Bromancing the Stone

By Jim Cook

Published: January 11, 2009

At some point, one of your single friends will likely make the horrible mistake of entering into romantic relationship that lasts longer than a night at Cowboys, a trip to the convenience store bathroom dispensary and (if his pockets are fat) Waffle House in the morning.

While you should be happy that your friend has found someone with whom he can enjoy the bliss of weight gain, bickering about nonsensical issues and subtle emotional manipulation, let’s face it, this is totally going to interfere with 12-hour XBox marathon night.

Of course, any new significant other will automatically hate the best friend. It’s one of the rules of the universe. Sitcoms and one-star comedy films couldn’t function without it.

Your friend will, of course, try valiantly to adjust his best bro and his girl to one another, pushing you together at parties, putting you on speakerphone so she can talk too when you call, and pointing out commonalities, such as the fact that you both are carbon-based lifeforms or that, oh wow, you both have AB negative blood, how awesome! Unfortunately, this usually works about as well as getting step-siblings to play nice.

Luckily for your bromance, mathematics are on your side. About 50 percentish of marriages end in divorce, and I imagine the split rate for more casual relationships is much higher. There are various subtle things you can do to hasten this process. Don’t think of it so much as meddling, but as mercy killing. Take time to look up any past criminal record she may have. Encourage old girlfriends to give your buddy a call. Meet up with her last boyfriend and stoke the coals of a possible reconciliation. Hire a ninja.

Of course, you must be subtle in these attempts, because adversity can at times push people closer together. Many a botched ninja assassination have brought a couple closer together, it’s better than good communication.

Therefore, perhaps, the best thing for you to do is not regard your friend’s new girlfriend as a deadly tumor that must be excised before it’s too late, but more as a benign cyst that will eventually fall off of its own accord. Soon enough, you and your friend will be back smoking cigars and drinking Scotch on the balcony of your law firm, or nerding out with an all-night Stratego and Risk game-a-palooza.

Now that we’re near the end of this column, I realize its headline has little logical connection to rest of the piece. I feel I should make some reference to Danny DeVito, Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas to tie it all together, but I don’t really feel like making the effort to visit Wikipedia and look up the plot summary for their 1984 comic masterpiece, so I shall leave the next three lines blank so you can fill in your own explanation.

(Sorry about the limited writing area, but space is tight in the Eagle these days. Feel free to scribble in the margins if you need more room.)

Jim Cook, the Lord Byron of Bromance, can be reached at .