There is a tendency among young guys to be burned by the first friends you make. To ensure that we’re not alone with our time, we gravitate toward losers and assholes with no motivating concern for ourselves, some of whom are interested in our money or our swimming pools or our cars or other material possessions which can benefit them.

Not only is this frequent among the young, but it also is apparent in some naive older individuals’ lives. Shallow self-esteem and insufficient life-experience are causes of us putting our lives in the hands of scumbags who don’t deserve the inestimable gift; we are ushered into an age in which betrayal becomes common, snide remarks behind our backs are delivered, and bad shit goes down on a regular basis.

Truth be told, it is better to be alone than to have bad friends. At least if you’re by yourself, you can trust that no evident betrayal will happen. Either we get a good friend or we swim against the current by ourselves, goes the thinking of wise men.

Personally, I’ve never had really terrible friends but I’ve never had really good ones either. They were usually in between, tending toward bad. They were barely good enough to associate with, but not much more beyond that.

Some guys are tempted to make a girlfriend into a convenient “friend.” This is a flawed strategy. Girls’ real interests diverge mightily from guys’, and talking to females can be an excruciating process of listening to the smooth, banal drone of white noise endlessly regurgitating itself. Besides which, girls don’t respect you when you talk to them too much. They are too into the social-mathematical equation that a guy who talks a lot is needy, and needy guys turn them off cold.

The bane of bad friends is carried into the workplace, where real promotions and money are at stake among men competing for the brass ring. At work, you are tempted to confide in your co-worker, but that co-worker may be lurking on the shadowy sidelines waiting for you to make a mistake. In your desperation to have a work social friend, you give up the autonomy that comes from being alone. If you must make a friend at work, choose among the weaker employees, those who definitely pose no threat to you on your climb up the employment ladder. That’s the only way to be sure they can’t drag you down.

Nonetheless, any friend at work is a potential liability and must be considered in that vein. Far better to get out there in the city, at venues like bars and clubs and gyms, and attempt to socialize with those who share similar interests. Who knows what cool guy you will find among the barbells and dumbbells of a down-and-dirty fitness establishment where the regular guys go to work out.