The Glade 4.0

I was putting this into a response here, but the more I typed it the more I realized it needed to be rant in it's own right just to get it off my chest.

When I was 13 years old, my best friend of several years (which is rare to have for so long when you grow up on a military base) decided at one point that he didn't want to be my friend anymore.

I called him up one day, a mutual friend answered the phone and asked who it was and I said something like "George!" in a sarcastic tone because I knew he knew it was me. I then hear him say to my best friend, "It's George." "I don't know any George." "He doesn't know any George." *click*

Apparently, it was funny enough to just end the friendship because I call back and I get the actual friend this time and give him my real name. "I don't know any Numbuk." From his mouth directly. *click*

I tried only once more a couple weeks later. Both he and his dad answered simultaneously. When his dad hung up, so did he. This was almost 20 years ago.

It sucked. A lot.

No bad relationship ever came close to that kind of devastating bomb. Love relationships come and go, but best-friendships weather most storms. It was a very painful rejection.

One that I think affected me, even to this day. I never really let any friend get that close to me ever since. I haven't had what I would consider a best friend. I keep friends at an arms-length to this day. And I don't go out of my way to hang out with my friends.

Oh I get along with my friends just fine, and I do go out and do things with them. I just don't ever instigate it nor do I really let any one of them get close.

Anyway, that's my rant. That kid was douchy *******. It didn't help when, at my last job, I discovered I was somewhat working with his father, 15 years later. And it sucked to pretend to be interested in what he was up to (because his dad was kind of my boss' boss' boss.).

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Yeah, I got the "I'm not your friend anymore, I'm THEIR friend"! thing from a buddy in grade school. Apparently he just wanted to hang with a different crowd and felt he needed to commit or something. He came back to the circle of kids I ran with later, but things weren't the same after that.

I figure I'm better off learning that lesson in third grade than I would be later in life.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Definately painful, but at the same time you were 13.

I know I did a bunch of really dumb things for silly reasons when I was that age.

Oh, no doubt. Hell, I helped push away a great friend from our group at *18* just to get a laugh from the majority of the group (big long eruption that happened between him and the majority of our group of friends). And it was something I had felt bad about for more than a decade afterward. Fortunately, we recently found each other again on facebook and I pretty much gave him the most sincerest apology I've practically given anyone in my life. He was cool with it, time healed his wounds and he's back to being embraced by everyone.

My problem is, that yeah. I was 13 too. And so crap like that had a more profound effect on me emotionally, possibly even being a traumatic experience. All I know is it affected me far more than most other things that happened during my life, including my parents' divorce a few years later.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!