Saturday, 28 March 2009

  • Girls and Boys Cannot be Friends

    I know the world doesn't spin the way I'd like it to, but when it comes to friends, there are expectations we have of each other.  As we grow older, of course those things can change.  Here, I guess I'm coming to realize that my perfect little world of what I thought were my close-knit brothers, is truly falling apart.  Nonetheless, they are still part of my family to me and I will still get it tatt'd on me somewhere, somehow.

    But I cannot help but reconsider the current friendship status with one.....  All because of his wife.

    Background:
    I am part of a group of (around) 15 friends since high school.  We've been pretty close enough to consider each other brothers and sister.  Notice the plurals and singular indications there.  Yes I am the only girl.  They look to me like their little sister, so they're protective of me, and I look at them as if I were their mother watching over them.

    I am the "really cool guy with really long hair" (although at the time I had my hair really short most of the time).

    For the most part, since then we've never had issues with each of our "significant others" or even "potential others" in regards to the friend of the opposite sex.  For me, I've stood up for them and if the guy didn't accept them, that's his problem, not mine or my friends. 

    2000-2001:
    First year of college (do the math, yes I'm old).  The oldest in our group, "JC" enlisted to the military.  At the time he was sent off during the war and was even on the main ship that was in the front lines.  So, I don't know much of what happened then, because all our info was from him - that he was still alive.  As far as we were concerned, as long as we heard from him no more than every 2 days, then things were okay. 

    At the same time, during my first year of college, I got into some really fk'd up stuff.  Sh*t happened, a lot of which I had no control over, and I admit I was letting a whole lotta things go.  He was the one who sat me down and talked me back down to earth.  He told me how it was, and what it meant to be friends, not just with him but with everyone else, and I wasn't living up to it.  After that talk, I seriously did get my act back together.  

    2001:
    One day, JC and his shipmate were in town visiting.  JC calls me up to hang out with him while he tagged along with his shipmate who was "messing around" with this other chick, BC, because he was feeling like a 3rd wheel with them.  So hanging out with them, we would sit off to the side and talk about what he's missed at "home".  I come to find out from him that BC is tryin to get his buddy to divorce his wife and marry her instead (mainly for papers, but also cuz she liked him).  Didn't like her already for the fact that she knew the dude was married.  But whatever.

    Eventually though, she realizes he's not gonna leave his wife, so she "jumped ship" and went for my friend.  Apparently, marriage gives an extra income in military, so she talked JC into marrying her for the extra income and to help her get her citizenship.  He assured me that would be it.

    2001 - Present:
    Long story short, he has become progressively unreachable and the distance between us in terms of our friendship has increased more and more.  Why?  Well of course what is a female's enemy in regards to their man?  Another female.  So apparently his friendship with me didn't make sense.

    The first few years of their marriage he realizes she suckered him into her world and refused to let him go without a fight.  The way it sounded like to me, it sounded like blackmail to me, thus = JC is stuck.  He would always talk to me about trying to get out.  But as the years roll by, he's still with her.  

    Eventually I find out that they have a child together, when she was 2 months old.  I was a little sad but I understood she felt uncomfortable with me.  All I could do is wait patiently and give her her space.  I figured, if they were together that long and had a kid, then something must have grown between them, and I was truly happy for him finally because that is all he had ever wanted while we were growing up.

    It Finally Starts...:
    Then sometime last year, he finally made brief contact with me.  Informing me that they will be moving back to the bay area, and how he was excited to be able to come home again and wants to see us all again.  Shortly after they moved, came the dinner where he wanted "to have a reunion to see everyone together again" as part of his welcome home.  

    Usually in our group, we tell a few and then they spread the word since we are about 15 people.  Word spread to me of course, and it came to me normally so I thought nothing more of it other than excitement to see us all together again.  But when the day came, I called/texted around to get info.  Somehow, during that time, I find out that I may not be actually included to that reunion.

    "I mentioned you were gonna come and he got all nervous and scared saying things like 'wife... wife.... noo.....'"

    At the time, I snapped.  All my patience, respecting her space was thrown out the window.  I'm also disappointed in JC.  How could he spit all this honor of friendship to me years ago, about standing up for each other, respecting each other, yet not have the balls to live up to his preaching towards his wife? 

    I am then torn between understanding his position and honor he must uphold with his wife, and then his friendship with me. 

    I say nothing, and eventually try to put it to the back of my head.

    Now the other weekend, I find out it's his daughter's 3rd birthday and he invited everyone in our group to her birthday party.  Again the news spread to me, but of course, I'm not actually invited, yet again. 

    I don't think I can take this.  I'm hurt that he considers me a friend and supposedly misses me as much as the other guys, but keeps me out of the loop in everything in his life.  Perhaps for my own protection, but I don't even know him anymore.  Someone told me we could all plan a "secret" meeting (and I'm not saying like just the 2 of us, but a meeting where at least I'm included), but I hate that.   

    So I wonder...  The more I hear about important parts of his life that he's willing to share with all his "friends", where he knowingly leaves me out of it (of course not his fault), the more it hurts me.  

    He's the first in our group to get married.  The first in our group to have a child.  The rest of us are still struggling with relationships, or lack of.

    What do I do?  

    I'm considering "deleting" him, and then telling our friends to stop telling me about him.  I don't want to hear anything anymore about him and his life because it always ends up hurting me now.  He's not the JC I knew back in 2001 that saved me from my destructive life.  Sadly, the only 2 bits of news I would accept to hear about him would be if 1) he divorced her, or 2) he passed away.

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