Rules for Being a Background Friend: A Comprehensive Guide

Rule Number Eleven: Just Keep Giving

There are many tricks background friends try in order to gain social status and move up to a supporting or lead role. You might pull stunts for attention. You might try being the dependable one - always there for your friends, ready to drop everything at a moment's notice for them. You might make it a habit never to say no (even if you really should. You might buy gifts for people all the time. In a lot of cases, what it really boils down to is, you just keep giving.

Trust me, I've been there. I've been at the beck and call of many a crazymaker in my life. I loved doing it, in fact. I thrived on it. Emotional crisis? I'll be right there with cheese fries. Party? Tell me everything I can bring and then some. It made me feel so incredibly needed.

Another thing I've done a lot - I've bought people so many things. I tried really hard to buy friendship. I gave people weirdly big gifts, hoping they would like me more, not realizing exactly how awkward it was. I made up for what I lacked in personality with financial outlays.

You can make some headway following this rule to the letter for as long as possible. People like getting gifts. Crazymakers thrive on having puppets at their beck and call (for more information about this, I suggest reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way). 

Here's the thing about this rule, though:

Eventually, you run out.

You run out of money.

You run out of time.

You run out of energy.

And when that happens, when there's nothing else to give, the people who kept you around only for what you gave will run out on you too.

Until, eventually...