Monthly Archives: March 2016

Despite Everything

31 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in car, debt, friend, Love, male friendship, men, Money, rain, time, Today

≈ Leave a comment

My best friend is handling the break up quite well despite everything. He is coming over to my place tomorrow to get drunk because I told him that if he was going to get trashed, I was going to be there to make sure nothing bad happens to him. I’m excited that he’s coming over, except that in the meantime I have to do a lot of cleaning and other chores. Thankfully I have tonight off from work to get some stuff done.

Her on the other hand is doing what she does best – it seems quite evident that she has her eye set on another guy, and he is the fiance of another friend of mine. That is a situation that I’m just going to stay out of for my own good.

I hope.

In other news: as I was driving home from work, I had another large rock kicked up by a semi and put a large hole in my windshield. I just had that windshield replaced in November for the same thing. I don’t have much luck in that regard. It’s going to be a fun $220 expense using money that I don’t have.

The Break Up

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in car, Coffee, debt, friend, Life, list, Love, male friendship, men, Money, poem, rain, redemption, sex, time, Today, work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

They did it – for real this time, my best friend and his girlfriend broke up and I’m quite happy about it. That probably sounded cold however she basically destroyed his life and I had to do A LOT to help him get back on his feet. Right now he is back at his former place, and I REALLY wish that I were right there with him.

The break-up went down yesterday apparently, I don’t know all the specifics, but it’s one thing that I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about any more. He thinks that they may get back together, but I’m suspicious that that would happen. She is already looking elsewhere. I see her after work talking to several guys by her car and I suspect that there is one that she has her eye on.

His ex-girlfriend can only sustain a relationship for two to three months, in that period of time she manages to completely destroy the guys life then plays the damsel in distress once she decides to break up with them. I’ve watched this pattern happen over and over again over the course of a year that I knew her, so when her and my best friend got into a relationship, I KNEW the same thing was going to happen.

It’s not him, it’s her.
To quote Proust, “For he admitted the possibility that she did not love him.”

But now, my best friend really doesn’t have a place to live. I told him that he is welcome at my place, but my place is rather small. I also told him that when I get a bigger place he’s welcome to live with me there. He seems intent on getting a place for himself or possibly getting back together with her. It’s peculiar that his rationale for wanting to get a place for himself is that he is a ‘grown ass man’ yet the moment he tries to be independent, his entire life falls apart.

The thing is that in 5 weeks (as I mentioned yesterday) he is going to have a daughter coming. With that comes A LOT of extra expenses from formula, car seats, furniture to child support etc. He’s not going to have much money to really get a place of his own. And he isn’t yet hired into the place that he is working yet – he is still a temporary employee. I feel obligated to find a way to help him out, his life is important to me.

I told him that I’d be there for him – I have to be there for him, I don’t feel that there is any other option. I, however, will NOT in anyway try to help him and her get back together. I’m fairly certain that soon she’ll start seeing someone else. That is her M.O.

I wonder when she is going to block him on Facebook and on her phone, then start ghosting him like she’s done to almost every one of her ex-boyfriends. He didn’t know her too long before he decided to pursue a relationship with her, I on the other hand did. I’ve worried about this day since he first starting seeing her, and this day is here and I don’t know how to react.

I love my best friend, I don’t want him going through this – but it’s definitely for the better. She destroyed his life and now it’s time for him to get his life turned around, hopefully before his daughter comes.

Ignoring Babies

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in friend

≈ 1 Comment

So I did something I’m not sure is a good thing or a bad thing yesterday – I sent my best friends ex-girlfriend a friend request on Facebook and we’ve been talking a bit. She is pregnant with my best friends daughter and she is due in five weeks. He is currently ignoring her thinking that somehow that is going to make the entire situation better. Her and I talked for a bit – I feel that him abandoning her is terrible despite all the other drama surrounding that former relationship of his.

Her and I are both in agreement however that his current relationship isn’t doing him any good and will probably end in a disaster.

Today my best friend realized that his ex and I were friends on Facebook and questioned me about it. He is not pleased at all. His life is going to fall apart again in little over a month and he thinks being ignorant up until that point is going to help him.

I’m morbidly depressed right now – I’ll have to write more tomorrow if I have the energy.

Easter

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in friend

≈ Leave a comment

So I decided to try and resurrect a friendship I had that fell to pieces a few years ago and I’m doing this to the chagrin of my best friend.

My best friend doesn’t seem to understand the hell he put me through when he decided to pursue a relationship with his girlfriend – and the hell he continues to put me through. He is treating my current resolve to try and reignite a former close friendship as a betrayal and is clearly jealous.

But my life needs to reassemble itself some how and I am going to explore all my options whether my best friend approves or not.

Maintaining the Intimacy

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in books, car, Carlos Andres Gomez, Coffee, Courtney E. Martin, debt, friend, Life, list, Love, male friendship, men, Money, On Being, poem, rain, redemption, sex, snow, time, Today, work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

To see that there is a disparity between male friendships and female friendships, you do not have to look far. Society has placed strong guidelines on how each of these types of friendships can be conducted. Intimacy in a friendship is OK for females but not OK for males – despite studies indicating that males desire the same level of intimacy in their friendships as their female counterparts have in theirs.

It is peculiar, I’ve noticed, that the ‘enforcers’ of many of these strict guidelines the regulate how ‘close’ men are allowed to get in their friendships largely originate with women. As they enjoy intimacy within their friendships, they look on with skepticism when the same level of intimacy occurs with male friendships.

My best friends girlfriend and her best friend make for two prime examples of this. Those two have accused my best friend and I of multiple different things – they even went as far as saying that my best friend was cheating on his girlfriend with me.

Regardless, developing a closeness within a male friendship requires the ability to defy and resist the strict standards placed on males from society. A close friendship doesn’t come easy in our world and therefore sometimes requires a conscious effort to maintain. My best friend and I will reassert our devotion to each other from time to time when various circumstances seem to get in the way of our friendship.

But – how do males get to that ‘closeness’ in the first place? It certainly doesn’t just happen. As Courtney E. Martin illustrates in her column Men and Friendship: Letting the Guard Down First generally speaking one of the people within  the friendship needs to ‘break the ice’ and shatter the emotional barrier that men have been taught to erect.

Thirty-three-year-old poet, actor, and memoirist Carlos Andrés Gómez described how a mentor of his told him that people will only be vulnerable with you if you model it first, and that men so often get stuck in shallow relationship because they are perpetually waiting for the other guy to let his guard down. “So I created an ‘I love you because list,’ with 25 reasons that I loved my best friend and gave it to him,”

The closeness between my best friend and I didn’t begin with a list such as described. The ‘vulnerability’ took place on the morning of January 12, 2016 while sitting at McDonalds and it was done by him. This was when him and I were having a relatively heated discussion in regards to the disastrous relationship he had just entered into (and would lose his job because of in two days). He was being rather adamant that everyone in the social circle (that since has fallen apart) needs to get along. “Everyone needs to love everyone… everyone love everyone … I love you.” This was the first time anyone outside of family had spoken those three words to me.

In that moment our friendship transformed … again. There had already been a deep appreciation for one another due primarily to the stay in the hospital I had nearly a month earlier. A barrier had been torn down – one that needed to be taken apart. We’ve certainly been having a rough ride but in that moment we created a devotion to one another.

Taking a prompt from Carlos Andres Gomez, yesterday I decided to write out a list of 25 things that I love about my best friend. I’m currently deliberating as to how I’m going to post that list on this blog – but I found that creating the list was a great way to find a new appreciation of my best friend. It’s an exercise that I’ll have to repeat from time to time in the future.

We will fight to maintain what we have in this friendship – and we’re not going to let other things – like societies preconceptions of what a male friendship should look like – get in the way.

 

Being Rather Desperate

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by in books, car, Coffee, debt, friend, Life, Love, male friendship, Money, rain, redemption, sex, snow, time, Today, work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Twelve dollars is all that I have left – and payday was yesterday. Now that overtime is essentially over, by hospital bills are absolutely bleeding my dry. Today I had to get an oil change in my car because the car was so past-due for one the “check-engine” light came on. The money I had to use for the oil change was supposed to be my gas and food money for this week.

So I find myself in a rather desperate situation that I’m not ready to face quite yet.

My best friend is essentially in the same boat as me.

No money; no gas.

Stuck in our own separate voids.

I am still feeling horribly restless though and now that I’m essentially trapped in my small apartment in this tiny town with not much means of escape has me a bit bothered.

I’ve been in this situation before – I’ll figure something out.

Inventing Words

25 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by in #friend, books, car, Coffee, debt, friend, Life, Love, male friendship, Money, rain, redemption, sex, time, Today, work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

“There is no term to describe the breakup of a passionate friendship, no ritual or legal proceeding to mark  its end the way divorce does for marriage, even though it often leaves just as large a hole in the psyche. Lost friends are as haunting as lost lovers, and just as hard to replace. The more abrupt and inexplicable their behavior, the more troubling and insidious the toll. The fallout from betrayal by friends can resonate for decades.”

– Jeanne Safer, The Golden Condom

No, my best friend and I haven’t ‘broke up’ but I fear that the connection between us that once existed has gotten strained; it’s weakened and I told him so much. I also told him that I’m going to be stubborn and weather, with him, whatever storms come his way, my way or even ‘our way’.

I’ve had several friendship break-ups in the past and I’m not sure I can endure another one. I mean, even with my current friendship with Thunder I clearly hold my reservations and that is due to the issues I’ve faced in previous friendships.

I know that I’ve talked about this plenty of times here before…

…but it’s a topic that my mind can’t seem to move away from.

Some of the problems I had with previous friendships is that they were very superficial – yeah, I guess that’s the right word. They had some depth but lacked substance. – and that is what I am trying to ensure that my current friendship has. There needs to be some form of bedrock that our friendship is founded on. The problem is that I’m not sure if my best friend shares the same view that I do.

Him and I discussed getting matching tattoo’s again yesterday. I don’t have any tattoo’s but I am agreeing to this largely because it is his idea and something as permanent as a tattoo signifies something… right? Considering that it is his idea and not mine says that he wants this friendship to last.

But why doesn’t he ever feel the need to talk to me? Spending time together is a key to even a casual friendship and I worry that slowly I’m being replaced by his girlfriend.

Maybe.

I think when she told him last weekend that she felt the connection between them was gone – some cracks in their relationship began to appear. Her role in destroying his life back in January, causing him to lose his job – the place where he and I developed our friendship – then said that I was interfering with their relationship when I tried to maintain the friendship; that role of hers I CANNOT over look.

Their risky behavior like the pregnancy scare they had, the fact that they went in the ditch during a run for weed (resulting in him getting a $500 hospital bill) and other small things I don’t have the patience to list makes me want to see that relationship come to an end.

That might be terrible to say – but after much consideration that is the conclusion that I’ve reached. I need to draw a line somewhere. Their relationship is such a huge disaster and if anything threatens a potential friendship break up between my best friend and I, it’ll be her.

At any rate, today I sit here in a new coffee shop contemplating terms that could be used to define a friendship break up – and once I come up with one, I hope that I’ll never have to use it to define the friendship between my best friend and I.

‘Here lies what is left of a waste of a life’

24 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in friend, Life, rain, Today

≈ Leave a comment

I’m in a drought of feelings – I think I used them all up yesterday and my body hasn’t figured out how to generate more. There are thoughts floating between the neurons in my brain trying to discover a way to complete themselves. I sense their existence but I can’t transmit them to my finger tips.

Maybe I sense that I’m going to swept up in another violent storm and I’ve yet to comprehend exactly how I’ll be able to deal with it. The AnimalInside me senses something new on the horizon, it’s all the warning signs I’m choosing to ignore that tell me.

I speculate that my best friends relationship with his girlfriend is approaching it’s end – three months seems to be the length of her relationships. He however wouldn’t be aware of this since he hasn’t known her as long as I have. If the relationship ends, so will his stay at her house. He’s not going to have a place to go – except to me.

My life’s a wreck right now, at this moment I need pizza and someone that I can lean on.

At least I have pizza.

Broken to pieces

23 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in books, car, debt, friend, Life, Love, male friendship, rain, redemption, Today, work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I experienced a full-blown anxiety attack last night. I wasn’t sure what was going on with my body, with my emotions, with anything really. I went to the bathroom and started a mixture of shaking, crying, puking and light-headedness. I had an inability to focus.

And it was all taking place at work.

The most awful part was that I could not fathom exactly what was happening. I would break out into periods of sweat then intense shivers. I was disoriented for a large portion of the time. It was extremely tough for me to try and pull myself together.

But I did – as much as I could feasibly manage and I made my way from the rest room back to the press and continued my shift.

The entire experience was the second time in my life where I felt I’d lost complete control of my body and had no idea how to ‘right’ myself. The first time was just before I collapsed at work back in December 2015. The feeling of being disoriented was frightening.

I almost had another one of these panic attacks when I got home from work this morning. I don’t know what I did differently to prevent it’s full onslaught this time, but whatever it was subsided.

Where has my happiness gone?