Guy

I am 18 years old when I first meet him. It was at an open house type thing in the basketball arena at College. I was a freshman, less than a week removed from my hometown and he was a newly hired staff member in the alumni association. He maybe said hi, I said hi and that was it. A couple of years go by, I do my thing and he does his. I got really involved in a lot of student organizations and so our paths would cross every now and again, but nothing significant. My junior year, one of the organizations I am president of, loses it's advisor and it is recommended that we seek this guy out. Guy agrees and over the course of the year we spend a lot of time together and slowly but surely we start getting more comfortable with each other, start sharing personal information, etc. We start developing a friendship. Honestly, a friendship I sought out.

Then things start to slowly change. We spend more time together and develop a real bond or so I think. I spend a lot of time working on being a good friend to him. He's an advisor to other student groups, I join some of those groups and help out where I can. He starts taking some graduate course. I sometimes help him with his homework. Slowly, it becomes obvious to me that I have a serious crush on this guy and let me tell you, physically, he's worth the attention. I start obsessing about what he's doing, when & if he's going to call, when will I see him next. All kinds of ridiculous immature things. The saddest part of this is at some point he finds out I like him and so starts taking advantage of my willingness to be helpful and nice. Yeah, he may take me and my friends out to dinner or take us bowling or maybe let me borrow his car, but the burden of the "friendship" is definitely on me. I'm doing all the work.

I start feeling really confused. I start realizing that "wait, I am putting way more into this friendship than he is". Are we really friends, or am I the biggest sucker in the world? I spend ungodly amounts of time worrying about this fact. Is he truly my friend or is he just using me?

Senior year. First semester, more of the same, but second semester, things start changing for me. This guy starts pulling away a little bit. Why? I'm not sure, but I've got other things on my mind like graduation, finding a job, finding a city to move to, etc. Instead of running after him, I just go about my business. Things are tenuous, but not unpleasant. Graduation comes and goes and I spend my summer in the same town, earning as much money as I can before I move down to Atlanta.

Things between us are at times really good and really weird. He does some really sweet things like take me for a walk around the lake, a tradition at our school, but then he does some silly shit like not even calling me back after we've made plans to go do something. One night, we go bowling with a bunch of our friends and we start talking about where and when some of us will be leaving to go off into the world and he says to me. "I want you to stay here in Collegetown". I, thinking he's joking, say "Heck no! I'm going to Atlanta, baby!" or something to that effect. It isn't until some time later that I realize that maybe he wasn't joking, but I have no way to be sure. This haunts me to this day.

In a few weeks I leave to Atlanta and have sporadic contact with him although I think about him a lot. Its always the case where the person who moves away, always tries to keep close contact with those who didn't so it would be the case where I would email and call and at first, he would always respond but then as time when on, his responses would be less and less frequent, but then he'd send a sweet email and say something like "I love and miss you".

At one point, he says "I have a golf thingy in Atlanta, I'll be in town" Cool. I'm excited. He calls and leaves me a message when he arrives late one night. I call him that night, no answer. I call him the next morning and leave a message. I call a couple hours later and again. You get the picture. I call maybe 10-12 more times that day and never hear a word. He never bothers to call me back. I'm heartbroken and confused. The truth is he could have come into town and I would have never known, but why even call if he was going to do me like that?

The next several years, more of the same. My sister and I take a weekend up to Big City which Collegetown is right outside of and try to hook up with Guy. He never shows up. He'll call a few weeks lately apologetic and sweet, I say what's up, he gives some lame excuse, I forgive, we move on. Whatever strong feelings I had for him are long faded, but he still holds a special place in my heart that I think he always will.

Last year. My best friend meets up in Big City with my high school-aged nephew and I. We plan to run around Big City for a day and then head to Collegetown for the big football game. I bring my nephew along because he really loves College and wants to eventually play football there. We spend the day in the Big City and drive down to a small town outside of Collegetown that night. I foolishly call Guy and let him know we are in town and I'd love to see him. I'd like my nephew to meet him because Guy played football at College and could talk to my nephew about the whole experience. I'm thinking it would be a good thing to not only see him, but to do something good for my nephew as well. This guy calls early Saturday morning to see where we are at. I say about 45 mins away from Collegetown. He asks how many game tickets we have, I say two (best friend opts to skip the game). I ask if he is going to go to the tailgater, he says probably and says he has to go and call us back. 15 mins later he calls back, he wants to know if we are willing to go to some other small town on the way to Collegetown to drop off our game tickets to some person and he'll give us the two tickets we have instead to help him out. I'm shocked. I called this guy a couple of months before this trip to let him know we were coming, he had plenty of time to do whatever he needed to do to meet us in Collegetown. I should also note this weekend, a lot of mutual friends will be in attendance so it's not like he was coming down to just meet me. In essence he was more interested in us "doing him this favor" instead of actually coming down (1 hr drive) to see a "good" friend. Anyway, we get to the Collegetown and the tailgater, there are lots of old college buddies around, good food & drink. I call Guy, no answer. I call at least three more times, no answer, never calls back. At that point, I feel hurt and disappointed. I've known guy for 12+ years and this is what I get? At that exact moment, I decide that that's that. I am done with Guy. I haven't said a word to NOR heard a word from Guy since that day...until last night.

I'm at home listening to some music, getting some work done so I never hear my cellphone ring in the other room at around 11:30 PM. It's Guy. He says, in an upbeat voice, "Hi, it's Guy, I am in town for a day or two. Call me back." So it's the next morning and what to do? The truth of the matter is, I put my heart and soul into a friendship that wasn't much of a friendship. I did most of the work and he reaped most of the benefit. I feel like I had/have a strong almost cosmic connection to Guy, but being too involved with him is too much work and can take a great emotional toll. I feel confident in that I have been an excellent friend to him, going far beyond what a lot of his other friends have done. I care about him and probably always will, and he knows that so it's convenient for him to have a kind-hearted soul in the background that he can call up when he needs something, whether to do a favor or for emotional support. I know this guy doesn't have a lot of people he trusts and in some ways I feel priviledged to be one of those persons, but I don't necessarily trust him. I'm not the same person I was when I was 23, 24 years old and was under his spell. That pipedream got crushed long ago. I'm not under any delusions at the moment.

There are two quotes that I think about when he starts coming into the picture, one from Maya Angelou "When people show you who they are, believe them." and one from the movie Harriett, the Spy: "You can't be my friend if you're not my friend".

I write all this because although my initial reaction was to call him and maybe relive some of the great fun we have, and you know we probably would, the truth is, I'm not calling him back. I don't trust that if I called him back, he'd answer the phone. I don't trust that if I leave a message, he'd call back. I don't trust that he'd commit to any plans (especially if he felt he had better odds doing something else). I don't trust that I won't get too emotionally involved. I don't trust that he won't be asking me for something. Part of me really still likes him and part of me really misses the fun we used to have and honestly, a tiny part of me thinks that something good may come out of all this if I do reach out. I've long felt that he feels the same connection and maybe if he was more physically attracted to me (hint, hint) we'd probably be together and that's not an easy pill to swallow. Now having had the surgery, what happens a year or two from now when word gets out that I'm not fat anymore? We have many mutual friends and the word will get out. Will he really start trying to make moves? I don't know, a lot of this is pure speculation, but I do know that right now, this minute, I am best served not having anything to do with him. I'm not even going to bother to call and make up some lie that I'm out of town or too busy. I'm just going to ignore the phone call and not even open the door to any possibilities. It's just too risky.

I can't control a lot of things in my life, but I can control this.