Human Weeding

In an article in NEWSWEEK, I read a blurb about the way nuanced friendships force one to dig deeply inside. I had stumbled onto this truth already; in recent years I had resolved to make a questionnaire with which I would screen potential new friends, because I was weary of the work -- the drain, the pain -- such friendships require. Here are the rudiments of what I'd come up with:

1)    Do you listen to National Public Radio?
2)    How frequently do you attend church?
3)    Do you vote at every opportunity?
4)    Can you defend your voting choices?
5)    Do you smoke?
6)    Do you see yourself caring for friends in nontraditional ways later in life?
7)    Give three adjectives of how your friends would describe you.
8)    Define "friendship."
9)    How often do you see your friends, and in what venues?
10)    Have you, or do you plan, to procreate?
11)    Are you an only child?
12)    What were the circumstances of the last time you were dissatisfied enough to take action?
13)    Do you support the human right of each individual to pick the mate of their choice, and marry that mate?

I figure respondents will need a passing grade of 75% to move to the next level with me. It'll be applied obviously (my preferred method -- for the hardy souls who are flexible and open-minded) or surreptiously over lunch or drinks (for those more soothed by pleasantries and the cloak of civility).

Because it IS harder to find common ground with someone who is not a lot like you. And the adage about "no pain, no gain" is often true about investing in relationships with others not all that similar to ones' self. I will heartily agree that I can learn nothing if I surround myself exclusively with like-minded people.

HOWEVER. That adage diminishes quickly when one allows The Wildly Different into the tender, intimate space of close friendship. I can think too easily of three distinct instances in recent memory where I have failed to protect my Inner Sanctum by failing to filter out the Drama Queen, the Pud, the Smooth Manipulator. So I am instituing the above immediately.

This process won't prevent me from having spirited debates about politics or religion with the dunderhead acquaintances at work. It won't stifle the creative irritation brought on by observing drama at a distance. It WILL stop such insidious behaviours from rooting into my safe space, the haven I should reserve only for the Qualified and Conscientious.