As I mentioned in the other thread, I saw The Hangover: Part II tonight. Which is a little ironic, because I went with my own personal wolfpack. We have a Stu, who is a straight-laced, conservative, kind of nerdy guy who doesn't have any luck with the ladies (for no really good reason). We have an Alan, who tags along but neither one of us can figure out why we let him. He has some biological inability to control his impulses - I'm not kidding about this. You can be at a perfectly nice dinner talking about work and he will suddenly start telling you about the time he fucked a little person he met at Denny's. That is a true story. That makes me, by default, Phil. The fit isn't quite as good, but it's there as I'm the moderate between the other two. This is a classic group formula: you have your id (Alan), your ego (Phil), and your super-ego (Stu). It works in your brain, why shouldn't it work in real life? I have been in another id-ego-super-ego group before, but then I was the super-ego. I guess that means I've loosened up? FOCUS: In your groups of friends, what are your roles? If certain roles are missing, does the group not work as well? ALT FOCUS: Do you and your friends map onto another famous grouping? For example, do you have a skirt chaser, a level-headed guy, a nerd, and a black guy? Then you're the Ghostbusters. And so on.
2 of my buddies and I were talking about going to Vegas after we get back from deployment, and I pointed out that we fit pretty well into the Hangover categories. One dude is a good guy but weird as hell with zero social sense whatsoever, one is basically a complete pussy, and that would leave me as Phil. 3 of my close friends from college who stayed in Boston after school and I fit into the Seinfeld categories as well (this was perhaps a bit forced since myself and the other 2 guys are all obsessive Seinfeld fans). I'm unpredictable and a bit off-the-wall (Kramer), one of the other guys was pretty neurotic and had little self-confidence (George--he isn't like this at all anymore but at the time was still recovering from his breakup with the cheating demon whore from hell), another was pretty much a normal guy (Jerry), and then we had the token chick (which also worked because she was banging, now dating, the "Jerry").
In my senior year of high school, my group of friends decided to do the Spice Girls thing for the talent show and it worked out eerily well. I was Posh, because I was just getting into fashion/dating David Beckham. (Just kidding on that last part, everyone.) Although I used to be Sporty back in the day. My friend who claimed the Sporty role was a little butch, just really getting into working out, and was the only one of us who could sing. My ditzy, airheaded, kinda slutty friend was Baby. My loud, overbearing friend was Ginger. And my black friend was Scary. (We never ended up making it to the talent show because Baby got academic probation and everyone except Sporty lost interest. It was a shame, though, because we were awesome.)
I think everyone thinks that they are the moderate Ego. Everyone thinks they are normal, right? I think that usually I am Phil, but when enough alcohol comes into play, I become Stu. While I tell my best friend and sisters all about my poo, farts, and period blood, I'll start telling people I just met these things when you introduce 5+ glasses of wine.
My group of close friends has two phils, a stu, and some kind of weird stu/phil/allan hybrid. Two of us are a little unpredictable, better with the ladies, and less straightlaced. One of us is responsible, a little nerdy, and generally provides the moderate voice for the group. One of us...life-path wise, he's a stu, and he's awkward around girls, but he loves to cause trouble. And when he's drunk, he turns into an allan. Although when you get the four of us together, and we drink...we turn into the four horsemen. It never goes well.
I have a group of friends who I've known my entire life. If I had to pick a group to compare us to, it would be "Now and Then" (or "The Rugrats, based on looks more than personality. Ex: I'm Chucky because I have red hair. Two of my friends are Phil and Lil because they are twins, etc.) I'm Samantha because I was always writing and had (still have) an unusually large interest in the macabre. My friend Kassey was Roberta because she was a tomboy and was constantly fighting against growing boobs. One of the twins of Chrissy because she was always bitching about getting into trouble and because she was a little chunky. The other twin was Teeny because she was overly dramatic and lost her virginity at the age of 13 in a neighbor's tree house.
My best friend and I used to argue all the time about who we woub be if we were other people (i.e. which of us would be Batman, and which Robin, who would be Jay, who Silent Bob). Until, that is, "Knocked Up" came out. He is clearly the Paul Rudd character, and I the Seth Rogen, minus the getting-a-girl-way-out-of-my-league-pregnant part.
My husband constantly says he is Wyatt, I am Josie and one of his best friends is Doc. We even met when he was living with another girl and got together in sort of the same way as Wyatt and Josie. He always refers to me as his Josie.