You’ve Got A Friend
You are completely and utterly wrong … I think.
I had this girlfriend once, and I mean she was a girl who was really just a friend. She worked for me. She was (and still is, I presume) 12 years younger than me, but she was as smart and funny and cute as any woman twice her age. Sometimes, I wanted to sleep with her, but I never tried, and mostly I really enjoyed this unique friendship I had with her. For a while, she was as important to me as any friend I had and I really thought we’d be friends forever. At the peak of our friendship, she met a guy and eventually married him. They now have three kids and live about half an hour from me. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since the day she got married. I have no idea why, but I know that I regret it. I also know that I have no intention of letting that happen to us.
To me, relationships, friendships, affairs and the like all have a shelf life of sorts. For most, this shelf life is finite and the end result an enjoyable, but limited result. Only the special ones last a lifetime, or even close to it. But it goes back to what I’ve always said about relationships of any kind… circumstances have WAY MORE to do with them than we usually realize.
For example, which part of moving 60 miles away to live with the man you’re going to marry did you think was going to have zero impact on our friendship: the 60 miles part or the getting married part? You remember me, don’t you? I’m the guy with three kids who you already lived twenty miles away from – in the other direction. I’m the friend that you saw consistently, but hardly often, due to what they like to call in show business as, “scheduling conflicts.” Or put it another way… if you’d stayed put and I’d moved 60 miles in the other direction, would we have seen each other any more than we have now?
And now that I’m rolling… yeah, TNG and I are all good and yeah, he knows we’re only friends and yeah, even under the surface he’s as comfortable with our friendship as if I were female, or gay. No one is happier about this than me. But do you really think that means I’m calling you up at 10:30 at night because I’m drunk, or because I’m pissed at my girl or because you left a weepy message on my voicemail three hours earlier? The truth is I’m not. If it’s an emergency, I promise not to hesitate. Other than that, the conversation will have to wait until tomorrow… or next week. I’m sure it would be OK with you. But I won’t do it out of respect to him. Call it old-fashioned if you want… I prefer to call it old school.
As far as being “in?” Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t miss the next twenty or so years of your life for season tickets to the Boston Celtics. Well, unless they were floor seats. Just kidding. You’re stuck with me.
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So Far Away
When I moved 60 miles away, I knew my life as I knew it would change drastically. Never mind the fact that I can’t seem to find the bank when it’s right on the corner of my street, or that I can’t get used to my new nosy neighbors and a strip mall on every block.
It’s the change in all of my relationships that I’m referring to. I knew that I would see my family less, I knew that I would see my friends less, and I knew those relationships would be challenged in ways that they had not been challenged before. What I didn’t know was that I would feel like I was being punished for finally falling in love.
And for the most part, the person making me feel that way is you.
For the past ten years of our friendship, I have been primarily single. I have been in and out of a few semi-long term relationships but one thing has been constant: when there’s been heartbreak, you’ve always been there to help me pick myself up, dust myself off, and get back on the horse. You championed me; “That guy was an asshole – you can do so much better!” “You don’t need that guy! He’s a douche bag!” We’d immediately get back to our routine of cocktails on Mondays or Thursdays, and for the past few years, our blog. We’d cackle over our love blunders (mostly mine), and it seemed our friendship withstood anyone who came and went in our lives.
But this year was different. This year there was The New Guy. And everything’s changed. Our friendship wasn’t affected when you got divorced. It wasn’t affected when you were crazy about a new girl – or two. It wasn’t affected when I dated Extra Large Jerk, or Salt and Pepper, or even my ex.
But now it’s real. I’m engaged and I moved 60 miles away. And now you’re gone.
I know my new domesticated life is boring to you. But I’m still me. I will still have my crazy stories; my skeletons will still be constantly falling out of the closet, I promise. I can still talk on the phone, and I still have a car.
So I’m asking for me (and for our readers), and especially for our future as best friends, please put whatever bullshit is going on with you aside and be my friend again. I promise to start talking more about sex (when I start having it more), and I promise to continue to tell more stories that remind you of the old me.
For example, did I ever tell you about the guy I dated who worked at the grocery store? The holidays always remind me of him, because one time when I was loading the bags into my car, he held a sprig of mistletoe over my head and laid a big ol’ smooch on me. We dated for a while, but it was 1990 and I honestly can’t remember what happened next.
Well, he just wrote to me on Facebook.
So are you back in?
