We all know people who have friends everywhere.
When I was Scoutmaster, for example, my assistant scoutmaster knew all sorts of people. That became cemented in my mind when on two occasions, on hikes out in the middle of nowhere, we met other hikers and he knew them. He's a natural for making friends, though. Has the kind of personality that's always interested in people.
My Dad also knew people from all over the place. But the older I get, the more I suspect that wasn't a skill that came naturally to him. It's something he had to learn to cultivate.
I do not have those skills.
Enter Bob's Burgers.
I recently re-watched the "Driving Big Dummy" episode, and this exchange near the end really hit me:
BONNIE: Oh Teddy, you like asking people about themselves, don’t you?
TEDDY: Well, yeah. People are interesting.
MR. ESTOCK: Teddy fixed the porch for me. He wasn’t here half the day and he got me talking about my late wife’s cornbread recipe. How was it, by the way?
TEDDY: It was really something.
MR ESTOCK: I ran out of corn.
TEDDY: That explains it. Well, we better get going. Why are you staring, Bob?
BOB: Hey, Teddy, I . . . I wanna say something. I guess maybe I thought you were lonely. But you’re really not. At all. You make friends wherever you go, and you’re so interested in people. All the time. I, um, am never interested in people. I don’t like people that much. Not you guys; you seem great. But I don’t really like that about myself and I guess I really admire that about you.
TEDDY: Oh, thanks. And hey, don’t beat yourself up, Bob. You are like that, kind of, with the six people you already know. But yeah, maybe you could branch out a bit.
BOB: I’ll try. Thank you again, Connie.
BONNIE: It’s Bonnie.
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