Friend Stealers.

I have become a victim of the ancient art of friend stealing. A couple whom I have known for years have started gazumping my friends. Like two pirahnas they have gobbled up my nearest and dearest. It starts with you introducting the couples to each other. The next thing you know your friends are hosting a dinner party for your other friends and you're not invited. You are cast asunder from their fine cusine, red wine and late night laughter. Then you see them in a bar hanging out together as you skulk past hoping that you haven't been noticed. You feel violated and sick. You toss and turn at night. But you don't say a word. Afterall you would never do that to them. It is an unwritten rule, a code of honour, 'Thou shalt not covert your best friends' friends'. 'Thou shalt not (definitely not!) break bread without the friends that introduced you being there!' But you are doomed. It is Catch 2+2 and you are the rassbery in the bunch of cherries.You are stuck in purgatory, unable to say anything without looking petty and jealous.You feel guilty for your feelings. Maybe you are being over-reactionary. Maybe you should chew on a huge chill pill. And then the horror really hits home. Your best friend calls you and mistakenly addresses you by your other friend's name, apologizes and puts down the phone. It's official, you've been replaced. You're jokes don't sound as funny to them anymore, your witicisms aren't quite so pithy, your yarns are woollier than they once were. It is time to get back on your horse, friend-gun slung by your side and trot once more onto the great friend plains. But there don't seem to be as many potentials out on the grasslands as there once were. The soil is barren, the prey scattered, yet you soldier on with weary bones and old bullets. You are desperate to hunt down some new friend meat. For otherwise you will starve and suffer a slow agonizing death from your lack of dinner-party invitations.