Steve was one of my oldest and best friends on the planet. I've known him since I was seven years old. My mother used to drop my sister and I off to play at Steve's house. We practiced skateboard tricks in his driveway together. We built snowboard jumps in his backyard together. We got wasted, blasted Van Halen and set things on fire together. Over the years, I basically became the adopted son of his family. We even have shitty matching tattoos. We've been through all of the highs and lows that life can sling. He was a part of my closest circle of friends; our Roundtable of Awesome that was supposed to last as long as we lived.

Over the last five years or so, Steve began having severe anxiety attacks, some of which landed him in the hospital. He would tell us about having them, but he would never tell us if he was getting help for them or why he was even having them in the first place. After a while he stopped answering phone calls from his old friends. He began hanging out with a group of people from a message board dedicated to suping up foreign cars. He would only date girls that were completely subservient and unable to oppose his will, which usually demanded that they act as his permanent designated driver and overflow bank account to dip from as he pleased. Those of us that were friends with Steve were concerned. We wondered what was going on with him and why we were only hearing from him in monthly increments at best. I always figured he was spending a considerable amount of time manipulating the immediate world around him as to make it more comfortable; to shield himself from whatever was causing his anxiety, and we were distracting him from that goal.

A month after I moved home from Los Angeles I was still holding on to an "I just moved home guilt trip" card, and I would occasionally pull it to get Steve out of the house. One night after Steve threw a party at his place to watch the Patriots secure their spot in this year's AFC Championship game, I managed to pry him away from his girlfriend so he and I could go out to a bar and continue celebrating. We plopped down on two stools, ordered pints and talked about all sorts of things that drunk people talk about.

"So do you think you'll ever marry your girlfriend?"

"No. There is no way that is ever going to happen."

"Wow, that's quite an answer. I guess it's just as well."

"What do you mean, 'just as well'?"

"Oh nothing, it just means that you guys don't seem like a match made in heaven, is all. I mean, you two do nothing but fight in public."

"Yeah, whatever. I don't know."

"Even tonight, she was storming around your house during the party, yelling about shit that didn't even make sense in front of all your friends. What was up with that?"

"I have no idea. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried about it, dude. It just seems like she's always pissed off about something. It makes it kind of hard to hang around with her in the room, you know what I mean?" I wasn't making that up. I was sick of Steve's friends and family bitching to me about her instead of telling him, or even better, her about it. I continued on.

"Dude, don't get mad at me, but everybody keeps complaining to me about her. I'm not telling you this to fire you up or anything. I'm telling you this as a friend and I figured you would want to know." I thought about how funny it was that people have such a hard time going to the obvious source for a solution, but never have a problem dancing around it as if it were a bonfire and they were the kids from Lord of the Flies. Maybe people would rather the problem perpetuated itself so they had something to talk about during the endless, spirit crushing winter -- anything to keep depressive, alcoholic New Englanders from looking inward.

My drunken logic dictated to me that it was better for a friend to let a friend know about shit like that rather than let it simmer to the point of boiling over. Besides, we were best friends. We should have been able to tell each other anything without repercussion. "Honestly, I don't give a fuck if anybody likes her or not. Nobody else is dating her but me, right?"

I thought it was kind of weird to be that indifferent about what you subjected your friends to. I know that if I had a girlfriend that made my friends uncomfortable with her bad attitude, I would be the first person to rifle her out. On the other hand, I didn't want to push the issue and I kind of understood where he was coming from, so I dropped it. After all, he was dating her, not me.

Even though we changed the subject, something about the tone of our conversation shifted. We both touched on a dozen topics of interest but you could feel that Steve's words were hollow, like he was just humoring me with responses and acknowledgments until he could leave. I figured we were both just drunk and tired and paid no attention to it. We clinked glasses, paid the tab and went home for the night.

The sense of impending doom forced me out of bed before my alarm went off the next morning. What the fuck did you do? Jesus, Mike. Why the fuck did you say that? I immediately grabbed my phone and called Steve to apologize. Why can't I just keep my mouth shut? Without even knowing what I was doing, I managed to drunkenly rip a hole in Steve's distraction filled microcosm. Part of Steve's anxious personality forced him to do everything he could to avoid confrontation at all times. He wasn't tired last night. Steve didn't answer, so I left a voicemail. And a text message. And a text message. And a voicemail. Two weeks, five unanswered text messages, three unanswered voicemails and two unanswered emails later, it finally sunk in that this wasn't Steve being Steve, he was really upset.

I was ravaged by pangs of guilt for the next month, rehashing over and over again how terrible of a friend I was for saying what I said that night. One night I even got drunk and cried about it. I was wrong. I should have kept my mouth shut, smiled and everything would have been like it was. I felt like such a scumbag. I should have known better than to bring things like that up with him, drunk or not. It was accidental, but I had totally let my boy down.

I was hanging out with friends one night a few weeks later and someone let slip that they had spoken with Steve. I still hadn't heard from him. They said that Steve mentioned "taking a break from Mike". Taking a break? What the fuck does that even mean? Before that night we might have hung out once every two or three weeks. Is he seriously making me out to be some kind of fucking leech? Why won't he just tell me what's wrong? Why am I hearing about this from other people? My nauseating guilt gave way to unchecked anger. I felt like all the years I was a loyal friend to him were wasted. If I, as a little boy, had known that Steve would throw me in the trash like that 20 years in the future, I would have had his mom call mine to pick me up from our first play date and never looked back. Fuck him. Seriously, fuck him.

And that anger made me wonder why I was clinging so adamantly to these old friendships. Not just Steve's, but all of them.

Ever since I can remember, I have been looking to escape my family. My mom will tell stories about trying to pick me up from kindergarten and how she couldn't pry my arms off of other kids' parents' legs as I begged them to take me home. If a sleepover fell through at the last minute, I would be devastated for a week.

Growing up was tough for me and the first defense mechanism I learned to use as a child was escapism. One hour watching Beavis and Butthead or building a skateboard ramp at a friend's house after school was one hour that I wasn't at home, in the thick of familial dysfunction and turbulence; the very reason I felt permanently separated from society as a kid. As I got older, I replaced more and more of my family with more and more of my friends. I cobbled my own nuclear kin together, complete with brothers, sisters and collateral relatives. My new family didn't scream at me. They didn't ask me to pick sides between my mother and father. They didn't abandon me and I wasn't an inconvenience for them. I spent as little time at home as possible and even to this day I have virtually no contact with the bulk of my real family, save for my mother and a small handful of other relatives.

As years went by I struggled to keep my faux-mily together. I became the self-appointed linchpin that organized mandatory get-togethers and reunions. I perpetually battled the natural drifting effect that occurs between people when life happens. I felt betrayed by my friends that got married, that moved away, that moved on. Feeling that kind of hurt turned me into a bitter guy. I got into arguments with some of them that resulted in months, sometimes years, of radio silence. I made a lot of my friends distance themselves from me without knowing it. I lashed out. I was pissed because for all of my efforts, I couldn't keep the pillars of support I subconsciously built for my own life from crumbling down and taking my life with them. Of course, even as it was happening I had no idea what was making me so miserable.

Three months after that night in the bar, I was smoking a cigarette on the stairs of my apartment when I saw Steve and his girlfriend walking towards me on the sidewalk. I always knew that we would cross paths again. Our seacoast community isn't nearly big enough for us not to.

"What's up, man? Long time no talk." I took a drag and exhaled.

"Yeah man, seriously."

"How have you been? What's new?"

"Nothing, man. Absolutely nothing. You?"

"Well, I live in this apartment now. That's new."

"Oh cool. Yeah, the girlfriend and I are headed to the bar for a few drinks. Do you have any plans for tonight?"

"None whatsoever. I was actually going to head inside and get some writing done."

"There you go."

"I'm going to be heading to Portland this weekend to see Teddy. You should come with us."

"Eh," Steve put his hands in his pockets and fidgeted with his feet, "I've actually got plans to hang out with some other people already. It's a birthday party so I kind of have to go, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Well listen, we have to go now, but why don't you give me a call if you want to hang out later tonight?"

"I sure will. See you guys later."

I stayed on the steps to finish my cigarette. As I watched Steve and his girlfriend walk down the sidewalk, I realized that Steve didn't make eye contact with me once during our conversation. He couldn't even look me in the eyes. I couldn't figure out if he felt guilty or if he was so disgusted with me that he didn't care to look upon my visage. It was painfully obvious that Steve was not ready to have any kind of conversation with me but I still called him, just in case he was genuine in wanting to have a beer with me and talk. He never answered.

After our conversation, my anger gave way to introspection. If my friend is willing to throw away two decades worth of friendship over a misunderstanding, then I never really had the friendship I thought I did with him. Maybe it wasn't Steve's fault that he wanted to call things off with me, maybe it was my fault for harboring such blind allegiance towards him. I value these friendships way more than the other people involved because they've always been more than friendships to me.

The most depressing facet of my new insight was coming to grips with the quality of my extended circle of friends; the collateral family. Luckily, the nuclear Roundtable of Awesome still exists harmoniously, save for a newly empty chair. But the others--the second tier--they are truly lackluster.

I have friends that actively talk shit about me behind my back to the point that I joke about an unofficial "We Hate KungFu Mike" militia populated by old friends. I've had people tell me about groups of my old buddies railing on me while I'm not around. I have friends that despise the fact that I'm a writer and don't have a "real job" like they do. "You're not a writer, Mike. You're a blogger. It's ridiculous. You're wasting your life. Why don't you send your resume to my company. I'll totally get you something entry level." I have friends that don't really want anything to do with me unless they're drunk. I have friends that don't want anything to do with anyone unless they're drunk. Those are the people that won't answer my phone calls unless they've had a few to drink and have nobody else to hang out with. I have friends that put genuine effort into making sure I'm not included in group events like weddings, baby showers and house parties. I have friends that I've spent months helping through tough personal problems, only for them to throw me to the side and pretend I didn't exist when they felt better. I'd still jump in front of a speeding train for any of those people despite how they treat me. I protect relationships I have with people that I have no business protecting, relationships I was too desperate to know were toxic from their inception. Steve was never one of those people, but I could now see how he had been slowly drifting for years, not just from me, but from all of us in the Roundtable of Awesome; and I did nothing but try to reel him back in. Nothing but animosity can come from that, and it was all to perpetuate an illusion I crafted in my childhood.

At the end of my reflective tear, I came to the conclusion that my faux-mily; the social foundation I Elmer's pasted and Scotch taped together -- the support group I counted on and contributed to more than my own flesh and blood -- had not only abandoned me, but had done so years ago. Mentally snipping them out of my life wasn't very hard to do after that, but I did feel like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. I let myself fall out of that roll of trying to hold everyone together.

That went away after a few days and I felt relieved. I felt like a pallet of cinder blocks had been lifted off of my soul. I knew I no longer needed that crutch to get me through life and I was happy about that. I was legitimately proud of myself. I might not have three thousand friends in real life anymore, but the ones I do have I know are beyond awesome. To have spent so much time analyzing and qualifying every single person you keep around you and to come up with that as an answer...it just feels really good to truly know.

Just as I was working on the ending for this entry, I got a text message from Steve asking for me to meet him at a bar to watch a Red Sox game. I did, and we had a great time. Of course, Steve didn't bring up anything about our falling out or why he chose now to step up and contact me and I didn't want to send him into a spiral by asking about it. I didn't want to know. To be honest, I didn't care. We hung out for a few hours and went our separate ways to hang out with separate people.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with Steve and me in the future. Maybe we are destined to be passing acquaintances from now on. Maybe we'll see him at the Roundtable of Awesome somewhere down the road. Maybe we'll laugh about this over beers at our respective weddings. I can't make any bets, but what I can do is stop beating myself up about it and live my life for myself. I guess it's all anybody can do.

Posted by KungFu Mike at 7:23 AM

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