A friend indeed...

Dear Diary,

What does it take to make a new friend? Sure, you can just walk up to someone and extend a hand and hope they'll shake it. But what's wrong with just asking for their telephone number from a mutual acquaintance, and then calling them up out of the blue. I like this better because if the conversation isn't going where I think it should, it gives me the freedom to just hang up on them without telling them who I am. If they see my number on their call display and call back, I'll just tell them that it was my little brother and that he's really lonely and desperate right now to make friends and that the caller should just have a heart, and then I'll slam the phone down again.

This gives me a nice opportunity to call this person back and apologize for slamming the phone down on him/her and then appearing like a decent, coherent person - someone they may want to have coffee with. If, once I meet this person for coffee and they don't look right that day, or I just thought they looked cooler the first time I ever saw them, I'll just introduce myself as my little brother and tell them that "Eric" (the real me) fell ill and that he won't be able to meet them, or call them up, or anything, for a long, long time. If I think the person is good looking enough to be seen with me in a coffee shop, I'll sit down, and fire off these five questions in quick succession:

1. How many times do you plan on attending "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"?

2. How far would you go to get "Andromeda" back on the air?

3. Will Canada's Next Top Model really become Canada's Next Top Model? Will she even be employ-able?

4. Why are all the people from "Survivor" on a pirate ship this summer? What the hell happened?

5. Should we expect the new iPhone to be able to turn on our oven at home while we are away, and do it when it wants to, even though we don't want it to, like when we are a vacation and not enjoying ourselves because we falsely believe that we may have left the oven on back at home?

If I am not satisfied with their responses, I will stand, act like I really like them, shake their hand, promise to call them back, but that I just have to go to the washroom for a minute, and then I'll run out and then down the street as fast as my feet will take me, and then change my phone number, identity and hair color. I've done it before.