Drifting apart

I talked to JP Mac briefly today about how sometimes people just disappear in your life.

I had this reader who was about 40 some years old reading my blog everyday. We then started to talk to each other on AIM. He originally lived in LA and eventually moved to Italy. He read my blog often and would then talk to me about it the second day. It was fun and I really enjoyed talking to him. He was older and wiser. It made blogging kinda fun. Then he said he would get really busy for a while and eventually disappeared. I mean really just gone with the freaking wind. He didn't read my blog anymore either since I could see him on sitemeters if he did.

Anyway that was a short story. I was just wondering this small random fact.

Then I was reading Procrastinating Wolverine and he wrote this entry about how his 25 years friendship couldn't last beyond college years. This got me thinking about my own drifting apart stories. I was going to simply tell him the story but then when I started typing a comment became a post so I am just gonna post it.

I came to America when I was 14, so high school was horrible. I was caught in a cultural and racial conflicts in the high school and my linguistic skill was very poor. I made one close friend even though it started extremely awkward. He then went to another high school and we didn't talk to each other for a year. Then we started talking again in community college and again started off extremely awkward and uncomfortable but eventually we found our common ground.

It was necessary for me because again the cultural and racial problem still persisted and my mediocre language skills didn't help me either. I had about 3 people that I could call friends who I hang out with back then. I needed someone to be there so I guess I tolerated a lot of his weird habits and manners. We grew very tight regardless. I eventually met his sister who literally grew up her teenager year with me and now we are like brother and sister.

However, even back then I always had a different agenda compared to him. He got complacent easily and had too much pride to try anything that might put him in awkward positions. I came from an awkward position so I didn't mind to be awkward in order to grow. So I tried hard to meet new people, improve my English, and ultimately I transferred to USC. He on the other hand stayed the same and really somehow just had me as his only close friend. USC was also a huge transition. My English was just good enough for the community college level and people went there were extremely diversified. It was a melting pot of people who came from different background, race, financial capability and age. USC, on the other hand was the just the opposite. It was dominated by White and Asian which together made up 85% of the USC population. Many people were extremely well off and they were all around the same age. Basically, USC and life together happened. I had to adjust and fight the social battle that I then faced. He on the other hand was one year younger than I was and stayed back in PCC.

He always wanted to go to USC all his life and often praised USC as his only dream school outside of Ivy League selections. When I made to USC, he wasn’t so stoked about it. I knew him too well. He was happy for be but extremely jealous at the same time. He then freaked out about me not hanging out with him anymore. When he transferred to Pepperdine and got his first girlfriend he cut all ties with me for two years. I remembered that the only phone call he made to me within several months was to ask me for the money I owed during my final week ($100). I was royally pissed and we called each other less and less. I thought it was stupid because after all he was a friend of eight years which was the life that I knew of in America. I thought that I really should try to save this friendship. So I made some attempts. After 5 calls everyday in a week asking him to hang out and subsequently getting rejected with lame excuses like he was tired, I gave up.

He still had only just a small group to hang out with whereas my friend group grew larger and larger. I had too much fun to care at that moment.

One day his sister told me that his girlfriend of two years cheated on him and he was down and depressed. So I made attempt to help him. After a botched birthday party that I invited him to attend, he turned into this ugly selfish brat again. I finally decided to cut all ties from him. Now he hates me. I for one do not hate him. I just pity this whole situation. Eight years of friendship down the drain for no apparent reason. He is now paranoid about the fact that I am still around. He can’t deal with the fact that his sister is the best friend of my best friends. Whenever he sees me around he would make very dirty comments about me behind my back. It is shocking actually. I thought we at least had the decency to end a friendship gracefully. There is no option for me other than admitting that it was an extremely good run while it lasted. He would agree but I just don’t get why he still doesn’t have the maturity to accept that, for whatever reason, when people drift apart, life still goes on. Move along with it! There is no need to resent. If he is still emotionally lingering over this now dead friendship, and really wants to talk to me, he can easily do that. We can have a proper closure if he wanted to.

But he chose to end it this way. Today I just hang out with his sister again. Caught up and had a grand time. She however didn't want me to come over after we were done around 10:30pm since he was home. She wouldn't mind if he lived on campus like he normally did during the school year. However, he was moving back in with her and now he wouldn't leave her along about me being around if he saw me often in the house. It was too much trouble to deal with. I thought that was just messed up.

I don't know. We will see what happens. It shouldn't be a big deal but if it really gets in the way I may have to sit him down and talk to him or punch him in the face very hard so we can have the closure that we never had back then.