This is A Story of a Friend

So for those that have seen, I have been writing about my various friendships lately.  The point is to start documenting my adventures and travels in relationship to those that were with me, but from my point of view.  Today I have decided that it is time to talk about one person that meant the world to me for some time.  She was not a girlfriend, but a best friend during this time...

I used to hang out at the college a lot, in between classes, or just because a lot of my friends were there.  I was sometimes seen as a glue that held groups of people together.  One friend once looked around and saw a bunch of smiling people, talking and playing games, and called me the Patron Saint of this group, claiming that it was because of my influence that this existed at all.  It was a compliment, but an overzealous one.

On a particular set of days I saw someone walking about the college by herself.  I noticed her, as you do, but not in any sexually attracted sort of way, more in a sense of how she moved, walked, ignored the world around her and lived in a happy contemplation.  Then this day came a long where, while sitting outside and assisting a friend with homework, quietly talking and smoking or whatever we were doing at the time, I saw her walking towards us.  She was still wearing that coat that caused her to not care what was going on, but this time she was obviously coming towards us for some kind of engagement.  I was thrilled.  I had found myself intrigued by her for a few days, so this was a chance to meet a new friend.

There was some awkwardness at first as she was attempting to figure out how to, well, basically how to make friends.  Come to find out she had just recently moved there, was young (17) at the time, and did not really know anyone at all.  She came from Oregon and had later told me that she was amazed by the Central Valley because she had never seen a land so flat before.

We got to talking and right away we hit it off.  We had a lot of the same tastes in music, in reading, and in movies.  We talked philosophy, friends, and the world which we grew up.  It was like finding your soul mate.  We would clash and argue sometimes, but I like to believe that she looked up to me as an old brother.  She would ask me questions, not just about the world, but about personal stuff, stuff that a parent should have taught her but didn't.  Needless to say she was extremely smart for her age, but lacked some of the normal social common sense and niceties.

Later that first day, I saw her walking around town.  I stopped to talk, gave her a ride to where she was living.  That was a strange situation on it's own.  She was staying with this person all the way across town, the other side of the tracks you might say, payed a shit ton for rent, the woman made her sleep on the couch, and refused to give her a key.

Over the next week is when we really bonded.  We argued about the nobility in the action of Socrates, what a songwriter meant when choosing certain words, and which poets are better than others.  It was fun, informative, stimulating, and most of, it was all done without a sense of pretentiousness or fuss.  It was just good conversation.  We stayed up together every day after classes talking.  After only a week of knowing her, I went to give her a ride to the place she was staying.  When we got there, it was cold and late.  I would not leave until I knew she was inside and that night, it was not going to happen.

She banged and banged on the door, kept telling me to leave, she would just stay outside and wait for someone to come home.  After awhile I just refused and told her to get in the truck.  It was 2 in the morning, cold, and I was not going to let her freeze out there.  I told her she is coming to stay at my house tonight, no arguing.  She slept on the couch and the next morning we went back to school.

This became the norm.  Giving rides and just plain being friends.  She introduced me to the music of Bright Eyes, I showed her The Mountain Goats, and we would spend so many nights just talking and listening to music.  We taught each other a lot of things.

Then she started falling for this guy from back home.  She was going to go back up to see him soon and started asking me those questions about sex.  Like I said before, she never seemed to have much in the way of common sense guidance, but a lot of good stories about her father otherwise.  I remember this night because of a hilarious tangent our conversation went on when she became confused about a certain term for the woman's anatomy and my descriptions.  She thought I was talking about one thing when I was talking about another and it caused some rather weird fears in her for awhile until we finally got on the same page.  We laughed about that night and some hilarious imagery associated with it for many nights to come.

Soon, she was kicked out of the housing situation she was in.  This caused her to become a squatter.  She stayed on my couch most nights, but was always gracious and always kind.  She was not a bum or a mooch by any means, but she always needed someone for a place to crash.  She was in college with no place to live.  All of this caused some tension between us because it got to feeling that maybe she was only my friend for a couch, maybe she only wanted to hang with me because she needed to sleep some place safe.  I got frustrated with it, got somewhat cold towards her...

I feel awful for ever thinking that.  It was not her nature and I was wrong to question her motives.  Luckily, not long after she took that trip back home and to this guy she liked.  When she got back a couple weeks later...she brought him with her.  That was a bad decision, nay, a horrible decision, but they got a place to live together.  That took all of the strain that I had felt and removed it.  She later said that our friendship was much better and stronger after that.  It meant a lot to me.  She did not blame or judge me for my feelings, she understood them completely, but I still believe they were still unjustified.

Well, as time traveled, she made friends with our whole group, she made new friends and brought them into the fold, and we were always there, like a brother and sister, close as could be in that way.

Then a huge moment happened.  I decided to move away.  I decided that it was time, with various other things falling apart around me, to move and start a new life.  I wanted so badly for her or other friends to come with me, but that was never to happen.  At my going-away party we had bands and musicians play.  When it was the end of my set, I sung and played her favorite song for her...she was in the crowd, singing and crying...I was crying too after seeing her and trying to finish my song.  I knew what I was leaving and most of all, I was leaving my best friend in a scary world where she needed someone there...I couldn't look at her for the rest of the set.  It tore my heart out and still, when I recall it today, I wish I could turn away from that image in my mind.

After I moved, we still talked over the internet and phone, but not as often.  She grew tired and wary of some of the friends and normalcies of life.  After a few months, she was done with that boyfriend she brought back down.  He needed someplace to go.  Somehow, in a weird turn of events (another story all together), he came and stayed with us.  We gave him a chance, payed for him to get his GED which he failed.  We got him 3 jobs, all of which he quit or got fired from in a short amount of time.  This guy was a complete train wreck.  The reason I talk about this is because it leads to the last part of our tale...

A couple of months after he moved up here, she came for a visit.  She had a new boyfriend she wanted to tell me about, moved on in her life, and all the things that had been happening since I left.  It was good, but weird because of the tension of her ex that was living with us.  It all culminated in us throwing a Halloween party, alcohol, and a sexual encounter between her and her ex that should have never happened.

The next morning everything seemed good.  She was leaving to go back to Merced.  We dropped her off, she hugged and kissed me, and that was the last time I saw her.  A couple of days later she called me to ask me to tell her ex to leave her alone and not talk to her again, which I agreed to do for her.  That was fine, but that was the last I ever talked to this person that means to much to me.  She never called again.

I reached out to her a few weeks later.  She was not home but her roommate answered the phone.  The conversation went like this:
Me: Hey is [girl] there?
RM: Uh, no, she is working.
Me: Oh, okay, can you have her call me later please?
RM: Uh, well, I will tell her, but she does not want to talk you.

Now, this was the first I had heard anything about this at all.

Me:  What?  What is going on?
RM: Well, she just told me she did not want to talk to you, but I will tell her you called and that you want to hear from her.

That was it.  She did not want to talk to me.  Still, years later, I don't know the exact reason for the break in contact.  All I know is that I lost the best friend that I ever had.  Just writing this gets me weeping because to me, she was my soul mate, or at least the closest thing I have ever known to such a title.  Since that time, there have been major events in my life and when I looked over to find that friend to talk to, to alleviate my fears and work out my thoughts, she wasn't there.  That was the first time I realized my isolation from the world that I knew.

Since that day I have found her on social networking sites, attempted contact a few times, but I have not heard a word in response, not even a "fuck off".  That I could handle, but this silence has been about the hardest thing in my life to deal with.  That fear, that unknown, it is a killer.  I have recently found her once more, but I do not have the guts to reach out again.  I have this extreme sense of fear that if I did, I would get the same silence and it would tear open this unhealing wound that I have learned to live with.  I tell myself that if she wanted to talk to me, she could find me.  I am not a hard man to find at all. 

I heard some stuff through the grapevine about her, some stories, some whispers of her life.  I listen intently, hoping for some clue as to what happened, but rarely do I get any good leads to work off of.  One time recently I was back home, went out to a bar that a lot of my old group frequent.  I saw a girl that might have been her there.  My heart sped and I just could not contain myself very well.  I kept looking over because I was not sure if it was her.  It has been years and she was still growing and changing.  After catching her eye a few times, I convinced myself that it was not her.  There was no reaction at all.  Mix that with the fact that I was not sold it was her in the first place, I finally settled down some.

That brings us to today where I write about pining for a friendship that I feel was stolen from me.  I have a theory that she cut ties to everyone associated with her ex and me due to the influence of her boyfriend at the time.  I have no real evidence of this, just suspicions from knowing him some and knowing things she said to me about him.  I am saddened by this though because I thought she was smart enough to not let a guy control her life, unless, well, unless she wanted to.  Maybe she did not need me anymore.  This is the most heart-breaking theory because I would have thought that she loved me enough to tell me to fuck off at least.

I wish that I had more insight to add to this.  I wish that I had some lesson to take, but if there is anything, it is this:

I feel that I will always be her friend.  I will not let her decision to cut ties so dis respectively destroy my love for my best friend.  I have told myself that if she ever comes calling again that I would treat her as I always had and be that brother to her that I liked to feel that I was.  I would not treat her with scorn and possibly push her away again.  This pain that I have is just a signal telling me that that I care, that she is a friend, reminding me that even though friends do some fucked up things sometimes, a true friend will always be there for you and accept you with open arms if that is what you need. 

Take it or leave it.  I just needed to write it down.  Thanks for reading.

There is Always One...

So here is a bit of a story.  This may turn out to be what you refer to as a "girl blog", but not in the normal way.  This is not about girl troubles, just more of a story about a journey with a particular person.

So when I was in high school, I could not get a date for the life of me.  I was the "friend."  All nice guys know the pain of being the friend.  These amazingly beautiful and sweet creatures are treated like shit and then they come to you to cry about it.  Well, once I got out of high school I suddenly became more attractive to the opposite sex it seemed.  My years of being the nice guy paid off and I could not fit the ladies into my schedule.

Anyway, I started dating this girl at this time.  She had a younger brother that I knew as well and we used to all go out together, play music, movies, whatever.  One time we all went out to eat after he got out of high school.  This time, he brought a friend that he was kind of hanging out with.  She was by far the most beautiful young woman I had met.  It was not that she was completely hot in a standard Hollywood sort of way, but she had this air of confidence well beyond her years along with a smile that could slay a dragon.  Mix that with deep blue eyes that seemed to hold a sad, human soul and I was hooked.  We never talked much then, and I never pursued her as I was in a relationship and she was still a couple years younger in high school.  Really too young at the time.  I believe I was 20 and she was 16 or something like that.  I cannot recall exactly, but it was too big of an age difference.

To move on though, that girl stayed on and off in my life through my group of friends.  She would date a friend or somehow be associated.  I always had this secret crush, but nothing outside of that.  Once she got a couple years older, we started hanging out again.  She was dating this asshole guy and she often needed a friend.  By this time, I was good friends with her.  The guy was always jealous of me because for some reason we seemed to have this bond, this deep love that neither of us seemed to want to admit.  She always smiled and hugged me and my heart would flutter every time.  She was always more happy with me than with her boyfriends, but we still were not any closer to dating ourselves.

Finally, she graduated high school and started to go to the community college where I went and worked.  All of a sudden, she was thrust back into my life.  We had occasionally talked about trying to date at this time, but it was always this situation where she was dating someone or I was dating someone.  Never did anything line up.  We even went so far as to make one of those marriage pacts.  By the time she was 30, if neither of us were married, then we would get together.  This clock was finally ticking!

Well, as we were back into each others life at this point, we finally started going out to lunch often, just the two of us, hanging out, watching movies, and running errands together.  One day in between classes, she came along with me to the bank so that I could deposit my check and take her out to lunch.  During this time I was a manager of a pizza place, worked as a tutor and councilor at the college, had a band, worked for a karaoke company, and went to school.  I was a busy guy.

Once we were done at the bank, I went to open the door of my truck for her, as you do, and she stopped while entering the truck and kissed me.  Not a simple peck mind you, but a passionate kiss.  Never in my life has my heart skipped so many beats.  The feeling is something that I remember to this day and I will never forget.  It was that amazing spark that you think only exists in film until it happens to you.  Not only did I receive a display of affection from this woman that I had feelings for for many years now, it was the fact that she came to me.  It was a signal that she was ready to move to the next level with our relationship.  We were moving closer and closer to finally having those elusive titles of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" that has seemed to haunt as since we first met.  The only problem turned out being that it appears that she was not quite signalling that at all.

I thought this was a shoe in.  I thought we were finally going to be "together".  This was not the case.  A few days later she comes by my work with some friends.  One of those being a guy that I also knew from school.  She was all over him, in front of me, blatantly.  Later, she came to me to ask me what I thought about him, almost asking my permissions to date him.  I was hurt and terrified, but I am not one to get angry or territorial.  I just reverted back into "friend" mode, game her as honest of an opinion as I could at the time, got mopey, and that was the end of that day.  A couple more days go by and I find her at a friend's house.  We talk a bit about it.  She says she does not want to settle and wants to date a few guys.  So she was not signally that we were going to be together, she wanted us to date, but not exclusively.  I thought that maybe I could handle this.

A couple more weeks go by, we are hanging out, I take her out for some Chinese food lunch.  We stuff ourselves on cheap Chinese buffet and go back to my vehicle.  As we are pulling out of the parking lot, she looks over at me with those eyes and that smile, and I know what she is thinking.  I read her like a book.  We stopped my car right there and start making out.  We ended up blocking traffic in the parking lot for a few minutes until we got a grip on ourselves, but I did not care.  I felt that I had won the lottery.  She was dating around, but it seemed to me as if she had finally made her choice.  I was the one.

So, a little more insight into this woman.  I mentioned the air of confidence that she exuded.  This air was a defense mechanism, a strength to her, and the more she held it up, the longer she would have until she had to deal with her own pains and emotional baggage.  She never wanted to be human, never want to show people that she was anything but happy and smart.  On this front, she was never really comfortable talking about the things she did, let alone being questioned on their morality or merit.  She seemed to trust me more than anyone, but even that was glazed with this layer of saccharin.  I was a councilor in college.  I was trained to read people and I knew all of this about her.  Her eyes, which always told me so much, told me more than she even knew, but I could not talk to her about these things as she would just get more defensive.  People are quite often like great poetry.  They are not that hard to read if you really put in the time to look, but that does not mean that they are easy to interpret or fully understand the true depths of.

This leads me back to my story.  I thought that I had finally been chosen to try to make her happy.  This was incorrect.  A couple more weeks go by and she is rarely talking with me.  Finally she breaks it to me that she is going to date this other man for awhile, and see how that goes.  I was hurt, but I understood.  These were friends, and I will support them and we still had not lain out any ground-rules for our relationship.  During this time though, she would continue to hint at us, drag me along, keep me in some sort of bond where it seemed like she and I were going to be together.  More and more this frustrated me.  I knew that I was being manipulated, but like any addiction, it was so hard to do anything about it.  This had to stop.  I needed to know the truth.

I invited her out to coffee, telling her that we needed to talk.  She seemed to think this was more innocent, friendly, hanging out.  We went to the StarBucks one morning, ordered our coffee, and sat down.  She said, "What's up sweetie?" to which I stared at her for a minute, trying to find the right way to frame what I wanted to say.  Finally, it just came out like this, in a very calm and deliberate style:

"What the hell are you doing with me?"

That was all I said.  That moment I saw something that I had never quite seen.  It was like her soul was shattered.  Those blue eyes glazed over with tears.  She is someone that never wanted anyone to see her cry.  To her, this was a weakness and she never liked to face her weaknesses.  She did not really cry, but she did inside, you could see it.  She was fighting so hard to figure out what was going on and she did not quite know what to say because she had never been confronted so blatantly about her actions before.  This did not make me feel good in any way, but it had to be faced.

After maybe the longest 20 seconds of her life, those small moments that seem to last forever, she was finally able to squeeze out a "Well...what do you mean?"

She knew what I meant.  I retorted with something along the lines of "Well, you seem to care for me, I care for you, you tease me with affection, with passionate kisses, but never seem to want me as more than a friend.  Please, I can't do this anymore.  It hurts too much.  If you want us to be together, I need to know.  If not, that is fine, I still love you as a friend, but let me know.  I can no longer let myself be dragged around by you.  Please, tell me what you want with me, why you do this to me?"

This caused another stunned silence.  What answer was she supposed to give other than face the facts that she had been using me to fluff her ego and be somewhat of a safety.  She finally said something that I still to this day am unaware of it's truthfulness or not.  That being said, I like to believe it because it makes me feel good.  I was looking as deep down into her at the time, and still I could not tell either way if it was true or just something to appease me.

After fighting back tears, holding onto her strength, she said "It is true.  I love you.  I love you so much that it scares me.  I feel that if we were to be together, that would be it.  It would be set.  My feelings for you run so deeply that I know I would not leave you and that scares me.  We are still young and have lives to live away from one another.  Someday though I feel we will be together, just not today."

This eased me some.  I don't believe that she had ever in her life been backed into a corner like that.  She was always so sure of herself that people followed.  She was forced to give a hard answer and that is what I received.  It was like the chains were free from me.  I had a definite answer.  It was not to be at that time.

EPILOGUE:
We remained friends and while occasionally losing contact with one another, we always were in the background.  That guy she was with at the time instead of me, well, they were engaged for awhile.  I warned her of something that I felt about him which she ignored it and it turned out to be true.  He was gay and finally admitted it to himself and they broke up.  After that she dated a good friend of mine, like a brother, and that was hard for me to sit and see.  I knew 100% that it would not last long though as they were both very stubborn individuals.  It ended badly and shortly after.  Then I started dating someone else, she started dating someone else, moved a couple of towns over for school.  Once in awhile we would still get together for drinks.

The last time I saw her in person she brought her new boyfriend to me for approval.  After meeting him, talking to him, he seemed like a good man.  I was happy for her and she was happy.  For the first time she had a glimmer in those wonderful eyes that I had not seen before.  She honestly seemed that for once she knew something.  She knew who she was, she knew of her past wrongs, and what is clear and correct now.  She was on the right path and winning at this game we call life.

That was a few years ago when I last saw her.  We lost contact for awhile, but then one day I found her on the facebook.  It was hard because she was now married to that same guy with a new last name.  We spoke some, she felt bad that I was never let known about her marriage.  I wished I could have been there.  I always feel like I should have given her away in some form, even though I know this was not true.  I wrote her a letter telling her that our chance seems to have sailed, but I was happy to know she was in good hands.  She never responded to it, but I never expected her to either.  It is not her way to face things like that.  =)

I was inspired to write this all down to both work out my own story, but also because we were recently talking as old friends again.  She has moved away, living what she says is a happy life across the pond now.  She is restarting school to finish her dream and she posted a new picture of those eyes and that smile.  It was a face of pure joy that I had not seen on her, or on anyone for that matter, in years.  I almost wanted to weep because I was so happy and proud of her.  She made it through some rough times.  My only regret is that I was not always there by her side to help her on her way, but sometimes that is not our job, no matter how badly we want it to be. 

Dreaming of Old Friends...

So recently, as in today, I had a dream.  For those that don't know me as well as others, I don't remember my dreams very often, but this one was rather vivid and I remember it well.

I won't go over everything, but the main thing was that my wife had called a bunch of my old friends and got them to come out for a huge party in my honor.  Not only a party, but to help with some massive landscaping and yard renovations.  I woke up to find many old friends, people who meant a lot to me in the past and still do to some form, as well as a few other people that were acquaintances.  I was so happy to see everyone, but there was an issue.  I did not get much time to talk to any of them, at least not one on one.  It was all group settings and everyone was there, happy, but not really interested in me that much, just casual conversation.  Finally a found a couple really good old friends aside from the group smoking (I don't think either of them smoke IRL either...)  I asked them to ride with me, get away from everyone for a little bit, run down to the store to get some more smokes I think.  They were a bit weird about it, but said sure and then I woke.

When I woke, I thought about this dream quite a bit.  As I rarely remember any dreams, when I do I considered them as deeply as I can with what facts I remember.  I realized that there was this feeling that I did not know many of these people anymore.  I mean, yeah, I knew them, but not really.  It was this very superficial level of "knowing" and many of them I knew intimately at one time.  In fact, if you want to ask I will tell you if you were there and what feelings I remember.  I realized that these friends used to be so important to me, and in some ways still are, but in many ways they aren't either.  It felt a lot like Facebook or some other social network.  We have become so connected while very disconnected at the same time.

I say this because while we can see small changes in life and little thoughts throughout the day from these friends that we know and love, it removes the want and desire to talk to these people directly, to really know them on a level that is truly personal.  Everything that people post on the facebook is a superficial level of themselves.  They know who is watching and what they are saying.  It expands the idea of our ego and our self-image.  We all have at least three versions of our selves:

1. Who we think we are.
2.Who others think we are.
and 3. Who we really are.

But more and more I am thinking that the internet version of you is another one.  Think of it like this: if someone just google's your name, they may find this snapshot of you that lives on the internet.  You had some control over it's creation, and if you are some social network sites, so did your friends.  This is a version of you that lives on the internet only.  You and your friends had some input into it's creation, but so did various websites and whatever else you plugged your name into.  This you, in a lot of ways, may be the ideal you.  You don't normally post too many of your faults on here.  Most people don't advertise that they are a racist or a wife beater, but these parts may exist.  You know it, your friends may know it, but this facebook version may not.

On this same level, this internet version has changed the definition of friends and likes.  They are much more loose now.  I have people request to be my friend that I do not even know.  I dig through their profile constantly looking for some clue as to where I know them from only to find that the connection is really only that we may both like something.  In real life if I see someone reading a book by an author I like I may talk to them, strike up a conversation and I would not consider us friends right away, but on facebook we are all willy-nilly to say "Hey, this person is a friend of a friend of a friend and likes Kurt Vonnegut as well, we shall be friends."  Then you click a button.  Once the request is sent one may accept it and you are then, from that moment on, officially friends.

I kind of went a few places here, but the overall point that I am trying to get to in a backwards way is that even this version of my real friends is a weird bastardized version.  I get certain details, mix them in with what I remember of them IRL, and that is my image of them.  I have come to the conclusion that I do not like this at all.  The problem is that there is not much that I can do about it, especially since I am so far removed from them in location anymore.  We were once together at a school or in a house, but now we only see what they chose to show others.  If my facebook friend disappears, did they just choose to delete their account or did they die in some horrible wreck?  It is safe and sterile and therefore takes a lot of the fun out of meeting people, knowing people, and wondering about people.  The clues to who they really are can get buried so deep down that there is this false sense of security and therefore friendship that is created.

I guess to sum this all up, do we really know anyone anymore?  A few people, maybe, but trying to reconcile those images of self into an actual being is becoming harder and harder.  It is not all bad, I am not trying to say that, it is just that human relationships are difficult already and we are throwing this monkey wrench into it that complicates things even more.

Here is my end question:  What are your experiences with friendship in the age where the definition has become so blurred?  In what ways is this better or worse?