If you have ever found yourself outside of your comfort zone in a good way, it is usually with good friends. We have all been there. I can remember the first time I cussed at someone. I was around 10 or 11, and it was a weekend when I could actually have a friend come over. My family moved from the city to the mountains and not everyone was willing to drive up. So this was going to be an exciting weekend. We could stay up super late, drink soda pop, eat candy and popcorn, and the best of all... play Mario Cart on the Nintendo 64!!! At around 2 in the morning, we were coming down from the sugar rush, and I was getting spanked at Mario Cart in my own house on my own N64. I was livid. I remember it clear as day, Travis (the friend) shoots off a red shell, and POW! He coasts by for the win, and I turned my head in super slow motion, eyes ablaze, and proceeded to start calling him the dirtiest of dirty names. The competition only got fiercer thereafter, naturally. Finally my parents woke up at 6 and for those four hours in between I was spoke in nothing but filth.
I find myself in these situations often, not cussing out my friends. I will usually only take things to a place of uneasiness and keep running with it, as long as I have a friend there with me doing the same. For instance, I will often take jokes to an inappropriate place with just friends. If I just met you, don't expect me to start off with the joke about the two gay frogs. Once that person has made the "friend" status, then I push the boundaries. It can be a good thing or a bad thing. Its not just bad if you make the other person uncomfortable and they run away screaming, "I'm not your friend you weirdo!" It is also bad if you are spending time in groups and you are close to a few of them and not so much with the other. The worst however, is when you are with your spouse and you two are hanging out with other married couples for a fun night.
One particular evening, we happen to make plans with two other couples very last minute to have a dessert party. Not really having a plan for the night, other than making brownies and eating them of course, we decided to play some board games. We only played one, and that's all it took. Pictionary has the power to ruin even the best of friends. We also made it worse by splitting up into two teams, men vs. women. Obviously it was the men's idea because it was a stupid idea. After an hour of playing/arguing/cheating, all the women were so wound up because they couldn't believe that they had married the men across the table. All the men of course were laughing at their wives frustration and at how serious the GAME had become.
We decided to take a much needed break. My wife, love her soul, starts to ask all kinds of questions. She turns to the hostess and asks how her and her husband fell in love. I still cannot fatham this answer. The hostess starts by how she persued him and finally got a date with him. They date, they break up and he starts to date another girl. This seems normal so far, right. she proceeds to tell us how for her birthday she invited him and his girlfriend of two years now to the party. They make it to the party and soon thereafter his friend needs a ride somewhere. So in his infinate wisdom he leaves his girlfriend at the party to drop off his this drunken fool. Some where along the way he had some how forgotten that both girls only way 110 pounds, and they had been drinking. Now I am thinking that this story is going to turn for the better and he was going to chime in how his wife was fighting for him back at the party. Nope. He arrives in time to see his girlfriend making out with his now wife! The husband decided to take the story over in this moment to tell us how this make out session was pretty hot and steamy and there were hands grabbing all over. I dang near died out of shear laughter.
After all of the invasive questions of how kissing another woman was like, the converstion evolved. It was no longer just about the one girl she had felt up, but rather how anytime she drinks, girls start to come on to her. Never would I have guested that this lovely, sweet, always appears innocent wife/mother would have been so frisky. This normally wouldn't concern me, however she and my wife happen to go to the same bacheloret party and were were indulging in a few beverages. Luckly my wife isn't the type of gal to hit on drunk married women. How that particular night went will always remind me that friends make for crazy conversation.
