Fred was once a simple boy, not wanting much more than a bunch of
friends to hang around with. Fred was so obsessed with wanting more
friends, that he started to buy them from other people!
Once Fred had noticed that he'd gained a vast collection of
friends (most of them he'd purchased, but don't hurt his feelings by telling him), he came up with a great scheme for making money from his
friends.
After a while, the prospect of raking in some shekels had gone to Fred's head, and inflated his ego to a preposterous size. Soon Fred started to believe that he had power over his friends, and thus started removing the friends that didn't follow him around like some sullen sheep.
Now Fred has nothing but a handful of friends left, but retains his ego; it's quite sad really.