On the surface, these five men in North Carolina appear to have a healthy, normal friendship dynamic. However, on closer inspection, it’s easy to see one vitally important element is missing from their circle: This friend group doesn’t have a weakest member that they can all feel more essential to the crew than.
Oof. Without an omega-ranked friend in their pack, this is a house of cards that could collapse at any minute.
It’s an unwritten law of nature: The keystone to every lasting friend group is the one person you can do stuff without and still feel like the whole gang is there. Sadly, for Anthony, Brian, Lane, Jake, and Graham, a Raleigh-based clique of guys in their late twenties, none of them are that friend. They all stand on equal footing in the squad, with every member valuing each other no more or less than the rest, crucially missing the stabilizing force that is a scapegoat friend who everyone can feel safe ripping on and leaving out from time to time.
Without a lesser buddy permanently orbiting the squad’s true core, thereby offering a deeper, more vital sense of belonging to everyone else, these guys can never privately reassure themselves that they aren’t that friend. That means certain situations, like when one squad member learns about plans made in an auxiliary boys chat with some but not all members of their quintet, will always come with a pang of insecurity about that squad member’s positioning in the friend group’s hierarchy. In practice, a social circle lacking a runt the others can feel superior to is hardly a social circle at all: It’s a time bomb.
Ugh. These guys need to add a runt to their litter ASAP.
In all honesty, we feel it’s a bit reckless to operate a friend group without a B-tier friend. It’s a miracle they’re functioning at all while lacking a second-class member of their clique. We wish the best to Anthony, Brian, Lane, Jake, and Graham, but there’s no doubt about it: This crew isn’t built to last.