We all have our crew of friends that we’ve been tight with forever. And in that group of friends, there are always a couple of dudes who stand out. For the wrong reasons. You don’t love hanging out with them one-on-one. You don’t love inviting them out at all, really. And yet you still do. Because they are impossible to shake. Here are 11 friends we all have but hate.
The Health Nut
When you’re out at the bar, he orders the chips and guacamole, hold the chips. You wake up every Sunday morning to a text of a Fitbit screengrab of his morning run. Whenever you’re out to eat, he will delight in telling you exactly how many calories every dish and drink you order will dump into your lumpy body. It is impossible to make it more than two minutes into a conversation with this guy without finding out what time he was at the gym that morning. Which is a good thing, I guess, because it gives you incentive to stop talking to him in less than two minutes.
The Oversharer
Have you ever had a detailed discussion about gout symptoms and treatments? You have if you’re friends with this guy. He’s also not afraid to group text everyone a photo of his Taco Bell runs before flushing. If he’s married, you have definitely heard graphic stories about his sex life — sometimes at a party at his house when his wife is in the other room. Being open in a friendship is important. Just not this open.
The Friend Who Hits On Waitresses Every Time You Go Out And Thinks They’re Into Him For Real and Not Just Trying To Get A Good Tip
I don’t know what makes me more uncomfortable: the cringe-worthy jokes he keeps telling every time she comes by to check on our order or the grimace on her face as she tries to force a smile through each punchline. If that’s not bad enough, he also hijacks the conversation for the entire night by asking if you saw the way she looked at him that last time she walked away. 100 times out of 100 these nights end with your friend asking for her number when she brings back your change from the check and the waitress politely replying that she has a boyfriend. The walk to the cab after is an awkward combination of everyone pretending they didn’t see that stone cold rejection and your friend pretending to sort through his matches on Tinder. (He’s not even on Tinder.)
The Work Friend Who Doesn’t Understand You’re Really Just Co-workers
Stop texting me on the weekends. Stop asking me out for drinks. Stop suggesting double dates with our girlfriends. We occasionally e-mail each other funny GIFs about Tammy from accounting. That’s where it ends. We have a 9-to-5 relationship. I am not interested in overtime.
The Guy Who Always Drinks A Little Too Much
He was the life of the party in college. He could throw back Jager Bombs faster than you could say, “alcohol poisoning.” Now, ten years later…well, nothing’s changed. When you meet for happy hour, the first hour is great catching up. Then hour two rolls around and you watch as he starts ordering double Jack and Cokes while the rest of the group starts nursing their beers. (It’s also when he makes his standard uncomfortable comment to the one girl in your crew.) Hour three: yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. By hour four, you’re lucky if he’s still wearing pants. And yet, just like in college, you always feel guilty when the gang gets together and you don’t invite him. So you do every time. And you regret it every time.
The Guy Who Just Has To Tell The Last Joke (And It’s Never Funny)
You know the scene: you’re hanging out with your friends, it’s a bunch of dudes just shooting the shit. Someone tells a funny joke, then someone else follows up with a funnier line and so on and so forth until everyone is totally cracking up. Then that one guy pipes up. That one fucking guy. The same guy every time. He jumps in once the laughter dies down, trying to take the joke one step further. Only it’s a terrible addition and now it’s total silence and the vibe has been crushed. But he doesn’t realize he just killed the mood and he will do it again three more times that night. God I hate that guy. (I might be that guy.)
The Friend Who Brings His Girlfriend Out Unannounced To Watch The Game
Look, I like your girlfriend just fine. And I’m not some caveman that thinks girls don’t know how to watch sports. But when I say, “Let’s go watch the game,” that’s an invitation to you, my friend. Not you, the couple. We just had a couples night out last week, and it was a lovely dinner, the wine was great and we had some truly illuminating conversations about what we all binge watch on Netflix. Now I need to drink beers at an accelerated pace and scream profanities at a TV without feeling judged. You think it’s totally fine to bring your woman out with the fellas, but every time, the same thing happens: we all stand around watching you guys get more and more snuggly as the drinks keep flowing until eventually you call her “bae” in front of all of us. That’s not good for anyone.
The Racist Friend
We all have one.
The Guy Who Will Likes Recapping TV Shows and Movies Scene by Scene
This is the only human on earth who can make The Hobbit longer than Peter Jackson. There is no situation where it’s enjoyable to get stuck talking to this friend. If you’re at a crowded party, he will spend the prime of the party — when they’re playing the best music and the most people are there — cornering you to recount the first three episodes of Gotham and convince you why it’s the most underrated show on TV right now. If you’re out to dinner or drinks alone, escape is even more futile. You can try anything — even something as dramatic as pulling out your phone and straight up calling someone — it won’t work. He will get to the post-credits surprise sequence of The Avengers whether you are awake or not.
The Friend Who Keeps Dating Way Under His Age Group And Expecting It To Work Out (It Won’t)
At first, you’re jealous: “Man, here I am locked into a committed relationship with an age appropriate woman and he’s out there taming young strange.” Then you all get together, and his fresh-out-of-college girlfriend spends the whole night trying to rope you into Vines and asking if you saw that hilarious cat GIF post on Buzzfeed. She’s a walking hashtag. Once the sex dies down, the same pattern emerges: your friend and his generationally mismatched partner slowly drift apart until she’s out of his life but not your Facebook feed (she insisted on friending during one of your nights out) and she starts sharing break-up coping articles on Facebook.
The Friend Who Won’t Stop Inviting You To His Shows
Stop with the flyers and the Facebook blasts and the e-mail blasts and the texts and the tweets and the calls and the Snapchats and everything. Just stop. Even if you offer me a ride and a free dinner, I will still say “no” before you even finish your invite. I do not want to see four guys I know from high school plus a 51-year old bassist who doubles as the bar-back blast out Doobie Brothers cover songs on a Tuesday night in front of 7 people (6 of which are your relatives). Same goes for your art gallery installment and your one-man show and your poetry slam. You are too old for this shit and so am I. So stop wasting your time with band practice and start focusing on how you can climb that corporate ladder as an accountant. It’s not nearly as glamorous but it is way more realistic. Plus, you will never invite me to watch you make spreadsheets, and that will be a huge boon for our friendship.
