One of the most complex relationships one can have is friendship. It is complicated because it is an unrelenting monster. A lot of you may disagree, and say that friendship is one of the easiest types of relationship one can have with another human being. I do not believe that. I think it is something that is often times forced upon people, in order to feel like they fit in and also too friendship with the opposite sex, whether you are a female or a male is another complicated mess that can either thrive or turn up messy. I am not ragging on friendships, I am not one of these weirdoes that hates society. I have a few friends and a lot of people that I consider casuals, as in casual acquaintances. I was going to make this about all aspects of friendship, including the complex and often times heart wrenching friendships with females but then I thought to myself that the entry would be somewhere in the too long and too boring an entry so this is going to be part 1 of a series. I am not sure how long it will be. I want to talk about the most common of friendships. This applies to either sex and that is the friendship between you and the same sex. In this case since I am a male, I will talk about that.
It is a myth that friendship between guys is simple. People think that if you find someone with the same common interest or the same school or class or work that a friendship will spawn and everything will be nice. I think it is much more complicated than that. I have been in situations, especially at work, when I would be teamed up with whatever guy and we would chit chat and there would be nothing. I mean it he may turn out to be a casual acquaintance and nothing more. More times then not for me these types of friendships go nowhere.
When I am with a girl there are often times when I and my girlfriend at the time would hang out with other couples. I did this a few times with my long term ex, but my ex from mainland China, we did this quite a few times. I would be introduced to my ex girlfriends’ friends and those girls would bring whatever guy with them and we would be kind of forced to talk and shoot the shit. Those types of encounters always make me feel nervous and I try to avoid them at all costs. It is fun when I am with a girl and we go out with another couple to like see a movie or go shopping. That is fun I must admit, but what is not is the quiet time, especially if I am hanging with friends of my girlfriend and they run and do their girly thing. It’s those quiet moments when I forced to kind of chit chat with someone who is like a total stranger. I hate that shit. My ex from mainland China, had some cool friends, but she would always run off with her girlfriend and I would stuck trying to talk with some guy who has the same interest level in speaking to me that I do to him, which is to say none. It also doesn’t help the fact that these guys barely spoke English.
If you have kept up with my face book status updates, recently I mentioned I went to a goodbye party for a friend of mine who was going to back Seoul. I have known this guy for more 7 years and I consider him my best friend. We have been through good times and bad times. There was a time when he got super drunk and I mean black out drunk and he tried to assault some Japanese guy. I guess he did it because since he is Korean and he doesn’t like Japanese people too much. I saved his ass from a beat down because we were at a party with mostly Japanese and he just lost his shit. I had to calm the guy down and told him he was just drunk. On the other side of the coin, there was a time when I got blind drunk and he helped me get home. I didn’t assault or bother anyone but I was quite a bit a ways from where I lived so he helped me home. We have gone on double dates, I took him to his first American strip club*, and he got me laid in Seoul**. Real best friend shit. I mean it was good times and stuff.
However, when I went to that party I started to notice something. I noticed that the same comfortable feeling wasn’t there anymore. I saw that he had a lot of friends, which was cool, but that in past I was the one who helped him plan stuff. What I mean is that just about every party he has thrown he has taken my advice and for this good bye party, all I got was a text message invite. During the time of the party planning I was with my friend who had come from Korea to visit me and so he may have thought that I was too busy with her, but I don’t think that’s really it anymore. I think maybe the friendship is ending.
You may be think that I am saying this because I am a negative person who only sees the darkness and is so jaded about his own bullshit, but I don’t think that’s the case. I get this feeling because I noticed over the past year or so we stopped talking and started hanging out less and less. When we would hang out I felt that we didn’t do the same fun things like we used too. I mean we used to really party hard and talk with girls. I don’t mean pick up girls. I am not a big fan of picking up women from bars or really from anywhere. The way I meet women are on a whim. I don’t purposefully go out to a bar and say “tonight I will get laid”, no I am not that type of guy. When my friend and I would get drunk then I would like to talk too ladies. Usually Asian girls, and Korean girls to be specific. He and I knew a lot of Korean bars and we would go and just drink there. For me talking with the girls at the bar is more of a confidence booster and every now and then I would ask a well timed “can I have your number?”, and actually get it. Most of the time it was just goofing. He would do the same. Though he was a tad smoother then since he could speak Korean, my only glam appeal was the fact that I am a US citizen who speaks English fluently and for many ladies this gets them wet***.
Maybe it’s the fact that we’re growing up. He is one year older then me so that makes him 30 and since I turn 29 in less then a month, maybe we are too old to be bullshitting with girls who hang out at bars. I don’t know honestly. Is 29 too old to be chasing women? I don’t think so. I know a few people whom I have grown up with are married, but not all of them. I do want to get married and have kids, but when I would hang out and drink I just wanted to have a good time. I just think maybe he found new people with better or more interesting interests. That’s probably it. Am I saddened by it? Maybe a little. Am I angry about it? Nah, not really. I am an angry person, but when it comes to friendship, I have anger towards others and those people are of the opposite sex. That is an article for another day and time.
Seinfeld said it best that it is harder breaking up with a friend then it is a woman. I agree. I also agree with what Louis CK said that making new guy friends is like dating. I mean it really is. Making a new friendship with some dude is just as hard as trying to go out with a woman. Just think about it. When you meet a new guy, you guys become buddy-buddy, and you all are about to go out. You put on whatever right? Wrong, subconsciously you pick out something that is cool but casual. With ladies it is the opposite, you pick something with the illusion of casual but is actually cool. Then when you hang out with the new friend you all do your thing and subconsciously wonder if this person finds you interesting. Making new friends with other guys has all the bullshit to dating but none of the good shit. Just think about the next time you(the male reading this, fuck, this also applies to ladies, maybe even worse for the ladies) hang out with someone new, you will do all things that I have mentioned. Yes, you will and if you tell me otherwise then I know you are lying.
I want to get back to the Seinfeld train of thought, about ending a friendship is a hard thing to do. I have experienced a few incidents with people whom really liked me as a friend and I could not stand the person and I tried to casually get away from that person. I usually employ the disappear technique. This can be a cruel one, but I think it is better. I mean just make yourself scare and eventually you are out of that persons life. It is not nice and sometimes I feel really guilty about it.**** Sometimes you need to have self preservation and sometimes you have to be mean.
I have one really good male friend left. This is a guy I have known since I was 5 years old. I am happy for that. I know I rank high up as a good friend, but he does not consider me his best friend. That is okay. I am cool with that. I think old time good friends outrank best friends sometimes, It’s about the shared history which is cool. I consider my brother to be a best friend as well, but he is a biological friend. We fight and bicker but when the fucking chips are down, we got each other’s back especially if someone outside of the family tries to fuck around.
Friendship is mighty complex. It can be beneficial and it can be toxic. It can be great but it can also suck too. Are friends truly important? I don’t know, I honestly don’t. Their have been times in my life when I didn’t really have any friends and I still did the things I did. I am not the type of person that needs people to go with him to bars or movies or whatever, It can be more fun with another person, but at the same time other people can hinder a good time. Also I must point out, that doing things alone can be a lonely experience and loneliness, my friends and readers, is the shittiest emotion to feel.
*I took my friend and his buddy from Seoul to this little strip joint in San Francisco, called “Little Darlings” it was a shit hole of a place, but I did get the striper to do a little act for my friend. For a mere $20 this gal did a somersault on to my friends lap and her cunt and ass were all up in his face. I still remember how his face turned red. Fucking funny!
** My friend took me to the red light district of Seoul. I had had relations with Korean women, but I basically had to break up with a girl that I was seeing while I was there. I had told her I could make it back out to see her in like 6 months, but she was a really realistic person. She told me that I needed to focus on my work and what we had was fun, but that it was over. She was curt and honest about it but it is and probably will be the best break up I have ever had. She was a kindergarten teacher in Seoul. Very serious and almost always angry face, but she was fun. She told me few people see her fun side. I was lucky enough too. I asked my friend to take me to the red light district because I was not sure when I would be back to Seoul.
***What I said might have been crude, but according to my ex, one of the reasons why she liked me was because I was the fluent English speaker to approach and talk to her like a lady and not because she was from a different country.
****I have had people pull the same trick on me as well. I know all about how fucked up it is to pull the whole disappearing on another person trick, but sometimes one has no choice. Ladies have pulled this on me more times then guys. In fact this happened this past July, but truth be told I was glad she did it first.
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