When the char­ac­ter of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

—Japanese Proverb

Ever meet some­one whose com­pa­ny was ques­tion­able at best, and think, “Why does this per­son hang out with these peo­ple?”

One may imme­di­ate­ly think of the “friends” in ques­tion, peo­ple who prove to be stu­pid, super­fi­cial, unpleas­ant at best. Ultimately, how­ev­er, the truth lies in the key per­son who keeps such com­pa­ny. The apho­risms have nev­er been more true.

In the case of ques­tion­able com­pa­ny, the answer is atten­tion. A per­son with a mot­ley crew of friends, each one unlike the next, and each one con­sis­tent in their lack of social skills, is most like­ly a per­son who is after atten­tion.

The rea­sons for this are as plen­ti­ful as they are var­ied. Some are only com­fort­able when they are around oth­ers. Others enjoy the feel­ing of being a per­son who knows every­one. And some are so sub­con­scious­ly inse­cure as to need such com­pa­ny to believe they’re of some val­ue. So, to under­stand the seem­ing­ly eclec­tic taste in peo­ple of the key per­son, one must look to his or her com­pa­ny.

And often that proves to be more reveal­ing than any­thing else.