The Friend Chart: The FriendChart Tutorial II

It is important to note that the Five Finger Friendship Method is imperfect, and really only serves to rank friends. Implicit in the system is your presumed knowledge of your friends' identities.

The Five Finger Friendship Method was never meant to be a litmus test for determining friendship status. To be quite honest, it was developed only days before this blog launched. To say that the FriendChart is based on this method is really nothing more than an outright lie.

Don't be alarmed, you'll find that lies and deception are an important, if not necessary aspect of the FriendChart System. Those lies that you tell yourself are particularly important, as it takes quite a bit of self-delusion to be a successful FriendChartographer.

The true basis of for being able to determine and rank your friends is much more scientific than an arbitrary position on your dominant hand.

(author's note: though it was not mentioned in tutorial I, the less dominant hand is for ranking "novelty" friends such as: your friend of the other gender, your gay friend, your minority friend, your dwarf friend, your shemale friend, etc)

So, who are your friends? Well, the FriendChart is less concerned with who IS your friend, and more concerned with who is NOT your friend:

Anyone who you have known less than six months is NOT your friend. In fact, adherents to a Fundamentalist FriendChartism dogma would not even accept them as an acquaintance, or allow you to marry them in their church.

Anyone who you have not, or cannot hang out with one on one is NOT your friend. For instance, you may enjoy someone's company, you may even see them on a fairly regular basis in groups, but if you don't see each other regularly without the help of a group it means nothing. They are just a Friend of a Friend.(this label will be discussed in greater detail in later tutorials)

Anyone with whom you've had, or hope to have sexual intercourse is NOT your friend, they are an ex or a prospect. For Heterosexuals this includes all members of the opposite sex who are unattached, regardless of sexual orientation. For Homosexuals it includes anyone of the same sex, or anyone who you think might be gay because they get so uptight at every mention of homosexuality. If there is a chance you might ever want to have sex with someone, friendship is impossible. (more on this in later tutorials)

So, there you have it. You can now see who is NOT your friend. If you take a close look at your social group you should be able to quickly determine who fits the above criteria. The people left standing should be people who:

You've known for more than a year.
You see one on one, on a fairly regular basis.
You have no chance, or desire to ever have sex with.

Once you've determined who your friends are you might be able to begin applying the Five Finger Friendship Method, but it is likely that, given your relative inexperience with FriendChartography, that you are still functioning under the misguided notion that you have more than five friends.

That's okay. You won't find success in determining your true friends overnight. Chances are that you've been calling every Tom, Dick, and Harry that you meet your friend for some time and its going to take some effort to rehabilitate your view of friendship.

Now that you have the ability to determine who is NOT your friend, the next step is determining who your true friends are. To make this determination you will need to do an in depth analysis of your relationships, beginning with how long you've known each of your so called "friends".

More on that in The FriendChart Tutorial III - Chronological Friend Rating