I say it's worth re-reading because I just ended my friendship with An.
An and I have hung out several times since writing that post and it's been roughly the same thing. Go up to his place, drink, eat, maybe watch some sporting event, argue, sleep, eat, then go home. But each time I was driving home I was asking myself why I was still friends with An. And each time I came up with the same reason; because I don't have many friends. And like smeagol with his precious, I covet my friends.
So this past weekend came and An asked if I wanted to come up and talk about home automation. I'm techy and he was trying to be and he needed some help. To qualify the level of help he needed, he wanted me to help hook up a smart speaker to his television. One look at the little sound bar and I realized this wasn't a smart speaker at all. It was just a speaker. It didn't have an HDMI port, so it was going to piss An off as he'd have to turn his TV and cable box on but use another remote to control the speaker.
Anywho, that's how he enticed me to come up. Later in that conversation he mentioned we could watch what he called 'The Biggest Game Of All Time' at a bar. Now, it's March so there's no college football being played so I had to look up his favorite team, Michigan State, and see what they were playing. Yup, Michigan State was hosting Michigan and the winner of the game might be or share a part of the title. In basketball.
I hate basketball. And an knows I hate basketball. He acts like he's "getting me into it" but that's just wrong. He's a fan, so I learn enough about it to talk somewhat intelligently, but I've never been interested in basketball and will never be interested.
But hey, watching some sport at a bar sounds fine.
An was actually supposed to meet some friends and we all hooked up and watched the game, ate some decent food, and drank some good beer. Michigan State beat Michigan and I honestly don't know (or care) if that's good or bad or expected or a surprise... it's just the result of a game. Yes, I'm a University of Michigan football fan, but that doesn't automatically make me watch their Hockey Team and Baseball Team and Softball Team and Bad-mitten Team and it most certainly doesn't make me a fan of their Basketball Team. But that doesn't matter to An and he starts digging in that his team beat my team. He didn't even do it that way... he was saying things like "Oh man, we had you right were we wanted you. I told you at halftime that a 5 point lead wasn't much and you lost by 13!" We? You? I? I'm sorry, but I don't recall being on the court in East Lansing, nor do I remember saying that I was a fan of Michigan Basketball.
I could stand that type of ribbing up to a point... I mean he IS a big fan of Michigan State after all. But only to a point. Thankfully we changed subjects and started talking about politics. I mentioned in that last post how it is when talking to An about politics. We're like 5% part on any given issue and he acts like I'm the enemy of reasoned and thoughtful policy making.
Now I had found a good place to go have breakfast/brunch the next day and didn't want to get into another bad mood at An so I tried a couple methods to get him to let up, but I swear I couldn't get a word in edgewise. We were specifically talking about climate change and he was bemoaning the fact that it was already too late and we were in for some bad bad times. I wanted to make a fairly simple point... that no matter how bad the climate changes, it won't be the end of us as a species. We'll adapt and change and we'll eventually overcome. And while there haven't been enough big climate change disasters to get climate deniers on board, it will eventually happen. At that point it will be obvious to anybody that this will take a massive and coordinated multi national effort and we'll work together with all of humanity and fix the problem. Sure, it might take a couple generations but there's no reason for doom and gloom.
I couldn't even get the first part of the argument out. He started to tear into any thought that it wouldn't end humanity trying to say it will change us irreparably and we'll be different afterward. To this point in the evening I had been trying to just let him run out of steam when it came to arguments like this because I knew there was no talking to him. But I didn't this time. I tried talking over him as he was doing to me. He raised his voice louder and so did I. He cut me off one to many times and I shouted that if he wanted to have a conversation he had to listen at lest half as much as he fucking talked (or something like that), and he tried to yield but as soon as I started to try and make the above point he interrupted again, saying that I was wrong and that he was right and....
And that's when I was done. He couldn't even shut up for 10 seconds. I got up and told him I was done with this one sided conversation and I was going to bed. He yelled after me something that I can't remember but was obviously trying to continue the argument and my anger just boiled over. I honestly had the satisfying imagining of walking back into the living room, grabbing to fistfuls of his shirt, lifting him up, and threatening him bodily. I should add that I'm about 3 inches taller than An and outweigh him by a good 80 pounds.
But no. There was no reason to end our friendship over this and I was going to just be the bigger man and leave. It was late and raining and windy, but I was wide awake and could make the 40 minute drive home. Fuck breakfast.
I yelled out my intent and An came into the room where I had my stuff stashed as I was packing it up and acted like he had no idea why I was upset. Now, to his credit we'd gone after arguments like this before and I hadn't ever gotten this mad, but he had to see that I was more than just a little upset. He had to see that I was nearly enraged. He probably couldn't tell that this had been boiling up in me for years. At one point he insisted and asked again why I was leaving and I got into his face and yelled. I told him he damned well knew I was a liberal and acting as though I was some hard line conservative was stupid, ignorant, and idiotic. I asked him, in a loud voice, he he thought it made me feel that he kept accusing me of shit like that. Without a smile, a twinkle in his eye, or any sign of joking he told me what he thought I felt, or at least what he thought I should feel.
Jealous.
He thought I should feel jealous of his liberalism because evidently it's more pure than mine. Fuck Him. I think at that point, deep down, I knew that it was over but I just yelled and packed and left. He texted me while I was driving (did I mention that it was three in the morning, raining, and windy out making it difficult to read a text let alone respond?) and I saw it in my watch that he wanted me to text him when I got home safe. My car does voice texts so it was really satisfying to work through those menues: "Text An" "Cell Phone" "Fuck Off" and having the car read it back to me "Do you want to send a text to An's cell phone saying Fuck Off?
He responded a few minutes later with 'eventually'.
So this morning I got up and tried to not think about last night, but it wouldn't get out of my head (that's partially why I'm writing this out, to help get it out of my head). Later in the morning he texted and said more or less that he didn't know what he'd said that had upset me so much but he was sorry. And if there was any doubt left at all, that erased it. He wasn't drunk or high or anything. He was clear headed and still couldn't think of what he had said to make me so pissed off. If he doesn't know, how is he ever going to change it? And now that I've acknowledge just how angry it makes me, how I am ever going to get to that point again and not escalate it further/
No, it was time to end the friendship. Like the title says, I just don't need a Toxic Friendship at this point in my life. I wrote him a longish email and told him that our friendship was over. I went into detail explaining out all the little things that pissed me off were petty and minor but when they were all added together they were greater than their individual parts.
I was hoping for a response. Have him acknowledge some of what I'd said, refute some of it if he thought it was unfair, or even call me back. Instead I got another text back: "Okay. Take Care." Evidently, while it bothers me to no end to give up on a friendship that spans more than a decade, it's "Okay" by him.
I guess I just have two friends now.
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