, and you're showing up right around when everyone's starting to look back with fondness for the days when they really had fun.

Tossing around names of people I'll never meet, but maybe that's good because, according to everyone, they were a stupid cunt who should die. Tales of the time they'd waste after school, the teachers they hated, the adventures they had, the weirdos they knew. It's like sitting in on a bunch of World War II vets shooting the shit about the war years, but instead of a war it's sixth-period English.

To the new group, I am their present and, potentially, their future. But I don't fit into their past. When people start hitting their mid- to late-20s and real life truly starts kicking in, they pine for the days when they didn't care about anything other than hanging out with their friends.

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And their friends' genitals.

It's useless, though. There's no escaping the vortex of nostalgia talk. Well, I guess you could get close to them over years, experience things that makes you all grow closer, put in all the time and energy involved with being a trusted friend, and then, years later, ask them if they remember that one weird guy with the twitch from that party nine years ago and how strangely he pronounced "vagina" (it was "FAaao-China"). Or, you can just sit there pretending the rug pattern really is as interesting as you're making it seem. Your call.

If things are getting desperate waiting for your (hopefully) inevitable friendship breakthrough, you only have to do one thing to keep yourself in the game ...

Faking it is a placeholder. It's saying, "This noise supplants understanding what the hell is going on right now." If I don't do it, the actual look on my face would be the same one people make when they're trying to solve the murder in Clue.

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"One -- or all -- of you are actively trying to murder this conversation with shitty jokes."

It's through this that I finally learned what it means when people say laughter is subjective. If you laugh at something and I don't, getting to know you can eventually broaden my perspective to the point of maybe, possibly, one day understanding why you laughed, maybe even laughing at it too. But until that day of enlightenment arrives, keep fake laughing until you're wondering if you have enough humanity left in you to experience real laughter anymore.

Luis is currently living as one of many stolen identities as he infiltrates cliques across America. Meanwhile, you can find him on Twitter and Tumblr.

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