Thursday, December 11, 2008

I met Andrew on my first day of university and we were great friends for seven years. He's a man of firm convictions and strong intellect, and we enjoyed arguing with each other about politics. One of the amazing things about Andrew is that he's only ever mad at one person at a time, but he focuses all his energy on that apathy until someone else makes him mad, then all is well. It's the key to the man, the fact that, once discovered, makes his foul moods bearable: Weather the storm, and he will one day again be your friend. Twice over the years I fell into his dog house, both times when I caught him lying about women he claimed to have been intimate with. Twice we buried the hatchet. Eight months ago Andrew got a real girlfriend, a true and nice and wonderful girl, and I was so happy for him. Then he told me I was too immature to meet her --that I could not be trusted and I would only embarrass him-- and I was devastated. Every one of our conversations after that became an argument, but he no longer respected my views or what I had to say. I kept waiting for his anger to move on to the next person, but it never did. He would go on and on about how I had no friends, when, in fact, he was the one who was drifting out of our social circle. One day, out of the blue, he sent me an e-mail that I couldn't finish reading. It was the ravings of a man insane. I wouldn't send a letter that brutal to anyone. I forwarded it to a couple of our mutual friends, just to show that I wasn't being overly sensitive when I said I'll never speak to him again. Turns out he had spent the last four days bad-mouthing me to my sister over facebook before he worked up the nerve to send his e-mail to me. I thought he'd be an uncle to my children. I thought we'd know each other when we became old and grey. I haven't forwarded that e-mail to his girlfriend. My friends tell me to. My sister tells me to. My mother tells me to. I won't. It's not the mature thing to do. That e-mail is the last words we will ever exchange, and they make him look like an animal. That should be enough for me, but instead it just makes me sad. Goodbye, Andrew.

5 comments:

Shimshon Stu Siegel (shimstu) said...

mindblowing. for me the thing that would drive me nuts would be wondering-- what did i miss?? what the hell happened there??

any insights?

C. C. said...

Send it to her. She deserves to know what she's getting herself into. I'd want to know if a guy I was dating turned out to be a psycho to one of his friends.

Preface it with a short note that you want her to judge him on her own, blah blah blah, but she deserves to know, so here: (pasted).

AutumnFae said...

Wow, Personally I'd rather be shown the type of man I was involved with, I wouldn't like to know 6mths/12mths down the line that he was messed up.

Life is too short to waste time on someone who can turn downright scary.

joanyspot said...

I'm with you. Take the high road. Her journey with him is hers alone.

Anonymous said...

what if he goes all the way crazy and kills her or something? he needs help. she deserves to know. tell her. kindly, and not in a 'high-school he said/she said' kind of way. it's the right thing to do.