There are two kinds of people. Okay, so there are lots of kinds of people but for the sake of my point, there are two. People who are fiercely loyal and those who put more of a premium on pragmatism and what is right and wrong. If I had a dime for everytime I’ve found myself at this horrible juncture where I needed to go with one or the other, I’d pay myself to never use this phrase again.

So my dear friends I’ve decided to weigh the odds and lay this conundrum to rest once and for all. No matter how long it takes me and by that I mean till my lunch arrives.

So Loyal Lap Dog versus Champion Of The Truth. 

Loyal Lap Dog

This means you stand up for your friends no matter what, even if they’re dead wrong. Reason, intelligence and your convent school education take a back seat and blind loyalty takes over.

Pros

Your friends will love you. You’ll be ‘best friend’, even. There will be tears of realisation that there’s noone else they’d rather have in their corner than you.

You will wake up feeling worthy and congratulate yourself again and again for your balls of steel.

You will convince yourself that were it the other way around, said friend would do the same for you.

“That’s what friends are for” will now assume a whole new meaning in your life and as a sub thought you’ll wonder very much if you could pull off Dione Warwick’s helmet hair today (the answer is ‘no’).

Cons

You will have made enemies with the other party, so you can perish all hopes of ever asking them for favours.

Said enemy and all her minions, once over and twice removed, will now refer to you as your friend’s ‘biatch’ and make barking sounds whenever you walk by.

Defended friend might turn around and let loose a spirited spiel on how she can fight her own battles and you never just let her live and be her own person (eugh).

You will give yourself a sound talking to in the mirror, present your case to yourself and then proceed to disagree with you.

You will Simon-&-Grafunkel yourself into a whirlpool of self pity and then drown in it over and over again.

Champion Of The Truth

This means you stick to what you actually think is right while pandering slightly to your friend’s bruised ego and at the same time trying not to look directly at her and into her mouth that is decidedly ‘O’ shaped, right now.

Pros

You’ve done well by Sister Peter, your fourth standard Value Ed teacher.

Your Mum has never been more proud of you. Never, except for the time you told everyone that whore Mrs. Mishra’s daughter had a substance abuse problem. That she’s two years old is irrelevant.

You feel happy that you and your friend have a nice mature relationship in which neither of you have to patronise each other.

You shove the extra syllable ‘woo’ before ‘man’ whenever you listen to ‘Measure of a man” now, and contemplate on the freakish similarities between you and Sir Elton John. He wear specs, you wear specs! He likes men, you…

Cons

Your friend will stone you.

If she is Catholic, get ready for one too many Judas Iscariot references.

You now realise that you and your friend do not, in fact, have a nice mature relationship. She actually thinks you’re her ‘biatch’ which kind of defeats the point, really.

You will remember that ‘to have a friend you need to be one’ and realise how empty and meaningless your life is without F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

You will cry for your humanity. After giving it some thought, you will soon realise that you look like an asshole. This will make you cry some more.

You will lose your umbrella. Why? Because the world is just that cruel.

Yeah, this exercise didn’t help me at all. I’m off to take a walk till lunch arrives, this fence is making my ass ache.