Best Married Friend: October, 2008

Asking for forgiveness isn’t an easy thing to do, but it’s an essential part of my autumn. Every year, between and just before the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I do my best to return to the people I’ve hurt in some way, and admit my regret, and ask for forgiveness.

Some years are tougher than others (if I haven’t gotten to you yet, please forgive me).

This year, though, something special has already happened. In the early days of the Dating Dad, my best married friend figured prominently in my writing. Because my life had taken such a sudden detour, I struggled with the ways our lives had begun to branch away from each other. His domestic episodes of happiness and difficulty held less and less interest for me as I was launched back into the single life. If I didn’t have Simone, I didn’t want to watch college football at some sports bar (or, worse, with an intact family) on a Saturday evening; I wanted to drift from bar to bar downtown, cocktail to cocktail, sizing up prospects and working up the courage to make advances. When I was Simone-free, I wanted to celebrate being single. I wanted to assuage the loneliness that cut through me everyday with drinks and possibility. In my new existence, the suburban family life seemed like death.

So we didn’t spend as much time together as the years wore on. Occasionally, we’d do family nights, where the daughters would play, and I’d hang with my friend and his wife (who was also very dear to me). Or we’d meet up for sporting events, where we’d limit post-game carousing because of the long drive home to the ‘burbs. My main circle of friends shifted to single coworkers and buddies who lived downtown and wanted to stay out until all hours, no matter what day of the week it was. My life was segmented into on-duty and off-duty times, and overlap between the two was rare.

Finally, when I was able to shrug off the Big Blue House, I found myself shrugging off a 10-year-friendship. In the short term, I was frustrated with his resistance to helping me through the worst move of my life and taken aback at how different our lives had become (his family had just moved further from the city, into a larger house, with more stuff, while I was shifting from a 5-bedroom, 2,500-square foot house in south Denver to a two-bedroom, 1,000-square foot apartment in the heart of the city). My disappointment and exhaustion manifested itself in a very public dismissal of our compatibility—I wondered aloud (too loudly), if our friendship had run its course.

A few weeks later, I received a very angry snail mail letter from my best married friend, stating, in no uncertain terms, what a shallow jerk I had become. My priorities were twisted and I was demonstrating faulty decision-making skills. It was a soul-scraping skewering. He closed with, “We’re done.”

And though I knew I deserved his censure, I was still angry with him. So, in my mind, I accepted responsibility but also the fact that our friendship was over. 

“Screw it,” I thought. “They live too far away, anyway.” But I saved the letter.

We went a full two years without a single word between us, other than my occasional feeble attempt to reach out with “Hey, I miss you in my life” emails, sans explanation or apology. It’s all I could muster, I told myself.

But just last month, at the prodding of my mother, who knew my friend’s absence from my life was still affecting me two years later, I gave him a call. Out of the blue.

In some ways, the conversation was simple—I told him I’d been thinking about him and his family, and asked how things were going, we talked a bit about our lives, we said goodbye—but what wasn’t discussed was very complex. I wasn’t ready to get into it, and he didn’t push. When I clicked to friend him on Facebook, he emailed me an invitation to actually meet and really talk.

I took him up on it, and we met at the Starbucks near my place. The first several minutes were spent like the phone call—catching up on two years of change and adventure; nothing too deep. And then the conversation paused, and my friend looked at me expectantly.

“So…” he trailed off. I smiled. Shrugged my shoulders. The silence didn’t go anywhere. It sat patiently on its haunches, wagging its tail in expectation. It waited. I didn’t know where to start.

But my friend did. He explained the deep sense of hurt he felt from that fateful column, not just from what I said, but from the very public way in which I said it. I launched into an explanation—my frustration, the fact that those were the worst months of my entire life, and that I knew I hadn’t reached out to him the way a friend should, how self-centered I’d been because times were so fraught and troubled and painful. I explained it all.

And he said, “Okay… and…?”

And I apologized.  I told him I was sorry. I didn’t ask for an apology from him for letting me feel abandoned during a critical moment, I didn’t push for him to accept a part of the falling out. The real crime was the public way in which I vented my frustration.

So now, in this column, I’m very publicly announcing my dumbassness. I’m sorry, my friend. Thank you for giving me a chance to apologize.

I’m glad we’re talking again.

Comments

[Gretchen - LifeStyle Denver]

I'm glad you're talking too. I'd never read your old column and didn't realize the break-up was more than just a proximity and single vs. married thing.

One thing I've learned in my profession is there's an ass for every saddle. Some people love big houses in the 'burbs and others love condos in the city. No one's wrong and aren't we all lucky that we don't live in Soviet-era concrete boxes?

Sometimes friends aren't able or available physically or emotionally to help us when we need it. Our paths diverge. But true friends finds their paths eventually cross again.

Hooray for both of you!

[Chassy]

Impressive. Not only are you smart enough to acknowledge when crossing the line between private and public is not such a great idea, you're also humble enough to say the three little words "I am sorry."

- Props to you, Mr. E!

Ps. I remember the post when you "outed" the guy. Can't believe I've been addicted to DD for so long!