On Friendship (part 2)

(Ages 14-21ish)

So upon entering high school, only one of my best friends from grade school accompanied me. So I got the great idea to play football (practice started a month before classes) my freshman year to try and meet new people. Now, I don’t think scrawny even begins to describe how small I was at the time. I’ve never had a problem meeting people and making friends, but I really have to say that my attempts were not even remotely successful. I really did not make a single friend from the football team. It wasn’t until a school mixer where I was kind of forced to hang out with different people, that I made new friends. That’s where I first hung out with JBJ (who was looking rather gangsta with either an Alabama or Florida St hat pulled back in Fresh Prince fashion). I don’t remember if RPK was at that dance (not really his style), but I soon started hanging out with him (probably due to the close proximity of the J and K in the alphabet). Now I hung out with a lot of other guys (APB out for Shown), but those two plus Luis “La Machina” (the friend from grade school mentioned above) made up my core friends. A group of friends I am still very close to.

Looking back now, I try to put my finger on the common thread of my friends from high school (and for that matter college). Here is what I came up with, we were all above average students (even though some of us were lazier than others, namely me), we were fair athletes though not stars (except maybe Luis, who could have pitched in college), we were not social lepers as nerds are often portrayed (although JBJ always seemed to spend his life with his foot in his mouth), we came from nuclear families (both parents, siblings, etc…), and we didn’t drink (at least not around me). In college I would include we were largely from Catholic High Schools, although the home life of some of my college friends were less idyllic.

In college I was pretty slow to make new friends; I started initially hanging out with friends from grade school (APB for Dukes) and a friend who graduated a year before me from high school. It was really the summer of my first year in college that I first started hanging with out with Fe-C, The TD Maker, J Alv, and t outside of playing volleyball (the first time I went to his house was for Tommy’s birthday party (his cat) and t spent half the time chasing Tommy trying to put a tie on him). A lot of these people played soccer together and I would go watch because afterwards we would swim at bbbbbb’s house or play Sky Fox and Golden Eye in the Fe-C basement. On Wednesdays the Brothers B would host a 90210 party which would be followed by trips to O’Charley’s for ½ price appetizers. There would always be a few of us in the downstairs dining area of the SAC playing Spades or Mille Bourne (You… might… not drive so well…?). Road trips in either (A) one of the Strati or (B) in luxury (the LeSabre).

By the next spring, when I finally found the courage to ask my Diane Court out on a date, I would regularly do things with a crew of like 8-12 people from this group. She was amazed, and it was fun to always have people around and to go out to restaurants. Everyone got along incredibly well and there was a good time had by all. This, of course, would not last.

At about this time, a few events occurred that would eventually lead to a great splintering of the group. First some new members on the soccer team started hanging out with the group. In particular there was a skuzzy V, who was a walking hard on and really sketchy. Soon after that, there was a breakup of a longtime couple in the group that led to swooping vultures in the friends trying to date the girl (which is just not cool, breaks all kinds of rules among friends http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Laws, thankfully she was smarter than that). Finally, we all started turning 21. Now, by and large, this crew was all alcohol free (a rarity nowadays), but this changed at this time.

Now for me personally, my closer friends were not one of the vultures, so I kind of ostracized myself from that group. I began to avoid any and all contact with V, especially after he went after a friend’s older and younger sisters. And I don’t drink, so even though I don’t really have a problem with people that do, I’m not going to have much fun at parties that are based on drinking (which explains why to this day I despise games like Beer Pong and bars that close their kitchens early).

I slowly withdrew so that in the end (in about a year and a half) I largely hung out with t, the TD Maker (who became known Captain Shootdown for not agreeing to random “great” activities that t and I wanted to do), J (of course, my Diane Court, and you should never doubt Lloyd Dobler), Jen-by-another-name, or teammates of J. I separated so much from the group that I never really saw when Fe-C escaped the group. From the original large group, that is the relationship I regret losing the most. But nowadays, I see some of the same issues from the splintering in the problems I have making friends today…