How Well Do You Know...

It didn't take long for the next trend of narcissistic douchebaggery to hit Facebook. I'm talking, of course, about the "How well do you know..." quizzes that I am seeing spring up on a daily basis. It never fails that every time I login to my Facebook account, I get to see that someone else I know has created a quiz wanting to test me on how well I know them. Not since "25 random things about me" has the Facebook population been subjected to this level of "look at me" syndrome.

Let's break it down, shall we? Person A decides that it's time to find out who their real friends are by creating a quiz called "How well do you know Person A?" Then they invite their friends to take the quiz so that their "friends" can then be judged accordingly by how well they know Person A based on a series of ridiculous questions. I congratulate the people responsible for creating this quiz and give them much respect. It finally lets me ask my friends the burning questions that I wouldn't feel comfortable asking them without that magic Internet barrier between us. So many times I've wanted to ask a friend "What's my favourite book?" so that I can then decide whether or not to keep them as a friend. But as you can see, asking such a question face to face would be awkward and thankfully, with the power of Facebook, I can now judge my friends.

You see, this quiz has everything wrong. Friendships are not made from people liking the same things. They are made from sharing the same hatred for things. I could ask my friends what my favourite book, colour, restaurant, movie, porn mag or church is and just because they score low percentages, doesn't make them a bad friend. However, if I ask them what band I currently hate, they will know that it's the Jonas Brothers. Why? Because we both hate them the same and that's why we're good friends! We may have drastic differences in music, but we will always agree on hating the shitty bands. It is the hatred for things that creates the eternal bonds of friendship. If I give them my "hate" quiz and they score low, THEN we might have problems.

The second thing wrong with this quiz is that it's asking you to answer questions about someone you don't really know that well. Almost 50% of anyone's friends on Facebook are people they went to school with and haven't seen since. So now I have to answer questions about what their favourite movie is by basing it off of their secondary school self. Things change and people change. Let's see, what is his favourite activity? Well, in school he was on the school football team, so I guess I will answer "playing sports" and hope that I'm right. Oh, what's that? The answer was "smoking meth"? Well, fuck me! I didn't know he turned into a drug addict. Alright, I'm 0/1. OK, what is his favourite fast food restaurant? Yo, back in the day, he loved Burger King so that's what I'm going to answer. Shit! His answer was the bins behind Burger King where he eats and gives out hand jobs for £3. How the hell does this guy even have a Facebook page?! Now I'm 0/2. Alright what is his most prized possession? It's gotta be his gold medal from sports day. Oh, it's the laptop he stole from someone at the Starbucks where he eats day old muffins out of the bin. So that's how he has a Facebook account. 0/3 fuck!

The truth is that nobody cares what your favourite movie or TV show is. The don't give a shit that you watch Britain's Got Talent. They really don't care that your favourite colour is blue. They just don't care. Does that make them a shitty friend? No. Change your quiz to yes or no answers. Ask your friends if they would ever help you bury a body or let you hide out at their place until the heat dies down. Ask them if they would come pick you up when your stupid ass ran out of petrol or if they would talk you out of sleeping with the girl at the bar with herpes on her lip that you're too drunk to see. If they answer yes to those questions, then you've got yourself a real friend. If they answer no, then you know not to call them in the event of an emergency because they're not dependable.

As for me, well, my quiz is a little simpler. It only has 1 question:

1. If you create a "How well do you know me?" quiz and ask me to participate, I will:

A. Answer the quiz and score badly.
B. Ignore the quiz.
C. Remove you from my friends and never speak to you again.
D. Answer the quiz and get a perfect score.

Any answer other than C. and they get removed from my friends for not knowing me at all.