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.