Today is my friend Richard’s birthday and I’ve been trying to find a way to return to the series I started on friendships. What better way than to talk about him and the friends I got to know through him?

Richard and I went to the same school for over ten years: middle school for one year, high school for five years and university for just over four years. I didn’t know him in middle school, and didn’t talk to him much in highschool. One thing I did know about him was that he was a pretty funny guy. I was in a class or two with him and this boy I was madly in love with, and the two of them used to keep me laughing at their antics all class. Rich is a bit of a cartoonist and he showed off a tiny bit of his ability when he signed my yearbook back in 1997. It was a simple drawing but so many people commented on it and how clever they thought it was:

(What can I say, we were in high school!)

And when my beloved crush commented in my year book, Rich had to ruin it by adding his own commentary to the end of it:

The next year, his drawing got less attention, but probably because it was more of an inside joke:

(Background: I worked at a grocery store called Farm Boy and was constantly made fun of for this by everyone.

Rich’s message: “Farm Boy must die! See ya Jummy. Another victory for sarcasm guy.”)

I didn’t hang out with Rich in university until we were in second year (I believe). We became friends after meeting on the bus. He had these huge headphones on and carried a cd player, his signature look when traveling by bus. After that, we’d hang out every now and then, usually when we’d run into each other on campus. We became e-mail buddies after that. Some awesome and not so awesome things about this time:

• Rich was a prolific emailer (good) and we had some similarities in our home situation and therefore exchanged many emails (also good).
• He was/is fond of “Your Mama” jokes (bad) and I was just horrified (bad) that people liked these jokes so he would purposely send them to me, just to get me riled up. I’m not sure why these jokes affected me so…well, I think it was because I took them to be aimed at my mom and we all know my mom is too cute to ever be the brunt of one of those jokes. I still hate it when he makes a joke about my mom or dad.
• Rich is credited with introducing me to hip hop music (good). I remember he sent me this horrible song (bad), Akinyele’s ‘Put it in your mouth’, and I was horrified yet again (although the song has a good beat!). I was also exposed to other musical artists that he liked that I didn’t (bad).
• I don’t think I’ve ever had an interaction with him where I didn’t laugh at least once (good).

Although we hung out now and then, most of the time, I hung out with Ves, the woman who would later become Richard’s wife, while he hung out with his two friends who he had known since middle school. Ves and I hung out with a couple of women but they were very studious and my disillusionment with university began around this time and Ves never needed to study much before exams so we were shopping buddies: while our friends would study, we’d go to the nearby mall and hang out. Somehow Rich and I (he’ll no doubt try to take full credit) came up with the brilliant idea of combining our friends and became a group of five—self deprecatingly called the Fab 5. It was great to be part of a guy/girl group. Going to clubs was fun because there was more than one other person to socialize with, and Ves and I never had to worry about having to beat drunk and crazy men off of us with sticks (I would later discover that even at the age of almost 29, this will never be a concern for me). We even tried to be wingmen/women for each other, but that never really worked well. We weren’t just clubbing pals: we met for movies (oh so many movies!) and to watch tv too. We dined out a lot as well, and went for coffee at least as often as we dined out. We spent a lot of time hanging out. Rich usually got stuck driving us around, and he was (is) always good natured about it.

The Fab 5 introduced me to a lot of things: movies that didn’t have happy endings (who knew!), South Park and Walmart (I think). We had a lot of good times, far more than the bad times, although those times are very memorable and definitely had an impact on who I am today.

The Fab 5 structure caused some problems for me, problems I will delve into on another day that isn’t Rich’s birthday. One of the members no longer lives in the city, and the four of us don’t hang out as a group as often as the Fab 5 used to. Instead, I hang out with Rich and Ves at least once a week and these evenings are full of laughs, group counseling (though of late it’s been “Jummy counseling”) and sugar. In my eyes we’ve definitely become a Terrific Threesome, and I love knowing that I can go over to their house when I want to and I’ll always be welcome. Rich and Ves probably know more about me and my family than anyone because they know all the mundane stuff too. I can’t deny that the fact that Richard is extremely whipped easy going and can be easily persuaded to get us ladies tea and refreshments and occasionally look at the tv screen when we ask him what he thinks of the haircut of What Not To Wear’s latest protege makes these evenings that much more pleasant.

It’s hard to put over six years of friendship into one blog entry. In case you can’t quite figure out whether I like this Rich character or not, I’ll end with a list of the things that are pretty swell about Rich:

• his sense of humour
• the fact that he’s my only (non-Nigerian) friend who can pronounce my name correctly.
• his easy going manner
• the fact that he always thinks of his friends when he’s out and about in the world. If he sees something that he knows I am looking for, he will either buy it or call me and see if I’d like him to buy it for me.
• I can count on him to buy a DQ blizzard if I do (not that I mind eating them alone, mind you!)
• he’s made me laugh so hard I sprayed the rest of the Fab 5 with hot chocolate that was in my mouth (and the friendship didn’t end!)
• he’s a good person.

Happy Birthday, Rich! No more “semi-friends” for us, I think this is the real deal!

Filed under: Friends by jummy