Ch 10 Stephanie and I unite against a common enemy

Me: Did you know that Sly and Doris are really annoyed that we are friends? They think we are intellectually incompatible. They sent Primo this super long email complaining about it.

Stephanie: they think I’m stupid?

Me: Yes. And they think I’m stupid. How can we be intellectually incompatible if we’re both stupid?

Stephanis: LOL!

How can you not LOL? We are both stupid intellectually incompatible people.

I might be better educated than Stephanie, but that does not mean I am smarter or nicer or more interesting. It just means I went to college and she didn’t. Big deal.

    I don’t understand the “intellectually compatible” argument as a basis for or a requirement of friendship. If they mean by who’s smarter, well, Primo is a lot smarter than I am but we still like each other and are compatible in many ways.[1] We are incompatible in many ways as well, but none of those ways have to do with intelligence.[2]

Stephanie and I do have a lot in common. We have in common a strong dislike for Sly [3] and for how he and Doris treat people, only Stephanie has to deal with her dislike more than I do because she lives only fifteen minutes from them. I learned in my organizational behavior class the management theory that one of the best ways of bonding people is to unite them against a common enemy. I have discovered in practice that the theory is indeed valid.

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[1] Actually, we are incompatible in almost everything – politics, religion, when we like to eat dinner, what we like to do for fun. Yet we still like each other. It’s mostly because he is so fabulous in bed.

[2] They have everything to do with bedtime. That is what will end our relationship someday: I like to go to bed early and Primo likes to go to bed late.

[3] That is not the only reason I like Stephanie, of course. I like her because she is nice and interesting and gracious and fun.