More to friendship than....

Yesterday, I read an article that was disturbing to me.  It introduced me to a new term, the application of which is becoming increasingly common.  It was "affinity fraud."  If you, like me, don't know what it means, let me just say that it is one of the horrible breaches of trust possible.  Basically, it's the same as normal white collar fraud, except it is when someone scams and steals from a close friend, family member, or someone else with whom they share a close relationship.  It can happen to someone you meet at church, a neighbor or a classmate.  The amount of money stolen in this way in just the state of Utah totaled a quarter of a billion dollars just last year.  And that's only stuff that was reported...

To me, this is disgusting.  I consider myself to be a very loyal friend, and thinking of doing this to people I hold dear, or having them do it to me, makes me sick.  It's sad that many in the world we live in don't understand this, but there is certainly more to friendship than a quick, stolen buck.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of "friends as quick cash," here's my take on another facet of faux-friendship that has been bugging me lately.  Have you ever had an old friend contact you, but instead of a pleasant, caring chat that you anticipated, you are just a potential client for their new real-estate startup or make-up line or whatever?  Yeah, I get it that sometimes you need to work your network for a job or something, but couldn't we at least imitate our previous relationship and treat each other as friends instead of as votes or potential commissions?  There's certainly more to friendship than that.