Thursday, January 29, 2009

he got married...

Sometime in the spring of 2007, I became ready to live out loud and be real with self and others about being gay. Around that same time, my good friend KL met a young lady with whom he quickly fell in love. Life was great for both of us. Until a moment in time when something changed.

I have no clue what happened and I probably won't ever truly know. The girl that KL had gotten serious about...it's probably not fair for me to call her insecure with herself or to say that she was extremely suspicious of everyone in KL's life because I never met the girl. But from what I was told by KL directly was that she had gotten divorced because she found her husband cheating on her. Lying, sneaking, cheating, and anything else along those lines does terrible things to a person's self-esteem and sense of security in future relationships. With that being said, KL already had a task on his hand, to never do anything that would make her doubt him or feel any worry about things. Well, he found out the hard way that she was very very serious about certain things. Without listing off all the things that KL was deeply concerned about regarding their relationship, I'll state one thing that indicates how worried she was: she forbade him to masturbate. She walked in on him doing it once and freaked out. Felt that masturbation meant that he was unhappy with their sex life and she saw it as the beginning of infidelity. (I tell you...once somebody has been deceived and really hurt, the things their brain can conjure up are amazing.) That's what I know to be fact. Shortly after the particular conversation that KL and I had about this, KL quit communicating with me. All I can do is speculate about what happened. My hypothesis is that KL, in an attempt to be perfectly honest with his new love, probably told her that he and I had sexual history. We never dated. When we kissed, it was extremely awkward because there was no passion. The only reason we ever got physically involved was just for GP...boredom...somethin to do. We both knew that. And it was fine. It happened ages ago. By the time 2007 rolled around, KL and I were strictly friends, had not touched one another in over a year. Well, since she wouldn't even allow him to touch his own body in a sexual way, my assumption is that she definitely wasn't going to allow him to be friends with someone who used to touch his body in a sexual way. I'd almost put money down that she told him that she'd rather him not speak to me anymore. I'm sure that he obliged...he loved her with his whole heart and wanted nothing more than to be with her. Everything that she wanted, he did it without complaint.

But the thing is...whatever happened....whatever went down....whether this is the case or not....regardless of what the situation was, he could have told me that we weren't going to be friends anymore. For whatever reason, he elected to just ignore me. It hurt. Real bad. But there wasn't anything I could do about it but just move on. Try and forget about it...I was unsuccessful. I missed him and I still do. Everybody tells me that if it was so easy for him to just up and never talk to me again, then we must not have really been all that tight and he must not have been that good of a friend. I see their reasoning, but the truth of the matter is that he was a great friend. Amongst the best I've had. Always had my back, agreed with me when I was wrong, always there for me to talk to. I miss that. With most people, the "fuck it" attitude seemingly comes out of nowhere and I can write people off fairly quickly and easily. But I just can't. I just find myself filled with immense sadness.

The only reason I'm writing about this right now is because, within the past few days, I've been alerted to the fact that they got married. Last February. I, of course, wasn't invited and had no clue he was marrying her. That, to me, was like the final indication that our friendship is really over. I logged on to facebook the other day and the very first thing on my newsfeed was someone writing on his wall, asking how married life was. I went and checked his page and it definitely said married. The girl had written all over his wall and she definitely had his last name. Then, coincidentally, KL's cousin came to my job today. I inquired about the wedding and he confirmed that they were indeed married. Said it was a nice little ceremony. I was crushed.

I myself am a little more jealous and a little more possessive than what's probably good. I can completely understand KL's girl being uncomfortable with our friendship. We did have a tight bond and not only did we have sexual history, we just had a lot of history period. I took KL to his very first concert ever...we went and saw Twista. We both had duds for cars in high school and our early college years so we used to lament over them together. We used to drive down the main drag in Terre Haute and do Chinese fire drills at every red light until the police made us stop. Everybody has memories with the people they've experienced things with. I know that these memories and our bond were important to KL to a certain extent as well because every girl that came before this one, he would tell them outright, "erika is my best friend, she's been there for me through too much for me to ever put you before her." I fully understand that as your relationship progresses to the point of being in love and thinking that you're going to be together for life, that person has to come first. How could they not? I totally would have expected for us to talk way less, for us to not see each other very much, for her to take the place as his best friend in his life, to be his go-to person. But for him to decide that we're just not friends anymore, I expect to be told that as well. I may not have been happy to hear the news, but I would have been happy for him and possibly even proud of him and admired him for doing whatever he had to do to keep a happy home ( so many people these days refuse to sacifice for the sake of their relationship, then wonder why they end up single). Plain and simple, I would have respected his decision and would have respected him for coming to me and telling me straight up. But apparently, he didn't feel the need for any of that. That's what hurts.

Like I said above, the fact that he got married and I didn't have a clue speaks volumes to me about how our friendship is completely dead and I'm just as good as non-existent to him. It's interesting [and by interesting, i mean sad]...over the course of the past couple years, people have dropped out of my life randomly, and a few actually told me that they didn't want to be kool with me anymore....but they have all made a come-back. Every single one of them. I've gotten a phone call, a text, an IM, a facebook or myspace message....something. They have all hit me back up and told me that they miss me and that they want me back in their life. Well, for most of them, it was a case of too little too late. But Keith has never popped back up. He's never attempted to make contact out of the blue. I haven't seen him in any of my inboxes in almost 2 years. He's the only one I want to hear from.

It's unfortunate that this is an extremely old situation and I'm still as sad as can be about it. Just learning of his year-old marriage for the first time this week has me messed up. The whole situation has plagued my mind today as if it happened yesterday. I know that I'll be fine, but it doesn't make it any easier.

1 comment:

Black Girl Meets World said...

I didn't read this, lol, but I just wanted to say "hi" and I'm joining you here. Yay!