Going back to the original question about lying to friends.

"What is a true friend?" must first be answered and agreed upon by everybody in a discussion such as this, which of course is impossible. And "Why did I pick this person as a true friend?" must also be answered. I know, picky, picky, detail freak.

We're all lucky if we have one or two actual true friends. I have two, that I have been friends with for 35 and over 40 years (yeah, we're old coots). It would be impossible for me to go into all the things that make these "true" friends, but it is everything from being there at births and weddings and graduations and funerals to just plain old fishing buddies. The thought of any of us actually lying to one another is just too impossible to think about. I don't think the question for this forum is for that deep of a friendship.

That leaves what? Might it be said that the friends in the original question are really more like non-confrontational acquaintances? They may play golf or enjoy a beer after work together. We all have several of those, which I feel is what the article first referenced is about. The article calls them "rhinestones". My two friends are "jewels".

The jewels and rhinestones are treated differently and cannot be in the same conversation. The situation you find yourself in with a rhinestone can have several reasons for little white lies, or lies by omission, or just about anything. There is also "does this friend need to know" something? Is there a "need to know", or are you just being snoopy, or is it none of your business?

My two jewels could walk into the local brewery and see my wife there with some unknown man having a beer and they would just wander over and introduce themselves. Nothing to be sneaky about. My wife will have already told me she was going to meet Joe-Bill-Sam-whomever, anyway, and they know that. My wife is a jewel friendship, too, by the way.

It's having all of those rhinestone friendships and reading them as jewel friendships where problems begin. I think the article was pretty good at making a reader realize what a bunch of soap-opera friendships there are out there.

And, come on, how many of you are truthfully born on January 1st? That was so funny seeing about half of the members born that day! Could it be deduced that if you are born January 1st that you might have some sort of BDSM tendencies? LMAO