Covering my six, 24/7

The Sunday Times Lifestyle section covered an interesting trend nowadays. Nicole and Celeste Chen, 21 and 17 respectively, have 16000 friends. Each. And that's going by official numbers, unofficially it may be double that. How you may ask? By a very vague, superficial and utterly derogatory definition of the word, friend. Click on friendster, myspace, facebook or any of the other gazillion services available on the World Wide Web, find a handsome/pretty face, then look for the button which says 'add as friend'. Making a friend is as simple as that nowadays, you don't even need to know the person, or have met, spoken, even communicate before. Just add him or her.

I admit I was part of this fad a while back. It certainly seems enticing to have your profile page full of people, and to have hundreds, even thousands of people who 'know' you, makes you feel like a celebrity. You have so many people whom you can call on to hang out with, and those many good-looking people makes you look good by association. But that's where the illusion ends. You really don't know those people, and a good majority will never want to meet you anyway. You only see the public image people want you to see, but never the private person underneath. You might argue the 'body count' matters only for instant gratification purposes, just to feel 'shiok', but then at the end of the day, when you lower the expectations for a friend, then that's what you have left, 16000 faces who only smile for you.

A friendster only smiles for the camera. A friend cries with you, gets angry for or over you, feels for you. A friendster writes a testimonial which lists all your positive points. A friend tells you all about you, good or bad, and still sticks with you, despite the shortcomings, flaws, imperfections. A friendster is displayed on your profile page for the world to see. A friend couldn't care less whether anybody else knows about him or her, as long as he or she is by your side, or your back. And they'll stay there, as long as you do the same for them.

I have this small group of real friends. Maybe even brothers, since we have shed tears, sweat and blood together, and that's even before all of us were sucked into the Big Green Machine. We were together since our secondary school days, where friends are hard to come by and good friends even more so. We went through the same school, ate the same canteen food, suffered through the same camps, slept in the same tents, ogled at the same girls, basically lived through the same school life. But that's where the similarities end, because we dealt with life in our own way. Some of us lived next to MM, own 2 cars, have a bungalow, while others dwell in modest HDB housing. Some were popular with girls, having had 3 or more girlfriends, while others were content to have known any girls at all. Some are destined for greatness, studying in prestigious schools on government scholarships, while others are happy to be in SMU, NUS or NTU. With so many factors in between us, you ask how the hell did we stick together for almost a decade already?

Frankly, I can't explain. This 'band of brothers' wasn't formed by clicking on an 'add' button. Maybe it was those camps where we had to endure. Both the camp, and each other. Endure the cooking without salt, or the loud snore kings, or the sabo kings who almost always accumulate push-ups for us, simply by opening their mouths. Maybe it was the guyz outings. Where we lanned, or watched some movie and utter 'banzai!' or 'ahhooohhh!'(like a wolf, or a Spartan) for weeks after. Maybe it was the scheming. Against 'the man', who insisted on tradition in all that we do and loved to have a Coke can in his hand. Or the plotting of campfires, to flood the Atrium with people and make them cheer and vote for lip-syncing performers. Or planning to go some 'nua' beach in the region, or climb a mountain. There are so many maybes, but most probably we became friends because of everything.

We live through the best and worst of what each one of us had to offer. I know who has the worst smelling feet, who snores loudest, who is afraid of the dark, who has what problems in his life now, who needs to have a girlfriend real soon. Likewise, these guyz know my vulnerabilities, my strengths, my lowest point, my highest point, me. We know each other so that we can cover for each other, hold on tighter when someone falters or close ranks when hardships are abound. It's like the Spartan shield wall, an impregnable wall of shield and spear, made up of the man who stands to your left and right, who will not retreat because you are by their side. They trust you to cover their six, all the time, and they'll do the same for you. So maybe we had the occasional betrayal or pang seh (sorry mew and nick), but when it matters, we'll be there, for each other.

So when you ask me if I'll trade these 10 friends for your 16000, it's like Xerxes offering the world to King Leonidas for his 300. I'll give you the same stoic look, and ask you to take your offer. And shove it.

Don