August 14, 2010

• Friendship Blues Revisited

  A few years ago I attended the wedding of my good friend from junior high school through college.  The girl he was marrying someone we had both met while we were undergraduates at UC San Diego.  She was a couple of years younger than us, and the only reason I knew her was that she hung around the same circles of friends that my girlfriend hung around with.  The exact circumstances of how my friend met his girlfriend are unknown to me, although I do know that the following episode did happen:

  One afternoon in the summer of 1999 I was in my bedroom using my computer after a long day of work.  I was enjoying our newly installed high-speed cable internet and trying to figure out how to use a music downloading software called “Napster”.  This was my very first experience downloading music from the internet, so I was thinking hard about which song would have the honor of being my very first pilfer.  I decided that it would be the pop/R&B song Where My Girls At? by 702.  I secretly liked this anthem to female supremacy, so I knew I had to download it covertly so no one could make fun of me.  1999 was a very pretentious era.  As soon as I hit “Search,” my friend (who was also one of my roommates) came into my room and said, “Dude, do you know Jessica Soriano?”

  “Yes.  Why?”

  “Oh, man, she’s cute!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah!  I’ve never met her before.  I was in the Price Center with Irene Davis, and we had just finished eating lunch when Jessica came by.  She came over and started chatting with Irene and whatnot.  She and Irene are friends or something, or maybe they have a class together.  I don’t know.  Irene introduced us and Jessica said that she’s seen me around before.  I said Oh yeah? and I just played it off cool.  I was just hoping that she wasn’t turned off by my smoking.  Anyway, I know you know every person on campus.  Is she single?  What do you think she meant when she said that she’s “seen me around”?  Do you think she’s interested?  Do you have her number?  Do you talk to her?  Could you find out if she would go out with me?”

  “Yeah, I know who she is.  As far as I know she’s single.  I don’t really talk to her.  I have her number, though.”

  “Dude, call her and ask her if she’d go out with me. Is that creepy?”

  “I don’t know.  Let’s see.”  I picked up my Panasonic 900 MHz cordless phone and dialed Jessica’s number.  “Good afternoon, this is Chris.  May I speak with Jessica, please? … Hey, how are you? … Good, good.  Do you have a minute? …  You met my friend today in the Price Center. … Yes, him … Yeah, listen.  Hypothetically speaking, if he were to ask you out on a date, would go out with him? … OK, that’s good to hear.  Thanks.  That’s perfect. … Yes. Yes.  … Thanks, Jessica.  … Bye.”

  I turned to my friend and said, “You should ask her out.”

  “OK, cool.  Thanks.  702?”  he asked after glancing at my computer monitor.

  “Yeah,” I said confidently.

  “Haha!  Good shit.  I like that song too.  Why is it a good song?”

  “I don’t know.” 

  They officially started dating the following year, shortly after I moved to Florida for professional school.  A few years went by and they decided to tie the knot.  My friend asked me to be a groomsman.  In the summer of 2003, I flew to Las Vegas to attend his bachelor party and their wedding.  Curiously, I was the only person from junior high school, high school and college to have been invited.  It was one of the most fun trips I had ever had, and I was honored to have been a part of the happiest moment of my friend’s life.  At the end of the reception, my friend and Jessica walked me to my rental car.  They thanked me for flying out from the east coast and being a part of their wedding.  They also assured me, because they knew that I was going through a patch of depression at that time, that everything would be OK.  I appreciated their concern, and I was thankful to have friends like them.  I asked them if they would attend my graduation next year, and they said that they would.

  Seven years later I find myself planning my own wedding.  It will be on November 6, 2010.  My friend will not be there, simply because we are no longer friends.  The reason (or reasons) why we are not friends isn’t clear to me.  The last time I spoke with him was in the parking lot of the country club where their reception was held.  I never heard from him again.  Shortly after his wedding, all his contact information became invalid.  He changed his email address, phone numbers, and IM screen names.    Additionally, he made no attempt to contact me to inform me of any of these changes.  He did not attend my graduation.  It was as if he didn’t exist anymore, despite the fact that I have pictures to the contrary. 

  Every time I recall this story, it makes me feel mixed emotions.  It makes me feel stupid and naïve.  It makes me feel unlikeable.  It reminds me that my perception of myself is rarely coincident with others’ perception of me.  But most importantly, this story makes me feel lonely and insignificant.  It reminds me of the one thing about me that I am embarrassed of and hate the most:  It tells me that I have very few good friends, and the ones that I do consider good friends probably don’t feel the same way.

  I’ve found myself remembering my friend more frequently lately.  This is the direct result of all the wedding planning that is slowly beginning to consume the majority of my waking hours.  As such, I have been feeling anxious and unsettled.  It’s not because I’m nervous about walking down the aisle.  I think getting married is easy.  The hard part is that all the planning makes you analyze and critique all of your life’s relationships.  Sadly, I’ve realized that my relationships are poor. The first two people I asked to be groomsmen declined.  Finding people to take part in other aspects of the ceremony has been difficult and frustrating as well.  This led my fiancée to directly ask me two days ago why I didn’t have any friends.  It came out harsher than she meant it to, but it’s a valid question.  The only answer I have for that is that I’m kind of boring.  This doesn’t necessarily make me sad, but it does make me feel uneasy, unsettled, and not good.  But gas makes me feel that way, too.  Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between anxiety and diarrhea.

  I was once told by an ex-girlfriend that if you have only one good friend when you die, then you’ve had a successful life.  I don’t know if she said that because she was an unlikeable loner with no social skills or because she really meant it, but I’m starting to agree with her.  No one deserves friends, and only lucky people have good ones.  I have one person who I consider to be a good friend, and I know she feels the same way.  I suppose I’m one of those lucky guys. 

  I’m looking forward to the rest of my life.

  • 6:21 pm
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