Category Archives: sex

What Friendship Is

08 Friday Apr 2016

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

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Yesterday evening my best friend deactivated his Facebook roughly around the same time that his mom sent me a message over Facebook, then when I asked him about why he deactivated, he gave me a response that I couldn’t quite decipher. All night at work when I texted him, he was giving me short responses. I could not figure out if something was wrong or not. Minutes before I was leaving work, he sent me a text saying that I should call him once I got out.

So I did.

He was on his way to get his paycheck from the temp agency and I asked him what was going on. With that came some VERY GOOD NEWS! He is getting hired in to the place he has been working as a temp! He needs to have a drug test tomorrow morning. He also told me that he deactivated his Facebook because he was just getting annoyed by all the drama on it – the fact that his mom sent me a message roughly the same time that he deactivated was just a strange coincidence.

The reason for the short text responses was due to the fact that he was so excited about getting hired in that he was busy telling all his coworkers. When he told me that he was getting hired in, I was (and continue to be) very excited. That is one less bit of stress that him and I need to worry about. When he gets hired in, he’ll also be receiving a $1.60 per hour raise which will also help him out a lot as well.

I’m so excited for him, I really don’t know how to convey it.

Also: he finished the call with “love you” and I responded likewise which was good because it settled any doubts I was starting to have.

In other news: for the second time in 5 months, I had another windshield installed on my car. A rogue rock (again) hit my windshield (again) and nearly shattered it (again). The first time this happened was on November 5, 2015 – two days after meeting my best friend. I shouldn’t be superstitious but I wonder what (if anything) this signifies. A new new beginning perhaps? Regardless, all I want is for my best friends life to turn around for the better. Him getting hired into the place he currently is working is great news.

He’ll get his life in order – and I will support him every step of the way. If he can’t face a challenge alone, I will gladly face it with him.

Because that is what friendship is.

Decayed Ambition

07 Thursday Apr 2016

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I don’t know why I’m still allowing what my best friends mom said the other morning to continue to get to me. I’ve even allowed it to effect how frequently I talk to my best friend. Her blind accusations hurt – they hurt quite a bit. I lack my best friends ability to just dismiss them as just the blathering’s of an alcoholic.

The other reason why it’s getting difficult to get over is because I haven’t seen my best friend since that rather disastrous meet up with his mom. The entire situation has been tough to cope with. I’m trying to move on, but I’m not sure how I’ll be able to do that.

After months of helping my best friend get his life back together, I put myself in a rather dangerous financial situation. I’ve completely drained my savings and I am back to living pay check to pay check. It’s not where I’d like to be – however this is the situation I am currently in and my best friends mom felt compelled to make sure to let me know that I was essentially inadequate to be a friend of her son’s because of that.

On top of her tearing me apart, she also decided to try and dissuade me by attempting to tear her own son apart. She doesn’t want me to live with her son but could not come up with a reason with out reverting to ad hominem.

Now I understand where my best friend gets that ass-hole streak I see him sometimes exhibit. I see where his skepticism originates when someone is being genuine with him. I also see why he puts up a front and hides his emotions when dealing with people. His fights with depression also originate with her. She is so demeaning to people, I am sure that it extends to her own son as well.

This week needs to end.

The Break Up

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

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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.

Maintaining the Intimacy

27 Sunday Mar 2016

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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

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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

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“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.