Everyone Needs a Chris: The 80/20 Rule of Friendship

I’ve known Chris for nearly 30 years. We met at a firm we both worked for in London back when the world was in analog. I was “The Nutter”—the one who never took a single thing seriously. He was the quick-witted, sensible one who kept the wheels on.

Despite 3,000 miles of ocean and three decades of life, we’ve stayed locked in. He’s visited me in New York and most recently here in Tennessee. We caught up on WhatsApp today, and after we finished, it hit me: Chris is the ultimate human upgrade.

The 80% AI: The Non-Judgmental Logic

If you have Parkinson’s, you know about the “Glass Wall.” Sometimes I can’t pick up the phone. Sometimes I ghost text messages for two weeks because my brain is in a “private film festival” of apathy or focus death.

• The Chris Factor: He just fucking gets it (excuse the language, but this it’s warranted). He doesn’t take it personally. He doesn’t need an apology. Like a perfectly tuned AI, he understands my needs and how I need to be treated without me having to provide a manual. He is the low-maintenance, high-reliability server I need when my biological hardware is failing.

The 20% Human: The Compassionate “Bollocking”

But Chris has the 20% that AI doesn’t have. He has the soul.

• He knows exactly when to give me a “bollocking” (as we say in the UK).
• He knows exactly which questions to ask.
• He knows the questions not to ask, or rather, when not to ask them.
• He has a level of compassion that is rare in this world.

I often wonder why he’s the only one who can handle me like this. Chris lost his wife and best friend years ago, when his kids were pretty young. He raised them into awesome adults entirely on his own. I think that fire—the sheer weight of what he’s survived—is why he can sit in the dark with me and my Parkinson’s without flinching, maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I think.

The 3,000-Mile Anchor

I’m crying writing this paragraph, and if you have PD, you know that “Emotional Leakage” (#19) is a bitch. But it’s the truth. I love the guy like a brother. I’d never say it meaningly to his face—we’re British, after all—but he’ll read this and he’ll know.

My advice to the Parky community: Find your Chris.

• It doesn’t have to be family.
• They don’t have to be within arm’s reach.
• They just need to be someone who understands that your “glitches” aren’t a choice.

Chris is 3,000 miles away in London, but I know if the system crashes today, he’s right there. If there were a Golden Globe for friends, he’d have won it a few times over!