Call me a baby, but hey I'm a sensitive guy. Maybe you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I really am. My feelings are hurt very easily and sometimes I never recover. Luckily that doesn't hold true for my work or I'd be sunk since everyone hates the HR guy, especially a hard nose one like me. It is easy for me to feel excluded and not part of the group, I don't feel well liked. I try to think about where these feelings stem from, maybe it's because I was excluded from a lot of things as a kid because I was labeled as a 'fag,' and it turns out they were right, I am! However, I'm not sure if that would explain why I still feel that way even among gay men, or especially among gay men. I struggle with that often, maybe it's a weak ego, a poor self-image...who knows.
Certain things happen to really set me off and I can feel a sinking feeling in my chest at the very moment of impact, It hurts a little more, the second someone else carelessly takes another piece, whether they mean to or not. I have a hundred examples I can think of where I have felt slighted, ignored, or abandoned. I try to remain positive and not to take it personally. Often I fight back and give the person a taste of their own medicine, passive aggression rarely works though...you never really know if they even made the correlation at all. I know it's a waste of energy, but I do it anyway. Will it change? Maybe, I mean I like horseradish now and I never did before.
Last night John and I went out to dinner with someone I have known since the summer of 1975. My friend Sue was always a constant in my life from 1975 until she moved to SC in 2000. She was the reason I moved to Buffalo in the first place. I wanted to know someone at the college I chose and it was a bonus that Sue and I both moved to the Buffalo area right after high school. Sue and I have done everything together, laugh, carry on, confide in one another, confess, cry, steal (an abused dog), lie, cheat, you name it. Sue wasn't my biggest cheerleader when I finally came out to her about the time we were both college freshmen, but she didn't turn on me either. She remained a constant, a best friend, a sister figure to me. I have always considered her family. When she moved, I was a bit of a lost soul and I've never really had a female friend like her since. I have grown close to other straight women since, but no one who was at my constant disposal like Sue. Before I met Jeff, I was at the house she shared with her Grandmother almost every night. Suffice to say, her departure left a hole.
I have been hurt by Sue, she's been hurt by me. Losing my Mom was the most difficult thing I've ever had to endure in my life, it's over four years now and I will often have a tough time dealing with it. I called Sue the day my Mom left. Since so many things were going on, I don't recall the conversation. What I do recall is that she wasn't there at the wake, or the memorial service, or the brunch afterwards. I wasn't bitter, she lives far away. That's a bit off the path, but last night we went to dinner and it was a lot of fun. Now Sue is a popular girl, you only get a brief appointment with her during her one week in WNY. Mine was last night, mine was dinner. It was only scheduled for so long, American Idol was on. I wish I was kidding, I am not...American Idol won out over spending more time with me.
So what does all this have to do with Facebook? Well during dinner we somehow got onto the subject of people form our past 'finding' us in various ways. I mentioned that someone I knew in elementary school, and knew OF in high school, sent me a friend request on Facebook. Sue blurted out that this person had sent her a friend request on Facebook too! I said "You're on Facebook and didn't send ME a friend request?" She explained that she had only joined Facebook so she could access photos that a friend of hers had posted there. I didn't want that to dampen the spirit of the evening so I laughed it off.
When I got home, I signed onto Facebook and did a search for Sue's profile and there it was, private of course. In Facebook you can view someones friends even if their profile is private, so I did and that's when I got that old familiar feeling in my chest, that sinking thing. A whole gallery of people who have abandoned me, mostly after Jeff and I split up. People like my one time best friend Ron, someone I was very close friends with from second grade until college when he moved to PA. I have reached out to him over and over again, most recently just a couple of months ago, to no avail. It's clear he doesn't want to be friends. He is another one who has rallied around my ex and turned his back on me. I don't know what Jeff told people, but he got them all. People who were friends with me since childhood turned their backs on me when I needed them most.
I have to start all over again with a level of suspicion and mistrust that makes it very hard to form the trusting bonds necessary to become close friends. It's unreal to me, at 45 and I never thought I would be in a situation like this with friends. Most people have 'old friends,' I really don't feel like I do anymore.
Of course I could not resist the temptation to look at Ron's friends along with some of the other people from my high school that have reached out to Ron and Sue, but not me. I saw so many familiar faces including Vanessa who disappeared and stopped sending me any greetings of any kind about 3 years ago without explanation. Does it hurt? Yes. Am I a baby? Sure am. I feel like I did in high school and that sucks. People who were only friends with each other because of me as the common thread are now reaching out to each other, but not to me.
I feel like I'm too old to form the kind of friendship bonds I would like to and it makes me sad. Things like Facebook, and obligatory dinners once every year or so with someone like Sue make that very clear to me. Bummer
