Are you man enough to be friends with extraordinary people?

Roomy Smaggle had a bad weekend. She has a friend, lets call her Tina who invited Roomy out to be her wing woman*. The object of Tina’s affection accidently fell for Roomy and told Tina so. Ouch. Poor Tina. Or so we thought…

A few evenings later Roomy and Tina went out for a debrief in which Tina literally tore Roomy to shreds. Obviously she couldn’t attack her for stealing the affections of her intended. It was an accident. With the wounds still raw and no logical reason to hate Roomy she attacked her in every other way. She launched this tirade of negativity about Roomy’s life, job, integrity, friendships, career aspirations and relationships. Roomy took it all in, didn’t make a fuss and then came home to me in search of an explanation.

I know exactly what happened. Roomy is spectacular. She is a physically gorgeous German/Japanese mix, with the fastest metabolism I’ve witnessed on a living person. She looks like she spends the better half of everyday doing squats and eating brocolli and I can assure you she does neither. She is also an incredibly talented designer, jeweller and glass artist with enviable knowledge of the history of art. She has amazing dress sense and is literally sex on the dance floor. She has long dark hair, beautiful eyes and skin. She is also the most generous, loving, energetic, positive and life affirming person I’ve ever met. I’m sure Tina felt the same way until the object of her affection jumped on the Celebration of Roomy bandwagon. Then all hell broke loose. Which, unfortunately is not an uncommon response.

In my opinion we should crave extraordinary people in our lives. Surround ourselves with excellence, intelligence and talent so that we are constantly inspired and our souls are fed. This all sounds great in theory but it’s human nature to want what others have that we ourselves are lacking. I find the jealously plague is particularly strong amongst us humans when it comes to natural gifts like physical appearance, talents and inherited wealth. It can create obstacles in the strongest of friendships.

The question is… are you man enough to handle it? Can you be truly, deeply amazingly good friends with spectacular people? I won’t lie to you. It’s not easy getting up at 6am to go to the gym and have Roomy wander into the lounge room in tiny shorts sporting perfectly firm thighs and devouring her standard breakfast of Tim Tams and Doritos. Want to know what I do? I tell her to shove it. The sore spot is out in the open and there is never an opportunity for my jealously to become mis-directed and turn into something it’s not. Hating her for something that is out of her control is not okay. Telling her is what makes it all better so the jealousy doesn’t bubble away inside me and come out in the form of ‘Actually that guy is out of your league… I think it’s because your hair sucks’.

I have a friend at school who has a really average boyfriend. Like Aldi kind of average. She is incredible so I don’t really understand the connection… but I can’t help but think that she dates people like this on purpose. So she is always the amazing one in the relationship. The thought of that terrifies me. Imagine marrying someone dull simply because you need to win the popularity contest all the time? The same applies to friendships. Why would you surround yourself with average people because spectacular people make you feel inferior?

And that’s what I said to Roomy. I told her it’s hard work being friends with her because she is so into life all the time she makes other people feel lazy, dull or uninspiring. I told her that people need to be man enough to be friends with her and those are the only people she needs to care about. If Tina had just said that she was sad that her guy liked Roomy everything would have been fine and I guarantee she would have walked away from the situation feeling much better than she did. Instead she chose to go to the dark side leaving them both feeling like crap**.

Basically, if someone has a myriad of natural talents, beauty and perfect comic timing bestowed upon them it’s not their fault. You can be uber lame and cut them out of your life and spend time with people who collect rocks***. Or you can man up… and party with the A team****.

Are you man enough?

Love Lady Smaggle

xxx

* This was a really, really dumb idea. NEVER employ a hot Asian wing woman. The girl is clearly an idiot.

** All is well again with Roomy and Tina. Apologies were made and were graciously accepted. I told you Roomy is awesome.

*** No offense to people who collect rocks. I was merely using the term as a flowery throw away line.

**** Unless they are total knobs in which case you’re better off with the rock collector.