How to Lose Friends By Really Trying

Winning friends is no problem. The man intent on social conquest knows by subliminal heart that he need generally do no more than brush between meals or settle down with a stronger soap. At most, he has only to step up his vocabulary; sometimes it is simply a matter of developing more prominent pectoral muscles. It is how to lose friends that has become the contemporary American dilemma, and a tactical art all its own.

Many Hangovers. Like any great human issue, it offers no easy answers. Factors beyond man's personal control (the population explosion, the high cost of privacy, his wife's energetic counter-effort to become the community's most beloved hostess ) have gradually propelled him into closer and closer contact with an ever-expanding collection of neighbors, relatives, club members, office workers, lodge brothers, poker players, business clients, and fellow commuters.

Furthermore, there are the hangovers from long-distant days--the boys from camp, the girls from dancing class, high school chums, war buddies, the guys from the adjoining office at the first job, the mothers who wheeled their first babies in the same park, the couple who lived across the hall in the first apartment in the first housing project. Plus the long line of vacationers who proved pleasant company and valuable bridge partners last summer on the island, or three years ago in Europe, but seem not quite so desirable once back on home ground. And, over the years, the added accumulation of friends of friends, whom neither husband nor wife admits responsibility for having ever encouraged, but who call up with disconcerting regularity just a few days before any planned dinner party under the natural, ill-founded assumption that the postman is to blame for not delivering their invitation. This, of course, leaves no room for the new people, unexpectedly attractive, whom it would be lovely to ask over if only the next several months were not already allocated, night by night, to the regulars.

Fewer Invitations. The solution, ultimately, is clear enough: firmly, with the calm, practiced eye of a master marksman, the superfluous must be knocked off. The practice varies slightly across the U.S.: in the West, where space is still abundant and the situation less acute, it is generally performed every other year, while along the Eastern Seaboard, and particularly in the teeming metropolitan areas, it occurs at least semiannually. The process is called Weeding Out.

First step is the unreturned phone call. But it never helps much, for Weedees tend toward tenacity, and even a prolonged series of never-answered messages can produce a series of personal notes and even registered letters or telegrams.

Other methods include the Stretch-Out and the Cross-Up. The first consists of gradually increasing the time between engagements; if the established home-and-home rhythm for the exchange of dinners has been, say, two weeks, let four weeks go by before asking the Weedees back--then six. The Cross-Up involves preliminary groundwork. Find out when the Weedees have theater tickets, and ask them to dinner that night. This has the added advantage of ostensibly discharging the social obligation without actually going through with it.

Since no real unkindness is intended, the Weeder's object is to avoid any overt insult, while inducing in the Weedee a vague feeling of ennui, of just not having a good time. Observing an empty glass and a thirsty expression, the Weeder does not offer another drink until the Weedee has been forced to ask for it. Then there is the device of the television discussion program which can be turned on right after dinner, and paralyzes all social conversation for two hours.

Persistently practiced, such small attritions can wear down the most obtuse pest. And at long last, the unwelcome invitations and the unwanted telephone calls trail off, and the triumphant Weeder can begin to enjoy his new freedom. He bestows his evenings like an accolade on the chosen few. There may even come a time when he finds himself peacefully at home, quietly watching television or reading a book, unbothered by ringing telephones. Then another quiet evening. And another. Slowly a horrible suspicion dawns. Can it be that he has become a Weedee?

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