The Structure of Interpersonal Relationships as Basis for Society

On Earth you can't just walk up to anyone and go, “Hi! You wanna play?” That's actually the worst way to find someone to play with. Earthlings are weird about doing something just because they flat out enjoy it. Laughter must be balanced with at least ten times as much not-laughter, which must be why if word gets out that you want to laugh and play right off the bat they think something is wrong with you. They won't play with strangers; you have to be friends first.

And Earthling friendships require an unbelievable amount of time and memory. I've never been able to maintain much more than one friendship for any length of time.

Here's just some of the things you need to know when you have an Earthling friend

Name - First and Last

There are suffixes you can add to a friend's name to indicate you think of them as a friend: -ster, -arino, -man, -san. You can also rhyme their name with another noun to give them a “nickname”. “Stan the Man” (common), “Larry the Cherry” (unattested). Generally, the more you abbreviate a friend's name, the closer you are, ie. Robert – Rob – Roh – R. If you can get a friend's name down to a glottal stop, you've peeked.

Means of Income

Enjoy? (Hint: Most don't)

Approximate Age (Hint: Always guess low and be surprised to find out it's higher)

Married? Dating? Divorced? Cause of Divorce/Death?

Name of partner and its means of income, if any

How well they get along with partner (Usually, they just had a fight)

If separated from partner, reason for separation. (Hint: It's always the partner's fault.)

Sexual Preferences

The greater the friendship, the greater the detail

(Note: never GUESS that they are gay. And never ask. You HAVE to deduce this from context.)

Names of Parents & Siblings

Are they living or dead?

Get along with? (See: Offspring. It's the same, only in reverse.)

Name(s) of offspring & approximate age(s)

How are they doing is school?

Are they sexually active yet? (find out their ages before asking this.)

How do they get along with each other/parents? (Hint: This will deteriorate as they get older then reverse itself.)

Names of other friends

Favorite music (Usually whatever they listened to in high school)

Pet peeves

Who do they like?

Who do they hate, even if for no reason? (You have to hate them, too.)

And there's a lot more. A real lot. All of this must be kept in easy reach at all times. No you can't write it down. If you do write it down, you can't refer to your notes during encounters.

The amazing thing is how adept Earthlings are at juggling this information. I've seen them hang out with as many as ten friends at once, and keep it all straight.

Another thing about friendships is you have to be proactive. All the time you have to be calling, returning the calls of, writing, thinking about, considering the feelings of, and whatever-ing your friends. It's a major pain. And if you're out somewhere and you run into a friend, only it's been a while, and you never returned those calls, forget it. It's worse than starting from zero. Especially if you can't come up with an on-the-spot-good excuse why you didn't call back. (Note: “Didn't feel like it” and “Had nothing really to say to you” are not on-the-spot-good excuses. The truth is usually a bad idea here.*)

All the rules are another thing.

Here's just one of the rules you have to try to remember: Say they invite you over to share a meal. And you know you should bring something just to be nice. So you ask them what you should bring. They tell you not to bring anything. You insist you should bring something. They say, no, no, they have too much food as it is. Bring nothing. So you bring nothing. Therefore, they will never ask you over again.

Another one is which of the Earthlings of the other sex you can talk to. You need a flowchart to keep that straight.

And without warning the rules can change. There was a time in my life here when I could sit on a couch and go poo. They even gave me special pants to wear for it. Now? Nope. Even your family might not forgive you for getting that one wrong. And I'm not even sure when the change took place. Just one day, they stopped putting the special pants on me. And I was supposed to know.

Eye contact

Oh, my god, eye contact. I swear I'll never get that one right. There is a fraction of a nanosecond's difference between too much, too little, and just right. And it varies by situation. What's right on a date is really wrong at the gym. I almost have had to have sex so many times because of it. So mostly I don't make eye contact. And I don't have a lot of Earthling friends. It's too complicated.

You have to care too, even when it's not fun. Like when they're sick or depressed.

“You're sick? Well, could you tell me about it from over there? Because I really don't appreciate you breathing on me right now. Yes, I care. But a real friend wouldn't breath on another friend when he's sick. It's just courtesy.”

OR: “You feel sad? Is it the same cause as yesterday? Because, if it is, I think you exhausted all the info I needed then. You're mom died, right? Yes, we talked about it. You're sad. I told you I was sad for you. After that, there really isn't a lot to talk about and I've got a lawn to mow. Let me know when you feel better and we can play again.” (These are what not to say. Honesty – again – not the best course of action.)

To help, there are boilerplate phrases you can memorize for initiating conversation:

“Great minds think alike.” (Upon encountering a friend in the bathroom.)

“Hey, look what the cat dragged in.” (Upon a friend entering you presence.)

“Ut. There he is.” (See above.)

“S'up?”

“Working hard or hardly working?” (At work.)

“Can't complain. They won't do anything anyway.” (In reference to work)

“Did you watch the [team name] last night?” (I'll have to get into sports in another report.)

Subjects It Really Helps To Know Something About - Men

Cars

Basic Carpentry/Masonry/Wiring

All Major Sports (Watching)

Becalming Women

Jokes

Yard Work

Small Engine Repair

How large that woman's breasts are

Farts

Subjects It Really Helps To Know Something About – Women

Clothes

Being The Responsible One

Something You Read

Feelings

Childcare Philosophies

What Another Friend Did In A Similar Situation

Meal Prep

Stain Removal

Subjects It Doesn't Help At All To Know Something About,
& I'm Coming To Think Are Detrimental

Linguistics

Byzantine Empire (even knowing it existed, let alone that it was the eastern Roman Empire)

Anthropology

Evolution

Any History Other Than War Own Nation Was Involved In

The Historical Jesus

Particle Physics

Astronomy

Any Science, Really

Neurology, Say

And I could go on all night.

Observer003 - Earthlings

*”Here” being this situation. Come to think of it, though, this also applies to Earth in general.