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Friendship. It’s so many wonderful things. It’s caring. It’s affection. It’s laughter and inside jokes.
It’s also the last bastion of the freshly dumped. After all, how many breakup conversations include the phrase, “can we just be friends?”
So why do we go along with such a “request”? Are we that desperate? Do we get so attached that we’re willing to settle for friend status just to stay in someone’s life? Take the story of Jackie:
Jackie is a strong, independent woman (usually). She is also the victim of a recent breakup. Robert, her live-in boyfriend of three years, has decided that he needs time to “figure things out.” He still wants to be friends, but he needs to take a break from the relationship.
Jackie reluctantly accepts this arrangement, and the two continue to see each other once or twice a week, essentially at his discretion: she makes herself available when he calls, and only sometimes is he available when she calls.
Months pass, and Robert still hasn’t figured out what he wants. Though Jackie makes a few half-hearted attempts to date other men, not surprisingly, these dates go nowhere. She continues to pine for Robert.
So, why does Jackie put up with Robert’s wishy-washiness? Perhaps a better question is, what is going on inside Jackie’s brain…. Continue reading 'The Bane Of Friendship'»
Jake, Dennis, Lisa, Evan, and Krista, circa 2001
After Jake’s death, his family and friends were left in shock. (Although… that last sentence could probably be filed under the category of “excruciatingly obvious.”) In the months that followed, I found myself grasping for lessons I could learn from all that had happened. It was my way of finding therapy.
That was when I had to face the truth. That was when I realized I hadn’t been completely honest with myself. Because, when I said “that guy was my friend”… well, that wasn’t quite the case anymore.
Yes, Jake had been my friend… years ago. But the truth was, we had drifted apart. In the year leading up to his death, I spoke to him maybe five or six times. When we talked, it felt just like the old days, and I never stopped referring to him as a friend. But, we were nowhere near as close as we had been.
It was only months before he died that I started seeing Jake out swing dancing again (that’s how we knew each other). I remember thinking how cool it was to catch up with him. But I never made much of an effort to renew the friendship that we used to have. That was the extent of our reconnect: we saw each other at the random swing dancing venue, and we hung out and we chatted. Continue reading 'That Guy Was My Friend, Part 2'»
Katie, Dennis, and Jake, circa 2000
Today would’ve been Jake’s 30th birthday. As a tribute, I’d like to share a lesson I learned five years ago….
On April 4, 2005, at approximately 1:00 AM, my friend Jake Faust was pulled over by police officers while driving past the Golden West Hotel in downtown San Diego. What happened over the next few minutes remains a controversy to this day, but somehow, Jake ended up getting shot three times in the chest. The incident was reported all over the local news.
Two nights after he was killed, Jake’s friends arranged a candlelight vigil in front of the hotel. Unfortunately, I had been out of town, and by the time I found out about Jake, I had already missed the vigil. Still, I wanted to pay my respects, so I raced back to San Diego and headed downtown on my own the next afternoon. As I drove past the hotel, I could barely make out the small gathering of flowers and candles on the sidewalk. They seemed an almost insignificant speck in front of that massive building. Even after I parked, even as I walked towards the memorial, it all looked so small and trivial. Many of the candles still burned, and there were plenty of people walking along the sidewalk. But no one gave those flowers and candles more than a passing glance. Continue reading 'That Guy Was My Friend, Part 1'»
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