We discuss romantic/sexual relationships constantly on this forum, and rightfully so. However, we hardly speak about platonic relationships.
How do you folks handle relationships with your platonic friends? How do your relationships with your friends compare to your non-platonic relationships? Do you have different standards? Would you tolerate more from your best friend than your lovers? Do you forgive misuderstandings and foul play, or do you punish second-class behavior harshly?
I have been friends with my best friend since we were 6/7. We are now 23/24, so obviously our friendship has a long history. Also, my mom was best friends with his mother, who became very close to me as well. My father had no family, and my mother's family was really shitty to us so my mother and I were more or less adopted by her family. For many years now, we've spent our Christmases and Thanksgivings with them.
Other friendships came and went, but I always stayed friends with him. However, as time went on, I found it very difficult to continue the friendship. In middle school, he was very immature, perverted, and sometimes violent. He stole from me on occasion as well. As it turned out, he was eventually diagnosed with an illness, and was sent to the state mental hospital. Even so, I promised I would stay by my best friend, as only a "lesser person" would have given up on him. I knew if I were him, I would need a friend like nothing else. So, I hung out with him on his visitation weekends and even visited him from time to time at the hospital.
He came home from the hospital, and though he still wasn't his old self, we still remained close. However, he wasn't driven at all in life, and I eventually went to uni which left him behind in our home town. I returned only on the holidays, and everytime I returned a little wise and a little stronger, an he remained the same, choosing to play video games instead of doing something with himself. As I matured, I found myself unable to relate to him any longer. And then his mother abrubtly died. I didn't realize it then, but she was the lynchpin in my relationship with the family, and after she died we all slowly became distant.
This last Christmas after dinner, my best friend's mother's widowed husband proposed to his girlfriend. It bothered me deeply because he is going to have a new family, and the rest of us are going to be left behind. However, I thought for sure that I would still have my best friend.
One night, I was staying with him at his place. He is really into this game called League of Legends, which is his obsession. I made a couple of jokes about it, and he suddenly flew into a violent rage. He didn't actually hit me, but things were thrown. I left directly after the incident. I had to come back, because there was no way I could get a hotel at the time. Things were awkward, and then he approached me on the issue like he was going to apologize, but instead I got the excuse "dude, I'm almost good enough to be pro". I felt fucking sick. 'Do I really matter that little to you? I've been your friend through all kinds of bullshit including your crazy house shit and your thievery, plus I accepted you for all your faults and you don't even think I deserve an apology?' were just some of the thoughts that went through my head. I didn't look him in the eye at all for the rest of my time there.
If he had been any other person, I would have parted ways with him long ago.
The value theory that gets spouted a lot around here has given me a better perspective on this issue. There is an exchange of value between us. We are friends because we both bring something to the table that is valuable to the other. I'm not sure what value I have to him, other than I show up at his place to hang out a couple times a year. As for him.... I honestly think that the only value he has to me is the fact that he's my best friend. I never had many friends, and he was the only one I met who I ever considered worthy of the title of best friend up until recently, which makes him a rare commodity to me. Other than that, he has nothing except frozen pizza on which he allows me to feast. My gut says I should cast aside this unruly fellow who has disrespected me and has nothing to offer me at all except history, but at the same time, it seems extremely cold to abruptly cut my ties with a person who has been my friend for almost 2 decades....
What would you guys do in my case?
_________________ “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. . . ."
-Thoreau's Walden
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