Here, on my blog, I like to keep names concealed for privacy since the medium by which I express myself is coincidentally the medium in which I meet most of the crazy people about which I have weird stories to tell. I have a pretty thick shell, so I kind of tend to blow off that which most people would be kind of freaked out by, but certain things resonate with me. Especially because I am not really into creating problems for myself so that I can fake the feeling of accomplishment when I finally solve them (you know, drama). But this ... this still bothers me.
I met Dude twice in one day. I was working in a sporting goods store, kind of bored one day, when a guy walked in wearing a Red Wings jersey - to me a red flag since they are one of my favorite teams, ever. I made a comment to him about the jersey, and helped another customer, and when I turned around he was gone. Later on that evening, while scanning AOL people search keyword: hockey (oddly, how many of these weird stories start) I started talking to this guy online about a bunch of random stuff and later on I discovered that this had been the guy who walked into the store earlier wearing the jersey. I asked him to lunch, and we decided that we should be friends. I mean, what are the odds- plus we had a lot in common already.
Time went on, we became better friends, in fact, me and my boyfriend at the time moved into his apartment complex. We hung out and had parties as the apartment, went camping, went to bars, etc. His brothers would come down and we'd get together and have parties. It was a really fun time.
Then he moved. So we went from seeing each other all the freaking time to nothing. I mean, it was weird. I shall spare the details, but we visited each other like once in a while. Nothing substantial. I missed him; I'm sure he missed me but oh, well. That's life, isn't it? And isn't that what e-mail is for anyway? We'd call each other during hockey games, especially when Shanny did anything awesome (which was ALL THE TIME, naturally) and ya know, had our weird little distance friendship. I'd date, he'd date, but for some reason we felt awkward talking about it.
So I think at some point we probably fell in love with each other, I don't know, because we were each the only contstant in each other's lives. Maybe you know how that works. But the reality was I was still here, and he was still there. And since life moves in cycles, there was an unbalanced sense of who-was-more-into-whom at any given time - I was falling over him when I was single, and he'd be dating somebody. I'd get over him, and then he'd be into me again. Sigh.
So I gave up on it, once and for all. Just said that I would stop stringing myself along. I started dating this guy who I really really liked. And he lived really, really close. And Dude came down for a huge party, thrown by his brother. I asked his brother if my boyfriend could come. Brother said yes, didn't tell Dude. Dude comes down expecting to see me, but sees me and my boyfriend.
Has not talked to me since.
My friend went through the trouble of sending him a postcard from Europe, and he hasn't talked to her.
Coincidentally, there has been no hockey season since, either.
I understand hurt and anger and all that shit, but how long does it take to get over someone you spent years of your life being friends with? The sooner you get over it, the sooner we will have hockey.
You know who you are, and you know it's your fault.
