FA+
Shop
The Birth and Death of Friendship
9 years ago
This was originally written for my own purposes on 5/12/2016. A year has passed, and I think I’m ready to post it publically as a follow up to the journal entry “Three Elements of Harmony”. So, I will first keep the original mostly the same except for minor editing, and add new notes on afterward.
The Birth and Death of Friendship
Stage 1: 30 days of joy
I met Mike on November 4th, 2014, but didn't talk to him again for a full week. I had such a good talk with him on November 11th that I no longer wanted to wait an entire week to talk to him again. So, on November 12th, I had the first of what I termed on my calendar as an LNPC - a Late Night Pony Chat, where we would be in pony avatars, and I would get on late at night after work and talk to Mike. From November 12th until December 16th, I talked to Mike every day. It was a magical time, and a time I tried many times afterwards to recapture. Every day, I would grow excited as my work came to a close, and every night the excitement was fully justified as I came home and talked to Mike. I slowly uncovered more and more personal information about him, while having conversations that made Mike laugh until he coughed, and times that made me smile so broadly that my face hurt. I was also starting to get a crush on Mike, and started feeling this warm feeling in my chest at night after I had talked to him. I was also extremely sexually attracted to Mike, and fantasized about him.
Stage 2: Missing Mike
When Mike went back to his Mom's house for a month in December and January, my contact with him became more sporadic. I remember quite distinctly a day or two after December 16th I went to bed early and watched an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on my computer before bed. It just wasn't the same as before I met Mike. I missed Mike. I wanted to talk to him. And I realized that all the solo entertainment in the world - all the books, all the games, all the YouTube videos, all the music, no matter how fun, just couldn't compare to the pleasure of spending time talking to Mike. This was also when I first got the idea in my head that maybe I would like to eventually meet Mike in person, and began wondering what steps I would have to take to make that fantasy a reality.
Stage 3: Allowed to love
It was January 3rd, 2015 when I told Mike I loved him. He had a boyfriend on Second Life, and I knew that around the first week I met Mike. I met Munius, but had and still have very little contact with the guy. I remember distinctly that I formed the resolve to tell Mike what I felt about him, and when I talked to him that night he was typing to Munius. I told him I had something to tell him, and it absolutely required his undivided attention. I got that attention, and first sent him a link to the song “I'd Rather Be in Love” by Michelle Branch. I then told him I loved him. He said that he couldn't tell me that he loved me back on account that he was already taken. However, it also meant that I no longer had to pretend that Mike was just a friend, albeit a best friend to me, and pretend that the warm feeling in my chest at night was just the pleasure of talking to a friend. So, though I didn't get the "I love you too" I hoped against hope to hear, I felt after that day that I was allowed to love him, and that I could be candid with my feeling with the one person in the world that was my complete confidant, who knew all of my secrets, even things I hadn't told a single person, and who I could rely on to talk to.
Stage 4: Buildup to meeting
After Mike returned from his Mom's house he was available to talk to more often, though we never in all the time since regained as much of a streak as when I was able to talk to him for over 30 nights in a row. Since I was allowed to love Mike, and since I came to know everything about Mike I would care to know, and did have paid time off from work that needed to be used up before June 30th or else it would expire, the possibility of meeting Mike became more and more definite. On February 1st at 6:40 PM I came out to my parents as bisexual, and they were more or less fine with it, eliminating the major hurdle I had with planning a vacation to seeing Mike. Though I had the time, money, and means to take a trip to see him, I was sorely lacking in experience in long road trips, and needed advice and assistance in the endeavor. I set the dates early, and in mid-February decided on March 21st through March 29th as the dates for the vacation. From that point on, I was nervous and excited as I began preparations - having my car's oil changed, getting a working Android smartphone from my brother for GPS, booking hotels for the first time in my life, and buying sexual accessories from K-Mart. When the time came I began packing for the long trip. Then I set out from home for an 800 mile drive to meet the first best friend and lover in my life.
Stage 5: Being inside joy
I have another document where I describe exactly what happened on vacation. But in a word, to quote Guinan, it was like being inside joy. It was like joy was something tangible and I could wrap myself up inside it. It was the best vacation of my life, and the greatest joy I can ever remember experiencing. I smiled nearly constantly the whole vacation, with only a few exceptions.
Stage 6: Heartbreak
March 27th, 2015 was the start of the tears. As I made to leave Mike's apartment house, I started crying. I composed myself enough to drive away, but once I was on the expressway, and didn't have to concentrate enough on driving, I began sobbing, missing Mike dearly. However, that was a bittersweet sadness, a sadness of knowing that a time of great happiness is ending, but strangely mixed with the happiness of being grateful that I had such a time of happiness to begin with. Really, though March 27th was the beginning of the tears, March 29th was the beginning of the end. I had the entire day off, and didn't get any contact from Mike whatsoever. Not a word on Skype or Second Life, not an e-mail, not a note. I wondered many times all that month how things would have been different in that crucial week after I returned back home, when the smell of his clothes and the touch of his skin was so vivid in my mind. That was the time went back to his Mom's house again, and I also wonder how different things would have been had such a trip been delayed a week or two, or had he not used it as an excuse to not talk to me, and instead made time for me. But things didn't work out that way.
Monday, March 30th, the first day back to work, where I had to fight back lonely tears for the sake of composure, Mike again never contacted me at night. Tuesday, where I had the whole day off, Mike just contacted me briefly to say he was feeling sick, and said no more. I also talked with Adam on Tuesday, my brother, but he gave me so little of his attention and cared so little about what I was saying it left me feeling more isolated and alone than ever. Wednesday, no Mike. Thursday April 2nd, Mike was busy with a roleplay, and I had an extremely short LNPC. Friday, I had a long call, came home late, and there was no Mike. Saturday, I had off from work, and in the entire day, not once, not one goddamn minute in the entire day on Saturday did I speak for one second to Mike, nor did he have the consideration of me to send me a single word. It had been nearly a week, and not once in the entire week had I had good quality time with Mike. Not once had he made me smile until my face hurt. And worst of all, not once in the whole week had he made me feel like I was wanted, like he was thinking of me, like he missed me, like he cared what I was going through.
Sunday, April 5th was a night of false hope. For the first time since I saw Mike in person, I got to spend some quality time talking to him after work. It was fun, and gave me hope that the week of declining friendship was just a fluke, and that things would pick up. That hope was a waking dream, which I awoke from the next two days. On Monday, I got home from work early. He was in one of his roleplays, and had no interest in stopping it to talk to me. A mutual friend messaged him and suggested he come over and talk to me, since he hadn't spent much time with me. He did come, but came in the most ticked-off, peeved state I've ever seen him in. And he had no interest in me, saying he wanted to continue his roleplay, and since he couldn't do that, he'd just go to bed.
On Tuesday, April 7th, 2015 I had a day off from work. I went to a dentist appointment, and afterwards went to the library near the dentist's office, read for a while, then ate lunch at Bruegger's Bagels. I got a tasty sandwich, and sat down at a table for two and started eating. On the overhead music, the song “Shattered” by OAR started playing. I thought of Jesse first, the friend I had whose friendship had petered out. But my mind soon turned to Mike, and I looked across the table at the empty seat. I thought about how Mike wasn't there, and will never be there. He'll never visit me, and I'll never be able to take him to the movies, or show him my house, or go to my local mall or go out to eat with him. He doesn't have a car, doesn't have a job, and doesn't even know how to send packages and letters through the mail to me. I once sent him a letter, more so he could have something physical from me than anything else, and he said he couldn't reciprocate, unless he found a postcard or something. And at the time, remembering the night before and his course treatment of me, I got the feeling that even if he did have the means, Mike would never have the motivation to visit me in person. I felt sadness welling up in me, and fought back tears as I finished my delicious sandwich, and went to my car. For the second time, I had a drive of tears, though this time I neglected to bring any napkins or tissues. I let the tears and snot flow anyway, and by the time I got home, my eyes were bloodshot, my face red, and snot flowed from my nostrils freely. I took a picture of myself at that time to remember that moment by. And then, on that day, that fateful day when I was missing Mike the most I'd ever missed him (and rather than the bittersweet tears of March 27th, the tears of April 7th were full of only sadness), Mike did the worst possible thing he could have done: nothing. Not one damn thing. Again, I was available the entire day, and Mike wasn't available for one minute, hell, 10 seconds of it to send me a message. If he had just sent me a message on that day, anything really, it would have meant he was at least considering me and thinking of me. He did nothing of the sort, and I spent the evening playing the StarCraft II mod Doomed Earth, checking almost constantly while the game was created for some sign, some message from Mike which never came.
On Wednesday the 8th, Mike was sick, and at least had the consideration on that day to leave me a message.
On Thursday the 9th I had a very brief chat with him before going to work. I got home from work early that day, and found Mike available on Second Life. Knowing that this was the first time in a long time that we were available at the same times, hope turned to guarded optimism as I found he was interested in doing a roleplay. I hoped that maybe if I give his roleplays a chance, and they were fun, that might rekindle our dying friendship. Further, this was a Western-style “Appleloosa” roleplay instead of the ultraviolent, depressing “Fallout Equestria” roleplays he was so into that I hated so much.
It was awful.
First of all, Mike is dyslexic, and I always knew that about him. That wasn’t a problem with being his friend, and in some ways was a benefit, because I learned the first day I talked to him with a microphone that Mike has the strange quality of sounding like a toddler when he types, and being absolutely charming when he talks. For the roleplay, since he was doing it with other people, I couldn’t private talk and listen to Mike the charmer, but had to endure the typing of Mike the toddler. Second, his response times were so long it was like…well…it was like talking to a ghost, and simultaneously being with and not being with Mike. I roleplayed my pony asking what his pony’s name was. I would have responded to such a post in 10 seconds. Slower role players may have taken a minute or two. He took 8 minutes before I saw his post. It was 8 minutes I couldn’t focus on anything else entirely, and 8 minutes that could have been spent having a pleasant conversation with him, which I instead got barely one line of text. It was like seeing a bottle of lemonade, and drinking it, finding it only contained pure lemon juice. I endured it for maybe a half hour, before I gave up in exasperation and had a roleplay conversation with another Second Life user, who wasn’t writing Shakespeare but would at least respond to what I said in a more timely manner. So, I suggested to Mike that by way of compromise, that at 11:30 we go someplace private and have a private talk. He said he wanted to talk to Red, another friend of his, before going to bed, and could go to his sim. A little disappointed, but feeling like something was better than nothing, I agreed, and wrapped up my own conversation a little before 11:30 PM and went to the other sim to wait. He didn’t come. I went back to the sim Mike was in, and he said he was still roleplaying. I waited for him, and as time went on, I grew more impatient and angry. Finally, midnight came along, which I had told him was when I planned to go off and go to bed, and he still had no interest in talking to me. With the entire evening wasted with very few words exchanged between us, I sent him a message and said “I’m pissed off.” He said “Well, then play some video games before you go to bed.” I said “Mike, I’m pissed off at you.”
He then came on voice chat, finally, and I learned that he was having a conversation with someone else at 11:30 about goddamn salt in My Little Pony, and considered that more important than talking to me. He then gave me all kinds of bullshit about not wanting to be rude and not leaving in the middle of roleplays, when he was only interacting with one other player and there wasn’t anything close to a serious, in-depth roleplay going on, and he didn’t have enough consideration for me to wrap it up and go somewhere else at the time I thought we had agreed on. I went to bed unhappy and peeved.
On Friday Mike was busy talking to Munius, which I understood and didn’t begrudge him not giving me attention. On Saturday, Mike had a Second Life wedding to Munius, and I found that strangely, I liked Munius better than I liked Mike. Munius was a perfect gentleman, and was helpful, and agreed with me on a lot of ideas, and was just generally pleasant to be around. Mike was all sick and tired and whiney, and no help at all. Also, Munius’s wedding vows were written out in beautiful lines of prose (I should add Munius is dyslexic too, but in my time he has shown no obvious signs of it) while Mike’s were spoken and given as a jumbled, mumbled, incoherent mess. After the wedding, I had almost no interaction with Mike. On Sunday I dreamed about Mike, but waking, never spoke to him all day.
I knew our friendship was in trouble. The memories I had of being with him physically were only causing tears, and by now even those tears had dried up. It had been two weeks since I saw him by this time, and in that time, there had been only one day when I had a pleasant conversation with him. Again and again I was hoping to talk to him, and again and again I was disappointed, and either had no contact with him at all, or the kind of shitty contact I had on April 2nd or April 9th that just highlighted how far and how fast our friendship was plummeting. I racked my brain for something I had done wrong that made him treat me like he had been treating me, and could think of nothing. That pleased me in that I had nothing to apologize for, but also depressed me because that meant that the friendship was dying because Mike was fast becoming someone I couldn’t rely on at all, and there was nothing I could do about it. In desperation, I tried one last thing. Mike, for whatever reason, was always against committing a date and time for something, and meeting him was always happenstance. Early in our relationship it was like two kids going to school together, and there was such regularity that setting a date to do something was unnecessary anyway. In April it felt more like two people shopping at the same store, and if we just happened to be there at the same time, great, otherwise there was little chance of us meeting together. So, in a last desperate play to shine a little more light on the dying tree of our friendship, on the morning of Monday, April 13th I told Mike I wanted to talk to him and requested he be on at 11:00 PM that night. I was there. He was not, and hadn’t left a single message or any indication why.
Mike stood me up. After all the time we had been together, all the fun we had had, all the laughter and smiles we had caused in each other, and all the good times we had in Fredericton, when it came to actually setting a date and time to meet, he not only missed it, but didn’t even take 10 seconds to leave me a message.
I hoped, I wanted to believe there was some technical reason for that. Maybe his computer died? Maybe his Internet wasn’t working? On Tuesday, I left him messages, and kept checking for him all day, from early in the morning until the afternoon. No sign of Mike, and it looked like yet another day off would pass without any communication at all from him. Finally, I played my last card, and left a message with his landlady to have Mike call me. I finally talked to him on Second Life later that day. He said he was sick, and that he didn’t leave a message on Second Life because he thought I’d talk to someone and they’d tell me he was off. I asked him why in the world he would leave that to someone else, and not take even a moment to leave me a message. I forgot what his response was. He was peeved that I called, and said I could leave a message on Skype if he really needed to talk to me. I told him I had left four throughout the day, and he said he never got the messages. I then told him it felt like our friendship was ending. He said that he didn’t consider friendships as ending just because people don’t talk for a while. I told him that by way of example, if a man is married to a woman and the man goes away for two weeks, their love isn’t lost for two reasons. First, they know that the separation is temporary, and have a date to look forward to when they can be together. Second, they typically make some indication that they miss each other. Maybe the man will call the woman and talk to her. Maybe the woman will send a letter to the man to let him know she’s thinking of him. That’s what was missing for our relationship. Mike returned from his Mom’s house on April 12th, so that eliminated the primary excuse he had for not talking to me. But more than that, I could think of no time in the past two weeks where Mike had gave any indication he missed me or looked forward to talking to me. Quite the opposite – on the 2nd, the 9th, and especially the 6th my arrival was met with annoyance and hostility. So, I learned on the 14th that there was no technical reason he stood me up. He was just being downright inconsiderate.
There was a whole lot of tears, and a whole lot of crying going on all around this time. I thought bitterly about how asymmetrical our relationship was. How I was the one that told him I loved him, how I had sent him a letter, and taken initiative to learn everything important about him, and how I had taken the time, effort, and expense to visit him in person. But most of all, especially after the 14th, I thought about how everything that happened in the more than two weeks since I’d seen him had been painful for me, and not painful for him. The words of The Script kept ringing in my ears: “While I’m wide awake he has no trouble sleeping. ‘Cause when a heart break, no it don’t break even. What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? And what am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re okay. I’m falling to pieces!”
I realized what was happening was an equalization of our relationship in the worst possible way. Since our relationship was already so lopsided, equalization of our relationship would mean a loss of the love I felt by him. I remember thinking bitterly while on a break at work that if Mike was a villain masterminding such an equalization, he couldn’t have done it better, because I was starting to hate him.
Then it hit me. I really was starting to hate Mike. That feeling in my chest I felt after a good conversation was a distant memory. The vacation I took to see him was a taunting memory of joy I would never have again. The lack of contact, and the lack of feeling wanted when I did have any contact with him, was all leading to the same conclusion: I was experiencing my first heartbreak. Thoughts of Mike started filling me with pain, not love. On the night of April 15th, where Mike again gave no trace of himself, I went to bed bitterly knowing that I don’t love Mike anymore. On Thursday, I did talk to him, and told him as such. His reaction was infuriating. He said “Well, it was just an infatuation.” I told him “No, I loved you, well and truly. I stopped loving you because you hurt me.”
Stage 7: Confusion
On April 17th, I had the first true LNPC with Mike in 12 days, since April 5th. This was the start of a very confusing part of our relationship. After close to three weeks of absence, of being ignored, of heartbreak and frustration and anger, I finally saw some hope that perhaps that was just a rough patch, and things could go back to how they were before. I had some kind of contact with him every day for the next 5 days, and a LNPC with Mike on the 22nd, but on the 23rd he was a no-show. Friday I had a long call and had to stay late at work, though I did talk to him briefly on Skype before bed, and Saturday I played Mutiny with him using join.me. But then on the 26th, on the day when I talked to the rudest customer I’ve ever talked to and when I could most use a best friend, he wasn’t available, nor was he on Monday. Then I had a 2 hour Skype call with Mike on Tuesday, and he was available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then busy on Saturday, then available Sunday and Monday, then busy on Tuesday, available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then went home to Fredericton Saturday and Sunday so I wasn’t expecting him, then not on at all Monday, and I went to bed disappointed.
I list his availability with such detail to make a point. Since April 17th, what was the longest streak of time I went with the ability to talk to him every night? Six days. Since April 17th, any time I started getting my hopes up that he could at least be someone I could rely on, he was suddenly not on again and my hopes were dashed. I remember when I first met him, that first month, I began really looking forward to him and expecting to talk to him, and when he was there my heart soared and our relationship grew. With our relationship in its current state, when I let my expectations grow too far, the fall is ever the harder. When I knew there was a good chance of him being available, and when he wasn’t there, my hopes sank.
That, more than any other one factor, is the primary reason that our friendship isn’t being repaired. I once wrote that for a friendship to flourish, three things are necessary: open and easy communication, shared interests, and shared experiences. There is a fourth thing I am finding is sorely required: commitment. Without a stable commitment of resources, time especially, the relationship can’t grow. I saw that with another furry I met, who in the times when I communicate with him on Skype, will just stop talking to me in the middle of a conversation, and he rarely changes his Skype states so I never know if he’s really available to talk or not. That relationship seemed to have a lot of potential, but has since gone almost nowhere because he won’t commit time to me, and in fairness, the open and easy communication requirement is failed as well, since he refuses to talk on microphone and his text responses are monosyllabic snippets that make conversations with him severely one-sided. Mike won’t commit to me. He won’t say “Hey Kevin, how about playing a game tomorrow at 3?” or “Hey Kevin, how about watching a YouTube video next Sunday at 11 PM?” or even “Hey Kevin, I’ll be available to talk tomorrow after 8:00 PM” He also rarely puts time and energy into our relationship in general either. He has never done some sort of side project for me, like I did in writing a story. He rarely watches any videos I suggest anymore, nor does he read or listen to stories I suggest, which used to be part of the shared experiences requirement that was so important in strengthening our relationship. I’m just a pastime for him. This afternoon, he spoke to me for an hour before Munius came on, and soon after he came on went to a one-on-one conversation with Munius and hasn’t spoken to me since, whereas Munius at least talked to me after they were done.
If our friendship is a tree, and time is light, that tree was close to dying in mid-April, and since then hasn’t gotten a steady supply of light, such that every time it tries to revive, that light is shut off and it starts wilting again. So now, the big question is, where does our relationship go from here? First, do I WANT to fall in love with Mike again? On the one hand, the feeling was such a good one the question is almost ludicrous, like asking whether I want some milk and cookies. But on the other hand, there is a good reason for me to say no: once bitten and twice shy. He hurt me, and if I fall in love with Mike again, given what I now know of his personality, he’s likely, maybe even inevitably so, to break my heart again. Also, he has someone else that takes first place in his heart, which wasn’t the slightest detriment to me loving him in the past, but now, knowing how important reciprocation is to a lasting, symmetrical relationship, that fact and the fact that he has been so shy with committing to me even as a friend means that there is no chance he’ll commit to me as a lover, and lately only the smallest chance that he can again commit to me as a friend with the regularity that made me into his best friend in the first place. Second, COULD I fall in love with him again? Now what I’ve seen this darker side of Mike, the side that isn’t malicious but simply uncaring about the feelings and desires of others, could I love someone like that? Even if he were to be online every night for, say, two weeks, and I was able to start expecting him and looking forward to seeing him, would that just restart the friendship, or would that be the first steps towards him supergluing my heart back together? Or would it all just be a sham, and am I destined to never get over the dark emotions he brewed in me during his weeks of mistreatment, and will I never again feel that warm feeling in my chest when I talk to Mike, and never again smile until my face hurts while talking to him?
One thing is certain above all else in this confusing time: my second return to Fredericton will be a shadow of the first time. My first time there, I had no past where he hurt me, no persistence of memory melting over and smothering me like it threatens to do the second time. The first time, I at least loved him, even if he said he didn’t love me. Since I loved him, I was able to show him affection, and though he didn’t return in kind, he did show a friendly affection that made me feel loved and wanted and made it the best vacation ever. Heartbreak will be a definite cloud over the second trip. Also, this second trip will have a more definite finality. When this second trip is over, it doesn’t mean not seeing Mike for three months. It means not seeing Mike for a very long time – perhaps 8 months, perhaps a year, perhaps never again. I can’t shake the feeling that after the second trip, our relationship will collapse again, and this time, with no likelihood of physical contact to motivate trying to glue it together, if it collapses again it will collapse forever.
Editor’s note: Thus ends the original entry from May 12th, 2015. I have been meaning to go over it for some time, but today seemed especially appropriate. Today, June 2, 2016 I again went to get my teeth cleaned, went to the library and to Bruegger’s Bagels and ate alone, and was reminded of that fateful day on April 18, 2015 when I realized our relationship was going nowhere.
This is already at 5,500 words, and a proper continuation of this story would have to include my entries about both trips to Fredericton, but for now I think I would like to give a brief description and skip ahead to the conclusion. Basically, I did prepare for the trip for Fredericton again, though this time without any of the sort of excitement or adventure I felt for going on a long quest to find my one true love. Instead, I was going through the motions, and planning for the trip because I had vacation time to expend and I had made the trip back when I still cared about Mike, and despite everything didn’t want to cancel it. The trip itself was mixed. I don’t like Anime in general, so Animaritime was a mixed bag for me. I have detailed journal entries from that trip, but in a word, highlights were a few interesting panels and meeting the first fursuits I’ve ever seen in my life, while the unquestioned low point was an audience participation quiz game, which was obviously for hardcore anime fans and I was completely lost. However, Mike was also almost completely lost, and it was horrible. After the convention was over, I dropped Mike off at his house, and before leaving Fredericton forever, I said to Mike “Last time I left here, you broke my heart.” I didn’t shed any tears on the way back. Again, after I got home on June 30th 2015, I messaged him, but he didn’t message me back. I was prepared for it that time, and since my heart was already broke, my response was basically “Well, that figures.” He barely talked to me at all for weeks.
The end of our relationship came on July 17th, 2016. I saved a copy of the last chat I ever had with him, including what was going through my head:
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): hello
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: hello
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): how are you
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: Been better, been worse. Where are you?
[20:18] Spirit (renpas): in a rp sorta think its dieing thow
[20:26] Renpas: i have been good bissy with rl stuf
[20:28] Kevin Thesium: Mike, tell me something. What were you doing on July 1st?
[20:29] Renpas: hrrmmm....
[20:29] Renpas: i think i was with my rl famly
[20:30] Kevin Thesium: Did you have computer troubles on that day as well?
[20:30] Renpas: not shure i dont think i was on much
[20:31] Kevin Thesium: Mike, do you want to be my friend?
[20:32] Renpas: yes why do you ask
[20:32] Kevin Thesium: Then what has prevented you from going so long without even trying to contact me?
[20:34] Renpas: i conttacted you the other night and i have been rather bissy in rl this is the longest i have been on
This is what I want to tell you but I cannot.
Fuck you Mike. Fuck you and your inconsiderateness. Fuck you who would abandon me twice, and give me so little consideration. Fuck you who would wither my heart to a cold ball of unfeeling ice, going day to day without any joy, or really any sorrow. You gave me the best days of my life, and the worst days in my life, and now you're leaving me, and again make out like it's no big fucking deal. Like it means nothing that you have gone weeks without talking to me. Like "I've just been busy" is your excuse, and that it's not just a cover for the truth: we're not friends anymore. I don't know and like you anymore. I want to punch you in the face and spit on your body and leave you to rot. I want to abandon you, like you abandoned me. I don't feel alone in your twilight zone, but it's time you LEFT my haunted heart. I feel your specter haunting me. Keeping me down with misery. So take your ghost and move along. I missed your soul, but I know you're gone.
Super mean:
Fuck you Mike. Go die in a car crash, and haunt me no more.
Super nice:
Oh well that's alright sweetie. Everyone needs a break from Second Life now and then, and I hope you're having fun.
Middle: Mike, you abandoned me, a second time. Only this time I'm not surprised. I expected you to abandon me, and you didn't disappoint at being a disappointment. Now I'm trying to move on from you, and you being here is doing nothing but haunting me. I don't want a friend who would abandon me for weeks like it's nothing. I want a friend who will share my interests, share experiences with me, and who I can talk to. And right now, there are about four people who actually meet those definitions, and about seven billion people who could potentially meet those requirements. But I won't say this to you either. I don't know whether I want to burn my bridges or not, and come to think of it, the "I wish you the best" part of Specters is about a peaceful break, not the violent break with you that I'm halfway craving right now.
[20:47] Renpas: nozes
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: I have spent the last 13 minutes writing, and I still don't really know what to say to that.
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: Is your RP done?
[20:48] Renpas: no im starting to hind a out thow
[20:48] Kevin Thesium: What?
[20:49] Renpas: looking for a exit
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: Well, I have to get to bed. I have work tomorrow.
[20:50] Renpas: ok nini
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: bye
[20:50] Renpas: sleep well
I internally didn’t want to burn my bridges, but that is exactly what I did. I removed his name from Skype and Steam. I unfriended him on Facebook. And as for Second Life, I still have the viewer on my computer for some reason, but the core files say they were created September 15th, 2015, and none of the files have been modified since October 10th, 2015, so I have never logged back into Second Life in the year 2016. Mike was my main reason for going on. The words of Dr. Manhattan come to mind: “When you left me, I left Earth.” I left Second Life, and not only didn’t return because my main reason for going there was to talk to Mike. I avoided it completely because I was afraid that if I went on at all, even though he’s not my Second Life friend, that going to some of my favorite landmarks would mean possibly seeing him again.
Almost a year after my last contact with Mike, my memory of him is split in two.
One half is the Mike I fell in love with. That’s the Mike that liked me, that cared about me, that spared a thought for me and considered me and who I could look forward to having not only a good time with, but the best time in my life. That Mike represented a glorious dawn, filled with hope and promise and wonder, and the possibility that my entire life up to that point, that the introverted Kevin who enjoyed spending time alone doing things I enjoy without being bothered was gone, and was going to be replaced with the everlasting bliss of friendship.
The other half is the Mike I dealt with after physically meeting him. That is the cold Mike. The one who didn’t want to talk to me, who avoided me, who in times when I needed him the most wasn’t there for me and didn’t care about me. That is the pathetic Mike. The one who is unemployed, severely dyslexic, inactive, unhealthy, unclean, mentally damaged, unmotivated Mike. The Mike who spends all his days in one room of a two story apartment shared by elderly people, including one who never cleans her cat’s litter box and makes the entire building smell like cat pee and poop. The Mike who lays down all day in the bed in his one room, connecting to Second Life on a shitty HP laptop that is always in danger of breaking, who went to college for culinary art but never cooks for himself, who has spent years since he has had any job and gets money exclusively from him Mom, who doesn’t know his own age but was either 29 or 30 when I last spoke to him, and when I asked him where he sees himself in 5 years, said “Dead,” and I truly believe that was a correct assumption now. But more than anything, the Mike where any of that matters. I fell in love with Mike knowing full well what flaws he had. I didn’t care. He didn’t trick me into coming to Fredericton, and I what was so great about our relationship was how open and genuine it was. But when I tried talking to Mike, and couldn’t talk to him, and he showed how inconsiderate he was and how one-sided our relationship was or became (whether “was” or “became” is more accurate is up for debate), suddenly those personal flaws mattered.
I considered making a clean break from Mike: deleting all my files, recycling all my trip information, and throwing out all physical mementos from him. I decided against it. Catherine Aird is famously quoted as saying “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.” My experience with Mike was nothing if not a learning experience, and 2015 was a year for growing up, for better or for worse. The mementos I have of Mike elicit such bittersweet memories in me, but I’m also coming to find, now in this season more than in the past, that what I learned from my experience with Mike, the good and the bad, is important to my future. There is an entire other story to tell, though I’m not sure if I am ready to tell it publically, even if it is anonymous, about what happened in the last year, but I’ll end this entry here because it concludes the story arc of what happened to with Mike, as he was out of my life after that last contact. For now, I will say only this: after I broke contact with Mike, I thought I found what I was looking for, but that dream of the everlasting bliss of friendship has not been realized by me as of the time of writing this.
The Birth and Death of Friendship
Stage 1: 30 days of joy
I met Mike on November 4th, 2014, but didn't talk to him again for a full week. I had such a good talk with him on November 11th that I no longer wanted to wait an entire week to talk to him again. So, on November 12th, I had the first of what I termed on my calendar as an LNPC - a Late Night Pony Chat, where we would be in pony avatars, and I would get on late at night after work and talk to Mike. From November 12th until December 16th, I talked to Mike every day. It was a magical time, and a time I tried many times afterwards to recapture. Every day, I would grow excited as my work came to a close, and every night the excitement was fully justified as I came home and talked to Mike. I slowly uncovered more and more personal information about him, while having conversations that made Mike laugh until he coughed, and times that made me smile so broadly that my face hurt. I was also starting to get a crush on Mike, and started feeling this warm feeling in my chest at night after I had talked to him. I was also extremely sexually attracted to Mike, and fantasized about him.
Stage 2: Missing Mike
When Mike went back to his Mom's house for a month in December and January, my contact with him became more sporadic. I remember quite distinctly a day or two after December 16th I went to bed early and watched an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on my computer before bed. It just wasn't the same as before I met Mike. I missed Mike. I wanted to talk to him. And I realized that all the solo entertainment in the world - all the books, all the games, all the YouTube videos, all the music, no matter how fun, just couldn't compare to the pleasure of spending time talking to Mike. This was also when I first got the idea in my head that maybe I would like to eventually meet Mike in person, and began wondering what steps I would have to take to make that fantasy a reality.
Stage 3: Allowed to love
It was January 3rd, 2015 when I told Mike I loved him. He had a boyfriend on Second Life, and I knew that around the first week I met Mike. I met Munius, but had and still have very little contact with the guy. I remember distinctly that I formed the resolve to tell Mike what I felt about him, and when I talked to him that night he was typing to Munius. I told him I had something to tell him, and it absolutely required his undivided attention. I got that attention, and first sent him a link to the song “I'd Rather Be in Love” by Michelle Branch. I then told him I loved him. He said that he couldn't tell me that he loved me back on account that he was already taken. However, it also meant that I no longer had to pretend that Mike was just a friend, albeit a best friend to me, and pretend that the warm feeling in my chest at night was just the pleasure of talking to a friend. So, though I didn't get the "I love you too" I hoped against hope to hear, I felt after that day that I was allowed to love him, and that I could be candid with my feeling with the one person in the world that was my complete confidant, who knew all of my secrets, even things I hadn't told a single person, and who I could rely on to talk to.
Stage 4: Buildup to meeting
After Mike returned from his Mom's house he was available to talk to more often, though we never in all the time since regained as much of a streak as when I was able to talk to him for over 30 nights in a row. Since I was allowed to love Mike, and since I came to know everything about Mike I would care to know, and did have paid time off from work that needed to be used up before June 30th or else it would expire, the possibility of meeting Mike became more and more definite. On February 1st at 6:40 PM I came out to my parents as bisexual, and they were more or less fine with it, eliminating the major hurdle I had with planning a vacation to seeing Mike. Though I had the time, money, and means to take a trip to see him, I was sorely lacking in experience in long road trips, and needed advice and assistance in the endeavor. I set the dates early, and in mid-February decided on March 21st through March 29th as the dates for the vacation. From that point on, I was nervous and excited as I began preparations - having my car's oil changed, getting a working Android smartphone from my brother for GPS, booking hotels for the first time in my life, and buying sexual accessories from K-Mart. When the time came I began packing for the long trip. Then I set out from home for an 800 mile drive to meet the first best friend and lover in my life.
Stage 5: Being inside joy
I have another document where I describe exactly what happened on vacation. But in a word, to quote Guinan, it was like being inside joy. It was like joy was something tangible and I could wrap myself up inside it. It was the best vacation of my life, and the greatest joy I can ever remember experiencing. I smiled nearly constantly the whole vacation, with only a few exceptions.
Stage 6: Heartbreak
March 27th, 2015 was the start of the tears. As I made to leave Mike's apartment house, I started crying. I composed myself enough to drive away, but once I was on the expressway, and didn't have to concentrate enough on driving, I began sobbing, missing Mike dearly. However, that was a bittersweet sadness, a sadness of knowing that a time of great happiness is ending, but strangely mixed with the happiness of being grateful that I had such a time of happiness to begin with. Really, though March 27th was the beginning of the tears, March 29th was the beginning of the end. I had the entire day off, and didn't get any contact from Mike whatsoever. Not a word on Skype or Second Life, not an e-mail, not a note. I wondered many times all that month how things would have been different in that crucial week after I returned back home, when the smell of his clothes and the touch of his skin was so vivid in my mind. That was the time went back to his Mom's house again, and I also wonder how different things would have been had such a trip been delayed a week or two, or had he not used it as an excuse to not talk to me, and instead made time for me. But things didn't work out that way.
Monday, March 30th, the first day back to work, where I had to fight back lonely tears for the sake of composure, Mike again never contacted me at night. Tuesday, where I had the whole day off, Mike just contacted me briefly to say he was feeling sick, and said no more. I also talked with Adam on Tuesday, my brother, but he gave me so little of his attention and cared so little about what I was saying it left me feeling more isolated and alone than ever. Wednesday, no Mike. Thursday April 2nd, Mike was busy with a roleplay, and I had an extremely short LNPC. Friday, I had a long call, came home late, and there was no Mike. Saturday, I had off from work, and in the entire day, not once, not one goddamn minute in the entire day on Saturday did I speak for one second to Mike, nor did he have the consideration of me to send me a single word. It had been nearly a week, and not once in the entire week had I had good quality time with Mike. Not once had he made me smile until my face hurt. And worst of all, not once in the whole week had he made me feel like I was wanted, like he was thinking of me, like he missed me, like he cared what I was going through.
Sunday, April 5th was a night of false hope. For the first time since I saw Mike in person, I got to spend some quality time talking to him after work. It was fun, and gave me hope that the week of declining friendship was just a fluke, and that things would pick up. That hope was a waking dream, which I awoke from the next two days. On Monday, I got home from work early. He was in one of his roleplays, and had no interest in stopping it to talk to me. A mutual friend messaged him and suggested he come over and talk to me, since he hadn't spent much time with me. He did come, but came in the most ticked-off, peeved state I've ever seen him in. And he had no interest in me, saying he wanted to continue his roleplay, and since he couldn't do that, he'd just go to bed.
On Tuesday, April 7th, 2015 I had a day off from work. I went to a dentist appointment, and afterwards went to the library near the dentist's office, read for a while, then ate lunch at Bruegger's Bagels. I got a tasty sandwich, and sat down at a table for two and started eating. On the overhead music, the song “Shattered” by OAR started playing. I thought of Jesse first, the friend I had whose friendship had petered out. But my mind soon turned to Mike, and I looked across the table at the empty seat. I thought about how Mike wasn't there, and will never be there. He'll never visit me, and I'll never be able to take him to the movies, or show him my house, or go to my local mall or go out to eat with him. He doesn't have a car, doesn't have a job, and doesn't even know how to send packages and letters through the mail to me. I once sent him a letter, more so he could have something physical from me than anything else, and he said he couldn't reciprocate, unless he found a postcard or something. And at the time, remembering the night before and his course treatment of me, I got the feeling that even if he did have the means, Mike would never have the motivation to visit me in person. I felt sadness welling up in me, and fought back tears as I finished my delicious sandwich, and went to my car. For the second time, I had a drive of tears, though this time I neglected to bring any napkins or tissues. I let the tears and snot flow anyway, and by the time I got home, my eyes were bloodshot, my face red, and snot flowed from my nostrils freely. I took a picture of myself at that time to remember that moment by. And then, on that day, that fateful day when I was missing Mike the most I'd ever missed him (and rather than the bittersweet tears of March 27th, the tears of April 7th were full of only sadness), Mike did the worst possible thing he could have done: nothing. Not one damn thing. Again, I was available the entire day, and Mike wasn't available for one minute, hell, 10 seconds of it to send me a message. If he had just sent me a message on that day, anything really, it would have meant he was at least considering me and thinking of me. He did nothing of the sort, and I spent the evening playing the StarCraft II mod Doomed Earth, checking almost constantly while the game was created for some sign, some message from Mike which never came.
On Wednesday the 8th, Mike was sick, and at least had the consideration on that day to leave me a message.
On Thursday the 9th I had a very brief chat with him before going to work. I got home from work early that day, and found Mike available on Second Life. Knowing that this was the first time in a long time that we were available at the same times, hope turned to guarded optimism as I found he was interested in doing a roleplay. I hoped that maybe if I give his roleplays a chance, and they were fun, that might rekindle our dying friendship. Further, this was a Western-style “Appleloosa” roleplay instead of the ultraviolent, depressing “Fallout Equestria” roleplays he was so into that I hated so much.
It was awful.
First of all, Mike is dyslexic, and I always knew that about him. That wasn’t a problem with being his friend, and in some ways was a benefit, because I learned the first day I talked to him with a microphone that Mike has the strange quality of sounding like a toddler when he types, and being absolutely charming when he talks. For the roleplay, since he was doing it with other people, I couldn’t private talk and listen to Mike the charmer, but had to endure the typing of Mike the toddler. Second, his response times were so long it was like…well…it was like talking to a ghost, and simultaneously being with and not being with Mike. I roleplayed my pony asking what his pony’s name was. I would have responded to such a post in 10 seconds. Slower role players may have taken a minute or two. He took 8 minutes before I saw his post. It was 8 minutes I couldn’t focus on anything else entirely, and 8 minutes that could have been spent having a pleasant conversation with him, which I instead got barely one line of text. It was like seeing a bottle of lemonade, and drinking it, finding it only contained pure lemon juice. I endured it for maybe a half hour, before I gave up in exasperation and had a roleplay conversation with another Second Life user, who wasn’t writing Shakespeare but would at least respond to what I said in a more timely manner. So, I suggested to Mike that by way of compromise, that at 11:30 we go someplace private and have a private talk. He said he wanted to talk to Red, another friend of his, before going to bed, and could go to his sim. A little disappointed, but feeling like something was better than nothing, I agreed, and wrapped up my own conversation a little before 11:30 PM and went to the other sim to wait. He didn’t come. I went back to the sim Mike was in, and he said he was still roleplaying. I waited for him, and as time went on, I grew more impatient and angry. Finally, midnight came along, which I had told him was when I planned to go off and go to bed, and he still had no interest in talking to me. With the entire evening wasted with very few words exchanged between us, I sent him a message and said “I’m pissed off.” He said “Well, then play some video games before you go to bed.” I said “Mike, I’m pissed off at you.”
He then came on voice chat, finally, and I learned that he was having a conversation with someone else at 11:30 about goddamn salt in My Little Pony, and considered that more important than talking to me. He then gave me all kinds of bullshit about not wanting to be rude and not leaving in the middle of roleplays, when he was only interacting with one other player and there wasn’t anything close to a serious, in-depth roleplay going on, and he didn’t have enough consideration for me to wrap it up and go somewhere else at the time I thought we had agreed on. I went to bed unhappy and peeved.
On Friday Mike was busy talking to Munius, which I understood and didn’t begrudge him not giving me attention. On Saturday, Mike had a Second Life wedding to Munius, and I found that strangely, I liked Munius better than I liked Mike. Munius was a perfect gentleman, and was helpful, and agreed with me on a lot of ideas, and was just generally pleasant to be around. Mike was all sick and tired and whiney, and no help at all. Also, Munius’s wedding vows were written out in beautiful lines of prose (I should add Munius is dyslexic too, but in my time he has shown no obvious signs of it) while Mike’s were spoken and given as a jumbled, mumbled, incoherent mess. After the wedding, I had almost no interaction with Mike. On Sunday I dreamed about Mike, but waking, never spoke to him all day.
I knew our friendship was in trouble. The memories I had of being with him physically were only causing tears, and by now even those tears had dried up. It had been two weeks since I saw him by this time, and in that time, there had been only one day when I had a pleasant conversation with him. Again and again I was hoping to talk to him, and again and again I was disappointed, and either had no contact with him at all, or the kind of shitty contact I had on April 2nd or April 9th that just highlighted how far and how fast our friendship was plummeting. I racked my brain for something I had done wrong that made him treat me like he had been treating me, and could think of nothing. That pleased me in that I had nothing to apologize for, but also depressed me because that meant that the friendship was dying because Mike was fast becoming someone I couldn’t rely on at all, and there was nothing I could do about it. In desperation, I tried one last thing. Mike, for whatever reason, was always against committing a date and time for something, and meeting him was always happenstance. Early in our relationship it was like two kids going to school together, and there was such regularity that setting a date to do something was unnecessary anyway. In April it felt more like two people shopping at the same store, and if we just happened to be there at the same time, great, otherwise there was little chance of us meeting together. So, in a last desperate play to shine a little more light on the dying tree of our friendship, on the morning of Monday, April 13th I told Mike I wanted to talk to him and requested he be on at 11:00 PM that night. I was there. He was not, and hadn’t left a single message or any indication why.
Mike stood me up. After all the time we had been together, all the fun we had had, all the laughter and smiles we had caused in each other, and all the good times we had in Fredericton, when it came to actually setting a date and time to meet, he not only missed it, but didn’t even take 10 seconds to leave me a message.
I hoped, I wanted to believe there was some technical reason for that. Maybe his computer died? Maybe his Internet wasn’t working? On Tuesday, I left him messages, and kept checking for him all day, from early in the morning until the afternoon. No sign of Mike, and it looked like yet another day off would pass without any communication at all from him. Finally, I played my last card, and left a message with his landlady to have Mike call me. I finally talked to him on Second Life later that day. He said he was sick, and that he didn’t leave a message on Second Life because he thought I’d talk to someone and they’d tell me he was off. I asked him why in the world he would leave that to someone else, and not take even a moment to leave me a message. I forgot what his response was. He was peeved that I called, and said I could leave a message on Skype if he really needed to talk to me. I told him I had left four throughout the day, and he said he never got the messages. I then told him it felt like our friendship was ending. He said that he didn’t consider friendships as ending just because people don’t talk for a while. I told him that by way of example, if a man is married to a woman and the man goes away for two weeks, their love isn’t lost for two reasons. First, they know that the separation is temporary, and have a date to look forward to when they can be together. Second, they typically make some indication that they miss each other. Maybe the man will call the woman and talk to her. Maybe the woman will send a letter to the man to let him know she’s thinking of him. That’s what was missing for our relationship. Mike returned from his Mom’s house on April 12th, so that eliminated the primary excuse he had for not talking to me. But more than that, I could think of no time in the past two weeks where Mike had gave any indication he missed me or looked forward to talking to me. Quite the opposite – on the 2nd, the 9th, and especially the 6th my arrival was met with annoyance and hostility. So, I learned on the 14th that there was no technical reason he stood me up. He was just being downright inconsiderate.
There was a whole lot of tears, and a whole lot of crying going on all around this time. I thought bitterly about how asymmetrical our relationship was. How I was the one that told him I loved him, how I had sent him a letter, and taken initiative to learn everything important about him, and how I had taken the time, effort, and expense to visit him in person. But most of all, especially after the 14th, I thought about how everything that happened in the more than two weeks since I’d seen him had been painful for me, and not painful for him. The words of The Script kept ringing in my ears: “While I’m wide awake he has no trouble sleeping. ‘Cause when a heart break, no it don’t break even. What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? And what am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re okay. I’m falling to pieces!”
I realized what was happening was an equalization of our relationship in the worst possible way. Since our relationship was already so lopsided, equalization of our relationship would mean a loss of the love I felt by him. I remember thinking bitterly while on a break at work that if Mike was a villain masterminding such an equalization, he couldn’t have done it better, because I was starting to hate him.
Then it hit me. I really was starting to hate Mike. That feeling in my chest I felt after a good conversation was a distant memory. The vacation I took to see him was a taunting memory of joy I would never have again. The lack of contact, and the lack of feeling wanted when I did have any contact with him, was all leading to the same conclusion: I was experiencing my first heartbreak. Thoughts of Mike started filling me with pain, not love. On the night of April 15th, where Mike again gave no trace of himself, I went to bed bitterly knowing that I don’t love Mike anymore. On Thursday, I did talk to him, and told him as such. His reaction was infuriating. He said “Well, it was just an infatuation.” I told him “No, I loved you, well and truly. I stopped loving you because you hurt me.”
Stage 7: Confusion
On April 17th, I had the first true LNPC with Mike in 12 days, since April 5th. This was the start of a very confusing part of our relationship. After close to three weeks of absence, of being ignored, of heartbreak and frustration and anger, I finally saw some hope that perhaps that was just a rough patch, and things could go back to how they were before. I had some kind of contact with him every day for the next 5 days, and a LNPC with Mike on the 22nd, but on the 23rd he was a no-show. Friday I had a long call and had to stay late at work, though I did talk to him briefly on Skype before bed, and Saturday I played Mutiny with him using join.me. But then on the 26th, on the day when I talked to the rudest customer I’ve ever talked to and when I could most use a best friend, he wasn’t available, nor was he on Monday. Then I had a 2 hour Skype call with Mike on Tuesday, and he was available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then busy on Saturday, then available Sunday and Monday, then busy on Tuesday, available Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then went home to Fredericton Saturday and Sunday so I wasn’t expecting him, then not on at all Monday, and I went to bed disappointed.
I list his availability with such detail to make a point. Since April 17th, what was the longest streak of time I went with the ability to talk to him every night? Six days. Since April 17th, any time I started getting my hopes up that he could at least be someone I could rely on, he was suddenly not on again and my hopes were dashed. I remember when I first met him, that first month, I began really looking forward to him and expecting to talk to him, and when he was there my heart soared and our relationship grew. With our relationship in its current state, when I let my expectations grow too far, the fall is ever the harder. When I knew there was a good chance of him being available, and when he wasn’t there, my hopes sank.
That, more than any other one factor, is the primary reason that our friendship isn’t being repaired. I once wrote that for a friendship to flourish, three things are necessary: open and easy communication, shared interests, and shared experiences. There is a fourth thing I am finding is sorely required: commitment. Without a stable commitment of resources, time especially, the relationship can’t grow. I saw that with another furry I met, who in the times when I communicate with him on Skype, will just stop talking to me in the middle of a conversation, and he rarely changes his Skype states so I never know if he’s really available to talk or not. That relationship seemed to have a lot of potential, but has since gone almost nowhere because he won’t commit time to me, and in fairness, the open and easy communication requirement is failed as well, since he refuses to talk on microphone and his text responses are monosyllabic snippets that make conversations with him severely one-sided. Mike won’t commit to me. He won’t say “Hey Kevin, how about playing a game tomorrow at 3?” or “Hey Kevin, how about watching a YouTube video next Sunday at 11 PM?” or even “Hey Kevin, I’ll be available to talk tomorrow after 8:00 PM” He also rarely puts time and energy into our relationship in general either. He has never done some sort of side project for me, like I did in writing a story. He rarely watches any videos I suggest anymore, nor does he read or listen to stories I suggest, which used to be part of the shared experiences requirement that was so important in strengthening our relationship. I’m just a pastime for him. This afternoon, he spoke to me for an hour before Munius came on, and soon after he came on went to a one-on-one conversation with Munius and hasn’t spoken to me since, whereas Munius at least talked to me after they were done.
If our friendship is a tree, and time is light, that tree was close to dying in mid-April, and since then hasn’t gotten a steady supply of light, such that every time it tries to revive, that light is shut off and it starts wilting again. So now, the big question is, where does our relationship go from here? First, do I WANT to fall in love with Mike again? On the one hand, the feeling was such a good one the question is almost ludicrous, like asking whether I want some milk and cookies. But on the other hand, there is a good reason for me to say no: once bitten and twice shy. He hurt me, and if I fall in love with Mike again, given what I now know of his personality, he’s likely, maybe even inevitably so, to break my heart again. Also, he has someone else that takes first place in his heart, which wasn’t the slightest detriment to me loving him in the past, but now, knowing how important reciprocation is to a lasting, symmetrical relationship, that fact and the fact that he has been so shy with committing to me even as a friend means that there is no chance he’ll commit to me as a lover, and lately only the smallest chance that he can again commit to me as a friend with the regularity that made me into his best friend in the first place. Second, COULD I fall in love with him again? Now what I’ve seen this darker side of Mike, the side that isn’t malicious but simply uncaring about the feelings and desires of others, could I love someone like that? Even if he were to be online every night for, say, two weeks, and I was able to start expecting him and looking forward to seeing him, would that just restart the friendship, or would that be the first steps towards him supergluing my heart back together? Or would it all just be a sham, and am I destined to never get over the dark emotions he brewed in me during his weeks of mistreatment, and will I never again feel that warm feeling in my chest when I talk to Mike, and never again smile until my face hurts while talking to him?
One thing is certain above all else in this confusing time: my second return to Fredericton will be a shadow of the first time. My first time there, I had no past where he hurt me, no persistence of memory melting over and smothering me like it threatens to do the second time. The first time, I at least loved him, even if he said he didn’t love me. Since I loved him, I was able to show him affection, and though he didn’t return in kind, he did show a friendly affection that made me feel loved and wanted and made it the best vacation ever. Heartbreak will be a definite cloud over the second trip. Also, this second trip will have a more definite finality. When this second trip is over, it doesn’t mean not seeing Mike for three months. It means not seeing Mike for a very long time – perhaps 8 months, perhaps a year, perhaps never again. I can’t shake the feeling that after the second trip, our relationship will collapse again, and this time, with no likelihood of physical contact to motivate trying to glue it together, if it collapses again it will collapse forever.
Editor’s note: Thus ends the original entry from May 12th, 2015. I have been meaning to go over it for some time, but today seemed especially appropriate. Today, June 2, 2016 I again went to get my teeth cleaned, went to the library and to Bruegger’s Bagels and ate alone, and was reminded of that fateful day on April 18, 2015 when I realized our relationship was going nowhere.
This is already at 5,500 words, and a proper continuation of this story would have to include my entries about both trips to Fredericton, but for now I think I would like to give a brief description and skip ahead to the conclusion. Basically, I did prepare for the trip for Fredericton again, though this time without any of the sort of excitement or adventure I felt for going on a long quest to find my one true love. Instead, I was going through the motions, and planning for the trip because I had vacation time to expend and I had made the trip back when I still cared about Mike, and despite everything didn’t want to cancel it. The trip itself was mixed. I don’t like Anime in general, so Animaritime was a mixed bag for me. I have detailed journal entries from that trip, but in a word, highlights were a few interesting panels and meeting the first fursuits I’ve ever seen in my life, while the unquestioned low point was an audience participation quiz game, which was obviously for hardcore anime fans and I was completely lost. However, Mike was also almost completely lost, and it was horrible. After the convention was over, I dropped Mike off at his house, and before leaving Fredericton forever, I said to Mike “Last time I left here, you broke my heart.” I didn’t shed any tears on the way back. Again, after I got home on June 30th 2015, I messaged him, but he didn’t message me back. I was prepared for it that time, and since my heart was already broke, my response was basically “Well, that figures.” He barely talked to me at all for weeks.
The end of our relationship came on July 17th, 2016. I saved a copy of the last chat I ever had with him, including what was going through my head:
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): hello
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: hello
[20:17] Spirit (renpas): how are you
[20:17] Kevin Thesium: Been better, been worse. Where are you?
[20:18] Spirit (renpas): in a rp sorta think its dieing thow
[20:26] Renpas: i have been good bissy with rl stuf
[20:28] Kevin Thesium: Mike, tell me something. What were you doing on July 1st?
[20:29] Renpas: hrrmmm....
[20:29] Renpas: i think i was with my rl famly
[20:30] Kevin Thesium: Did you have computer troubles on that day as well?
[20:30] Renpas: not shure i dont think i was on much
[20:31] Kevin Thesium: Mike, do you want to be my friend?
[20:32] Renpas: yes why do you ask
[20:32] Kevin Thesium: Then what has prevented you from going so long without even trying to contact me?
[20:34] Renpas: i conttacted you the other night and i have been rather bissy in rl this is the longest i have been on
This is what I want to tell you but I cannot.
Fuck you Mike. Fuck you and your inconsiderateness. Fuck you who would abandon me twice, and give me so little consideration. Fuck you who would wither my heart to a cold ball of unfeeling ice, going day to day without any joy, or really any sorrow. You gave me the best days of my life, and the worst days in my life, and now you're leaving me, and again make out like it's no big fucking deal. Like it means nothing that you have gone weeks without talking to me. Like "I've just been busy" is your excuse, and that it's not just a cover for the truth: we're not friends anymore. I don't know and like you anymore. I want to punch you in the face and spit on your body and leave you to rot. I want to abandon you, like you abandoned me. I don't feel alone in your twilight zone, but it's time you LEFT my haunted heart. I feel your specter haunting me. Keeping me down with misery. So take your ghost and move along. I missed your soul, but I know you're gone.
Super mean:
Fuck you Mike. Go die in a car crash, and haunt me no more.
Super nice:
Oh well that's alright sweetie. Everyone needs a break from Second Life now and then, and I hope you're having fun.
Middle: Mike, you abandoned me, a second time. Only this time I'm not surprised. I expected you to abandon me, and you didn't disappoint at being a disappointment. Now I'm trying to move on from you, and you being here is doing nothing but haunting me. I don't want a friend who would abandon me for weeks like it's nothing. I want a friend who will share my interests, share experiences with me, and who I can talk to. And right now, there are about four people who actually meet those definitions, and about seven billion people who could potentially meet those requirements. But I won't say this to you either. I don't know whether I want to burn my bridges or not, and come to think of it, the "I wish you the best" part of Specters is about a peaceful break, not the violent break with you that I'm halfway craving right now.
[20:47] Renpas: nozes
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: I have spent the last 13 minutes writing, and I still don't really know what to say to that.
[20:47] Kevin Thesium: Is your RP done?
[20:48] Renpas: no im starting to hind a out thow
[20:48] Kevin Thesium: What?
[20:49] Renpas: looking for a exit
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: Well, I have to get to bed. I have work tomorrow.
[20:50] Renpas: ok nini
[20:50] Kevin Thesium: bye
[20:50] Renpas: sleep well
I internally didn’t want to burn my bridges, but that is exactly what I did. I removed his name from Skype and Steam. I unfriended him on Facebook. And as for Second Life, I still have the viewer on my computer for some reason, but the core files say they were created September 15th, 2015, and none of the files have been modified since October 10th, 2015, so I have never logged back into Second Life in the year 2016. Mike was my main reason for going on. The words of Dr. Manhattan come to mind: “When you left me, I left Earth.” I left Second Life, and not only didn’t return because my main reason for going there was to talk to Mike. I avoided it completely because I was afraid that if I went on at all, even though he’s not my Second Life friend, that going to some of my favorite landmarks would mean possibly seeing him again.
Almost a year after my last contact with Mike, my memory of him is split in two.
One half is the Mike I fell in love with. That’s the Mike that liked me, that cared about me, that spared a thought for me and considered me and who I could look forward to having not only a good time with, but the best time in my life. That Mike represented a glorious dawn, filled with hope and promise and wonder, and the possibility that my entire life up to that point, that the introverted Kevin who enjoyed spending time alone doing things I enjoy without being bothered was gone, and was going to be replaced with the everlasting bliss of friendship.
The other half is the Mike I dealt with after physically meeting him. That is the cold Mike. The one who didn’t want to talk to me, who avoided me, who in times when I needed him the most wasn’t there for me and didn’t care about me. That is the pathetic Mike. The one who is unemployed, severely dyslexic, inactive, unhealthy, unclean, mentally damaged, unmotivated Mike. The Mike who spends all his days in one room of a two story apartment shared by elderly people, including one who never cleans her cat’s litter box and makes the entire building smell like cat pee and poop. The Mike who lays down all day in the bed in his one room, connecting to Second Life on a shitty HP laptop that is always in danger of breaking, who went to college for culinary art but never cooks for himself, who has spent years since he has had any job and gets money exclusively from him Mom, who doesn’t know his own age but was either 29 or 30 when I last spoke to him, and when I asked him where he sees himself in 5 years, said “Dead,” and I truly believe that was a correct assumption now. But more than anything, the Mike where any of that matters. I fell in love with Mike knowing full well what flaws he had. I didn’t care. He didn’t trick me into coming to Fredericton, and I what was so great about our relationship was how open and genuine it was. But when I tried talking to Mike, and couldn’t talk to him, and he showed how inconsiderate he was and how one-sided our relationship was or became (whether “was” or “became” is more accurate is up for debate), suddenly those personal flaws mattered.
I considered making a clean break from Mike: deleting all my files, recycling all my trip information, and throwing out all physical mementos from him. I decided against it. Catherine Aird is famously quoted as saying “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.” My experience with Mike was nothing if not a learning experience, and 2015 was a year for growing up, for better or for worse. The mementos I have of Mike elicit such bittersweet memories in me, but I’m also coming to find, now in this season more than in the past, that what I learned from my experience with Mike, the good and the bad, is important to my future. There is an entire other story to tell, though I’m not sure if I am ready to tell it publically, even if it is anonymous, about what happened in the last year, but I’ll end this entry here because it concludes the story arc of what happened to with Mike, as he was out of my life after that last contact. For now, I will say only this: after I broke contact with Mike, I thought I found what I was looking for, but that dream of the everlasting bliss of friendship has not been realized by me as of the time of writing this.
