Maladicta's stories reminded me
I've never had any particularly intense friendships (at least, not from my point of view), but I have however had people who are friends with me to a much greater extent than I am with them. One such example is a feller whose name I won't mention, as most people will recognise him instantly. I met him at school several years ago, and since we had a fair ammount of common interests and mutual friends, we became friends ourselves. All well and good, you might think.

Well, you'd think wrong. Because Tosser (for that, more often than not, is his name) is one of those people who you can get on fine with in small doses or as part of a group, but if you spend too much time with him, his faults become more and more apparent.

Examples of said faults include;
Instant Chumminess - The ability to treat people you've just met as friends you've known for life. Fine if they feel the same way, but if they don't...
Touchy-Feely Nature - Again, fine if you know the person well, and they're the sort of person who accepts that sort of thing. Jabbing a rancid nail into someone you barely know and saying "Poke" is a bit creepy.
Dubious Personal Hygiene - i.e. He REEKS of just about every unappealing smell imaginable. Combined with Touchy-Feely nature, not good.
Belief that he's always right - He once argued with another friend for about five minutes that cheese doesn't smell. He has also been known to argue with teachers over things, as if the person with the PhD will somehow be proved wrong by the student who hasn't even got his GCSE's yet.
Arrogance - The ammount of people he looks down on continues to astound me. It's one thing if you are actually superior to people, but I've trodden in dogshit that's superior to him.
Inverse Sense of Humor - By which I mean, he'll laugh his enormous arse off at things that barely raise a chuckle from most others, yet when the rest of us find something funny, he will not get the joke at all, and usually take offence.
Hypocritical Nature
Short Temper
Noticable Lack of Common Sense, Worldly Wisdom, etc.

You may ask "So why are you friends with him then?" The answer is, most of the time he's a cheerful, friendly bloke, and on their own his faults are tolerable. The problem is that while I could spend an hour or so with him, provided I then have some time to recover, once he decides he wants to spend time with someone, he's like a guided missile, albiet a rather large and slow one.

Many's the time I've staggered sleepily from my college room (yup, couldn't escape him even at uni) to find him sitting in the kitchen waiting for me so we can go to breakfast together. He then takes it upon himself to follow whoever he's attached himself to for the day around wherever they go, be it down into Canterbury for shopping, to the library to pick up a book, on one occasion out to lunch with my family. He's turned down offers of social gatherings, only to change his mind once he heard I'd be going too, much to my dismay.

Usually as he follows people he will complain that what they're doing isn't exactly to his liking, but won't take the hint to go away and do what he wants to by himself.

The main problem is that, irritating as he can be, he can't take a hint, and the only way to get it through to him that he's getting on your nerves is to yell at him, which nobody (not even me, irritable and heartless as I am sometimes) can bring themselves to do as it would be like booting a puppy in the face.

Apologies for excessive length (wahey!), but once I get ranting it's hard to stop me. Blame the qotw for getting me started, and blame Tosser for being so unbearable.
(Uncle Comrade, Tue 1 Aug 2006, 15:41, Reply)