I was always the type to have few friends.

But the few I had, I'd hit it off with very easily.

This is the story of a friend who is not dead.

We shared a great deal of interests and I even got him to play a couple of games and watch anime. A friendship that lasted over a decade.

Conversation was easy and time would fly away when we'd play videogames together.
I got him to play my MMO of choice for about a month and recent events made me remember a very specific episode.

I was about to complete a transaction with another player, but I was calling shenanigans. He wanted all the goods as proof I was legit while providing payment in halves. This makes no sense as the game's trading system guarantees both parts get what they agreed to. After a back and forth, the would-have-been trader accused me of being immature. The old "do you know who I am?" routine began. He was a 30-something year-old architect and we were just a bunch of know-nothing noobs. We laughed at his display and he soon left.

Me: "30 and still paying videogames like these? What a loser!"
Friend: "I don't think that makes you a loser, it's his attitude more than anything."
M: "Well yeah I guess, like I want to have my life all sorted out by then but yeah you're right"
M: "Actually yeah, I'd rather be a 30 yo mmo'er than the kind of guy that settles with an ugly broad just because it's the sensible thing to do"
F: "lol yeah same here, I don't want to grow up to be a tool but I don't want to be a tryhard mmo scammer either"
M: "dang スレ友④号, people end up like that for a reason, society's pressures and all.
F: "We'll have to be all over each other's cases to make sure we don't become social zombies!"
F: "if you ever invite me for brunch with your girlfriend I'll know for sure you're dead inside"

[Running gag - brunch is something strivers do, more so in a country that had no established "brunch culture" until unitedstatesian TV shows made it hip]

M: "I'd be dead for REAL before I ever ate brunch!"
F: "here lies スレナガ; cause of death: suicide by brunch. May he rest in peace"
M: "har har har!"
F: "har har har!"

Puberty had already hit us by then and the growing wants that come with all those hormones running wild on you manifested as they always do. My friend and some others were showing signs of what I consider a weak character, but everyone deserves to have flaws. He was becoming the kind that brown-noses a chronic crush that never goes out with him in the end. His chronic crush happened to be the school's bicycle. Myself, I had girls interested in me but the way they approach/ed things makes me lose interest. The pretty ones are self-absorbed and have nothing to strive for, every conversation starting and ending in them, as if all their life they practiced to be trophy wives. Those from a better-off upbringing flaunting their wealth. And the less pretty they are the more vicious they get. And the flirting. I honestly wonder if easy access to porn has made courtship and sex globally awful or if flirting before these times was just as uncutely awkward. Yes, I’m a judgmental freak but, like I said, everyone deserves to have flaws. Nothing that friendly banter can't keep in check.

My friend never scored. His aspirations lied in a field different from mine so we,
like everyone in my small circle of friends, went off our separate ways in college.

Weekly get-togethers became monthly, then infrequently, then yearly, and then they stopped.

At one of the later meetings, this friend decided to bring his girlfriend along. Everyone changes, but things had been getting weird. In the rare net chats we'd have, he was becoming reserved as the smiley to text ratio exploded. I was not ready to meet his girlfriend: short, fat (BMI), beady, angry black eyes, overly confrontational and quick to judge and faster to offend -- the exact opposite of what he used to want. I remember slowly approaching the subject of anime with my friend and she outright told me only pedophiles watch that.

Pause, mug, reply: "that's a fascinating opinion that you should definitely share with your shrink, but I was asking スレ友④号".
Suffice to say, my friend no longer watches anime or plays videogames. Suffice to say, his girlfriend did not warm up to me.
I took the opportunity to approach him in instant chat to give him my unsolicited thoughts.

M: "You can do better than that!"
F: "you might think that :S but she's worth it for the personality!"
M: "What, she's as good at anal as she lets off?"
F: "LOL"
F: "she's a genius, you'd know if you could spend as much time as I have with her :P"

Years pass. Other, far more egregious disappointments with friends happen, leading me to faintly consider the possibility
that I may have impossibly high standards for interpersonal relationships.

I got a phone call.
I didn't recognize the voice of my friend.
He asked me how I was doing.
Fearing we have little in common, I deflected the question.

Me: "So, still with that girlfriend?"
Friend: "How about you, still single?"

Some retort about me being too rock-and-roll for romance to imply the comment didn't offend or hurt and he could keep it coming, just like old times. He continued to tell me about the things a person with a life™ as his does and has. Crappy TV shows, mundane outings, his gym subscription, how important he's become at work: the less angry, more obliviously friendly version of the "do you know who I am?" speech -- the "let me tell you who I am!" speech.

Friend: "anyway, this call is getting too long. We happen to be in town this week. How are you tomorrow? Meet us for brunch?"

And only THEN did I realize! This whole call! The tone in his voice, the contents, the brunch! I burst out laughing. This guy always knew how to lay out a good set-up. A few moments later, he was laughing too. And after a while he says:

"So you'll meet us for brunch?"

Death comes to us all.

Click either to return to:
Home page | Life&Times