STRANGER THAN FICTION: MIXING FRIENDS WITH OTHER FRIENDS IS NO EASY TASK

My advice: Find your clique and stick with it.

Almost everyone settles into doing things at the same places during the same times of the week with the same people. It's just human nature.

Oh sure. You fancy that you're pretty adventurous when it comes to meeting new people and doing new things.

You love the elderly for their wisdom and the young for their energy. You enjoy meeting people of different cultures and races and languages to expand your horizons.

But admit it...doesn't it come down to you and a couple of friends going to dinner and a movie just about every Saturday?

All right, maybe you aren't like that. But I am.

I've got my little clique here -- three couples and three single people -- and we've become inseparable.

I can count on the fact that every weekend I'm going to see at least some of them. We've got things in common.

We kiss each other on the cheek and hug when parting. (How chic!)

We talk about each other to each other, but not in a mean, behind-the-back sort of way. More like how two sisters would discuss the third.

And then there's my neighbor Christina.

I've seen her about every day since I moved here, and we've become friends, but not in the way I'm friends with my clique. More like friends who probably wouldn't be friends if they didn't leave for work at the same time and see each other at the mailbox almost every day.

Christina is blunt. And when I say blunt, I mean the way police describe murder by sledgehammer in their paperwork.

Last week, a third neighbor was out walking her new puppy, a pug, while Christina and I chatted on the sidewalk. "Oh! You got a new dog!" I exclaimed. The neighbor smiled.

"And it's ugly," Christina said simply. The neighbor scurried off.

In Christina's private universe, people say what they think. They don't send their thoughts through that special filter between their brains and their mouths. You know -- the filter that keeps people from hating you.

So when she invited me in for sweet rolls the other day and I said, "Thanks so much for the invitation, but I just started a new diet," SHE said, "How long is this one going to last?"

But I've figured out that she doesn't mean anything by her little comments. She's smart and funny and actually pretty cool once you get to know her.

I decided to blend her in with my little clique. And that's when I learned a valuable lesson. We were all sitting at our favorite table in La Casa Rodriguez on a Wednesday night -- we always go on Wednesdays -- when Al started talking about a book he was reading.

None of us had heard of it. He mentioned a few other obscure authors nobody else at the table knew. He always does that -- that's just Al.

"Wow, you really sound pretentious," Christina noted. Before the evening was over, she'd also noted that the food was awful and that one of the members of our group was a racist but just trying to hide it.

A few weeks later, Christina asked me out to dinner and welcomed me to bring along some of my friends. She really liked them, she said.

Nobody would come.

Today, mentioning that I'm bringing Christina to one of our gatherings elicits the same response as mentioning I'm bringing a vial of anthrax.

Hey. It may not be fashionable to admit you're part of a clique, but sometimes it's best to keep your life in separate compartments.

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And now for the latest Idjit Award.

A wild-eyed, middle-aged man walked into my office last week with a great idea for a news story.

"I've thought of an invention," he announced. "It's a credit card that uses money you already have in your bank account. You could use it at the ATM, reserve motel rooms in it, use it at stores and all that just like a credit card. But instead of borrowing money, you'd be using your OWN MONEY!"

"Uh, sir, they have that," I said. "They call it a debit card. I've got one in my wallet right now."

"Oh. Never mind, then."

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer who lives in Pensacola, Fla.