Sunday Essays #10: The 3 Friends You Actually Need (it's not who you think)
Health. Wealth. Relationships.
Those are the three niches that move the needle on the modern internet, and almost every high-performing offer can trace back to at least one of them.
They’re the essential building blocks of life.
They hit right at the raw core of basic human needs.
That’s probably why they’re equal parts profitable and completely divisive when it comes to online discourse.
So, today I’d like to talk about friends…because that’s where I see, for lack of a more professional term, the screwiest things imaginable online.
(First overall would be dating discourse, but we’re not doing that right now)
Small Circles, Standards, and Your Absolute Boys
Scroll ten TikToks or IG Reels and you’ll see ten different opinions on friendships.
It can be your favorite “gooroo”, extolling the virtues of being a DND Warrior and cutting out every single person who isn’t helping you reach your GOALS.
(While practical, this seems like an extremely lonely way to live)
There’s also the most toxic girl you’ve ever met reposting an artsy edit with a cool font that reads “May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way”
(She’s impossible to deal with and has zero accountability for it)
All of this sprinkled into the mix of some of the other usual occurring content:
The Mamba Mentality guys reposting matte black Lamborghinis ripping through Dubai with captions about small circles, and- of course- the “Lion vs. Sheep” quote.
EDM edits with just enough plausible deniability from your friend who is a West Village Handicap Stall Hero, who lives for afters with his absolute boys. (These are my favorite lol)
Tradpoasting from a girl who found religion proclaiming that if you have no relationship with God, you can’t be in her life.
(Faith is noble and beautiful- but is exclusion really a Christian virtue?)
Your slightly unhinged gym bro friend posting about how planespotting is his “love language” (well who could this be)
Point being, there are billions of viewpoints and approaches to friendship and human connection.
Each one amplified by the fact we all have a platform to shout from.
Trying to make sense of all of them at once or sift through it all would make you insane.
The noise levels?
Maximal.
So, instead of trying to decode every single opinion on the internet, I tried to think about it differently.
It’s not about ideological alignment, or the amount of friends you’ve got, or the more superficial side of it.
It’s about the roles they play, especially in our world full of opinions, division, and craziness.
Anyway…let’s meet our trio.
Friend #1- The guy/girl way smarter than you.
This friend is literally worth their weight in gold.
Think about where we’re at right now- the Age of AI is upon us, personal branding and digital platforms are more important than ever, we have economic and geopolitical instability.
There’s no way any one human is an expert in all of these realms.
Perhaps there’s some unicorn out there- it sure isn’t me.
Having someone in your life who is an expert in a field or topic that’s becoming more essential or you want to learn more about is priceless.
Women seem to do this almost flawlessly.
They collaborate better, they’re less threatened by competence.
I’ve gotten plenty of messages over the past year to help write grad school essays or look over discussion board posts or lesson plans.
I’m always happy to do it.
The male ego needs to feel useful- but what irony that it also impedes the benefit of having smart friends in many cases as well?
I guess us guys have some sort of genetic impulse to be a “jack of all trades”.
You’ve got to quiet that voice down, that egocentric “Yeah, I know about that, too” voice.
I’ve got a couple friends who have basically automated everything in their life except brushing their teeth, showering, and personal intimacy.
OpenClaw, Claude credits, vibecoding the night away.
Yeah bro, I know about AI, too.
Where the hell would that have gotten me?
Instead, I sit back in awe and watch my super sharp friends cook.
Taking notes along the way, absorbing what I can.
You can take your ego out of its box later on.
I love my friends who are smarter than me ♥️
Friend #2- the “Fringe Friend”
You know this guy.
He’s the one where your girlfriend sees his name in the group chat and goes:
Oh man, so and so is coming? He’s gonna behave, right?
Fringe Friend loves to repost Reels about government weather control and chemtrails.
He might also think that Joe Biden had an army of body doubles during his term, and he’s one or two Surfsides away from telling the rest of the party about it.
Sure, it’s a lot.
But take a step back for a second.
Fringe Friend is not dumb.
Misapplied intelligence, in some cases?
Sure.
These types, for all their craziness, also have two really endearing and increasingly rare qualities about themselves that make them worth keeping around:
The balls to be unapologetically different
Insanely good crisis management
When “Monitoring the Situation” is a large chunk of your personality, you tend to thrive when the situation itself actually occurs.
Car issue and the AAA wait is obscenely long?
Fringe Friend knows how to tow you out.
God forbid the power grid goes out?
Fringe Friend knows what to do.
MSM fear-mongering about another potential happening?
Fringe Friend is so plugged in and terminally online he knows whether it’s something to actually worry about or not, with frightening accuracy.
In a world where absurdity and the unthinkable has become the norm, it’s a shrewd approach to keep somebody who lives in the absurd and unthinkable in your circle.
They usually don’t mean any harm, either.
They’re just…them.
Keep ‘em away from your girlfriend’s “I really hope AOC gets the Dem Nom in ‘28” friends, and you’ll have no issues.
Now, for my favorite:
Friend #3: The one that quietly roots for you.
This one is probably the most important of the three.
It’s inspired by an actual phone call I had this week while on one of my walks.
A former colleague of mine back on LI had just closed a deal he’d been working on for some time, so I gave him a shout to say congrats.
As we were chatting, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in some condo windows.
There I was- listening to tales of the old office back home, looking at myself traversing some Gulf Coast walking path, figuring it all out.
The little poking and prodding voice crept up in the back of my head:
“Did we make the right move?”
I quickly snapped out of it when my friend said,
“Y'know..you came up in conversation this week. We talked about you”.
Obviously, this piqued my curiosity.
So I pressed for details.
“Yeah we were like, I can’t believe they (management) just let a guy like John just walk out the door. You were a top guy.”
Did I ever need to hear that.
It touched right on a raw insecurity- how was I, (without sounding like an egomaniac) allowed to slip out the door so unceremoniously after a legit serious run back on LI?
It was always a thorn in my side.
“Yeah but we were like, he’s mad smart. You’re good at the internet and writing and shit you’ll crush it, no doubt”
He had no idea I was at a low point.
That quiet vote of confidence?
That “we’ve been rooting for you all along” energy?
Took me from “castaway, floundering, idiot (??)” in my spiral to “capable, top performer” and… “mad smart 😝”.
It helped me tremendously.
(I should probably call him back and tell him that)
Because it wasn’t about “virtue signaling” of friendship.
(That doesn’t just happen with posterboards at No Kings rallies)
A friend can repost your wins or shout you out online, all the while pocketwatching and conducting the metaphorical male “measuring contest” behind closed doors.
I have friends like that.
My mom once said a friend of mine seemed awfully supportive, and I told her “Yeah, and I appreciate it. But he’s also the type that if I tell him I made $10 million, he’ll call me the next day to tell me he made $10,000,001.”
Our biggest supporters often aren’t the loudest.
Volume ≠ belief.
Ironically enough, these are the hardest ones to find, because they are usually hiding in plain sight.
The only way to truly find out is by reaching out on your own accord, with good intentions.
Genuine happiness for another’s win made me realize I had a whole crew in my court I never even really considered.
It’s oddly beautiful.
It’s certainly invaluable.
Quality > Quantity
It’s my genuine wish that everyone reading this has at least one version of these archetypes in their lives.
Odds are, you probably do.
They make it easier to manage the challenges of life.
Shouting heads on the TV, protests, political or social extremism.
There’s a whole lot of noise every time we unlock the phone or turn on the TV.
People exist on a spectrum, and they always will.
Just make sure that whether you need to conceptually understand something, or you need to be reminded who tf you are, or your girlfriend saw a TikTok about UFOs at 2AM and you need somebody to call to calm her down, that you have the requisite people in your corner.
It’s what makes life beautiful.
Rooting for you guys, always- I’m in camp #3.
(Alright, and a little bit of #2, as well…who are we kidding)
Enjoy your Sunday.
🫶🏻
-John Abbate
3.29.2026