O nce upon a time, there were three friends and they went their separate ways,
as is the way of the world.
Stop for a moment ask yourself when is the last time you thought of a
friend, or group of friends that you had when you were younger? The ones
that really stand out in your memory, and have staked a special place
in your thoughts that trumps everyone else you knew in your youth. The
ones that always have the power to summon feelings that you want to remember,
are loathed to forget, and sometimes cannot leave behind no matter what.
Some folks are unlucky in love; I am unlucky in friendships. In my short
life tripping through our collective existence, making stupid mistakes
and brilliant ones in equal measure, I have always valued friendship
and admired those with friends that are mirrors of each other. I owe
my romanticism to friendship probably to the movies, where the side characters
are undyingly loyal to the protagonist. The bonds of friendship are never
spelled out; they just exist and are as empirically obvious as the sun
rising each day in the east.
Every now and then, I'll catch myself alone in some very public place
(like a restaurant or Starbucks) and I'll see a couple of guys, maybe
three, all together. I don't listen to their banter or eavesdrop, but
I'm drawn to the cadence of what I can hear and I know that they are
good friends.
They
know each other's weird behaviors and idiosyncrasies, like and dislikes
about women, the whole enchilada. I certainly don't know how deep the
friendship goes, but I know, just know, that it's deeper than the few
friendships I've forged over the years. It makes me think of those few
special friendships I have managed to carve out, and wind up always
leaving me feel empty.
I'm a guy out of place and out of time, the proverbial stranger in a
strange land. I'm the one who originally couldn't care less about having
lots of friends: give me a stack of books and the open sky and that's
all I needed. I craved attention, to be sure, so I wasn't completely
antisocial, but my validation came more from my teachers than people
I knew. I wasn't popular, but I was on a first-name basis with plenty
of folks. Maybe I should have considered that warning way back then,
that many people know you but very few of them want to know you beyond
a pass in the hallway or at the mall.
The friendships I have are devastatingly shallow, only the joke is that
I'm initially unaware of it. Like a cancer that's lurking inside your
body, ready to strike at any moment, I forge what I think are lasting
friendships
only to have them torn away. Ripped, shredded from my presence and my
heart. One day, I am partners with two other musketeers; the next, I
find myself
alone and wondering where the time has gone, where my friends have disappeared
to and why I feel so bitter. It's almost as if you pour your heart and
soul into something only to be told at the end, "it's not good enough, sorry." And then, silence. You try to find that moment where something went wrong but
you draw a blank. You wonder if the phone will ever ring and you'll be
out with the guys at a bar or the movies, or playing football in the
park.
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I admire other people's friendships because I cannot keep the ones I've
tried to make. In earnest, like a puppy, I try to be that smart, witty
and urbane guy who can keep up with a fast-flowing conversation: whooosh!
There's goes another subject and we're knee-deep in something else and
the cultural reference fly! You want to be the guy that others instinctively
call for happy hour or for a barbecue. You don't want to be the work
friend, although you're got enough sense of privacy not to always be
around 24/7. You want to be those guys in the public place that I mentioned
earlier. Simply good friends.
I'm no angel, no saint, but the friends I have (had?) leave (left?) a
lot to be desired. I think I'm a fairly loyal person (you tell a lie
and I'll swear to it; even when you're wrong, you're right) but no one's
been loyal to me. I'm the kinda guy who will give you the shirt off my
back (not a pretty sight, but you get the point) and I'll trudge home
in the freezing rain and not complain one bit, one iota. But godamn it
all if I can't ever get that sense of backup from anyone else. Not once
have I felt that someone would go the extra mile for me, run up a credit
card for me and never think twice about it; make me feel as though I
was the
most important person in the world, even if that person had a
girlfriend or a wife.
Okay, I know -- I know! -- what you must be thinking: what a fucking
needy little bitch. No, it's not about validation or need. It's about
the small virtues of companionship that so many people just know is there.
You shouldn't have to work so hard at friendship, right? I mean, you
either have someone's loyalty or you don't. I am not a whiny type who
needs to hear how wonderful I am. I don't need it, don't want it and
know that doing things for others is really the only reason we're here
on earth. Don't need a reward, don't want one. But damn if I would trade
everything in my small kingdom for that sense of loyalty, or love that
I see all the time in others. If I had that sense of knowing that there's
something to catch me when I fall -- that's totally unsaid, unmentioned,
it's just there. You know it deep in your heart that someone has your
back. And it hurts to no end when you've given so much to those people
that you love no matter what, to one day turn around and realize that
they've left you without even a word goodbye.
It might be the way of the world for people to grow up together, grow
apart and never see one another again. It's happened, happening and will
happen again for the rest of the time there are humans traipsing around
this globe. It's one thing to know this is life, this is how things can
be. It's another to feel like you're the only one left.
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