The Audacity
I have this friend. We have been pals on and off since the seventh grade. Towards the end of high school this friend's idiosyncrasies led him down a path that made it hard to be friends with him. Scattered, stoned, insensitive, thoughtless, spread too thin, these are the sorts of things I'm talking about. He would make plans with multiple people and inevitably he would fuck someone. He would make plans and show up hours late. It always seemed like when you were with him or just talking to him you would get interrupted by someone else and he had no ability to prioritize. I am a pretty hard lined individual especially when it comes to respect and how true respect is shown in one's actions. I try not to be late. I do NOT make concurrent plans with multiple parties. When I am with a friend or speaking to a friend I give them my undivided attention.Life is full of 'cost/benefit' ratios. At some point, maybe our sophomore year in college, I decided that trying to be friends with this individual was not worth my time. I spelled it out for him as I had all along the way. I said "Dave, it is hard to be friends with you." I didn't sever all ties I just didn't make any effort to contact or see him. By this time we didn't live in the same town so it wasn't hard to avoid him. I made it pretty clear that he had fallen off my list of best buds.
Well, some time went by and my heart softened a bit. He was living in Lubbock so when I would pass through I would see him occasionally. He had a party pad which was convenient. It was always fun to hang out but his personality problems persisted and so I never felt like there was any real reconciliation. No hard feeling really but I never forgot how being friends with Dave was like kayaking in rapids too far advanced for your skills. Always flipping the boat upright and never knowing which rock was gonna send you to a watery grave. Something like that.
Dave isn't in Lubbock anymore. Now he takes care of his grandfather in North Carolina. He doesn't have a job. He never finished college. He has given his parents more grief than the law would allow. I think he is doing better than he has in the past but its nothing to give him a medal over. I saw him back at Thanksgiving. He told me that someone else quite recently had told him the same thing that I had said to him years before. Something to the effect that its hard to be friends with you Dave. Well he is doing some kind of cleansing process. He calls me up last night to "reconnect." He mentions something to the effect that he has had time to realize who the important people are in his life. Then he makes the comment that he is there for me. There to support me and to offer help. But the way he mad it sound its not that he's just offering help if I need it its that he's calling to help me. Then he started talking crazy like usual. All kinds of deep innerpersonal / spiritual shit. Not that I disagreed with what he was saying its just that's not the kind of thing I want to talk about. He wants to help me reconnect with my inner divinity and other such new age bollocks. This is totally unsolicited help. He didn't really even ask about me and its like breaking a dam to get a word in edgewise with this guy.
So basically, since Dave has his life at least part way on the track he wants to call me up and tell me how my life is half assed and he has the remedy for me to reconnect with my inner divinity and what the FUCKING BOLLOCKS...
I mean, homeboy has good intentions, but fuck, I been holding it down for years mas o menos. I am at a healthy place. I have a great job and I am doing what I always set out to do. I am making my living as a graphic artist. The audacity of Dave to call my ass up and tell me that he has the key to a better life...
bollocks
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