Books make good friends. By Chelsey Holden.

[naeva]

First of all, I'd like to point out here that since my initial breakthrough, whereupon I discovered this most frightful sentiment to be quite accurate, I have more or less convinced three people of it's validity. More, rather than less. That's three for three, folks. Either I'm a really convincing gal (unlikely) or we've all been duped (likely). We don't need such primitive things as friends, we can bounce ideas off of books, explore different lives in both fiction and non-fiction: we can meet new books, ditch old ones - and all this without the inconveniences implicit within human interaction. It's still human, after all most authors claim to be such, but it's not messy and furthermore I find it to be more compassionate. Really, the relation between reader and readee is far more selfless and therefore honest than that of most "people" relationships. The reader in case study one finds herself engaging with the book because she is interested in what the book has to say. It's genuine interaction. Case study two, the 'friends' scenario, is generally the opposite. Friend A is usually projecting a whole lot of shit onto friend B and really only wants friend B's undivided interest. It's a self-satisfying game where no one wins and everyone goes home unhappy.
So, I guess to sum all this up I'd like to say not only that books are good substitutes for friends, but they are probably even better than your friends. You should probably trade in your friends for a good library.