phantom text message

You could swear you feel your phone vibrate against your thigh, but when you look there are no text messages.

You: (pulls phone out of pocket to check text)
Your wife: That better not be that little slut from your office texting you again!
You: It was a phantom text message, honest!

periphery friend

A "friend" on the boundary of your social space.

Instead of interrupting the flow of a story with superfluous noise by giving unnecessary context about a person in said story, they can be described as a periphery friend.

Scenario one-

Storyteller: my friend's mum's cousin's son's aunt's dog's dad's wife's godfather's cat's ........'s friend did funny story.

You: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Scenario two-

Storyteller: my periphery friend did funny story.

You: hahahaha, I'm glad you didn't fill that sentence with unnecessary context.

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