Sensitive Young Man

One of my formerly close friends today messaged me to say he appreciated my notes and sent me a few of his own. One of them was so raw and vulnerable and ME-FOCUSED I could barely read it. I had to get up several times to prepare myself for the rest of the note. 

This is a smart guy. A like able guy. A guy who my community audibly longs for the return of. He was a foreign guy… kind of silly, FAANG Software Engineer, so I knew there was something more to him. I think I realized in the past few years that silly smart guys are the best friends. So I wanted to make him some friends and maybe even “leech” his intelligence. 

After about a year and a half of good times he quit his job and his visa no longer supported his working in the United States so he had to go. Everyone was really torn up about it. And so was I. As much as I can be, about someone leaving. I think I’ve lost the ability to care in a real visceral way, in a way that might make you cry when someone breaks up with you or in some way indicates they’re leaving your life. 

But apparently he hadn’t. People organized a farewell get-together for him and at the end of it, when we said goodbye for real, he said a few words to everybody individually, and when he looked at me and said his last goodbye, he started to tear up. And I could hear that familiar shake in his voice and I realized he was crying. And I, for the first. time in a while, didn’t know what to feel. 

I was trying hard not to feel smug. Superior. To him, to the other people in my friend group who he didn’t cry when saying goodbye to, to everyone in the world, for being so miss-able that I’m making a grown man cry. But I felt bad, that he liked me that much, or maybe I should’ve been jealous that he could still feel that way about people. I don’t know if I ever could. 

I think I’ve only ever cried for myself. Because my parents were yelling at me, or because I was hurt, or something. I’ve never cried at a movie. I cried when we were separated from our dogs in a particularly stressing episode of my childhood, but that too, in a way, was still me crying for myself. 

And in his note, he recounted the experience of looking at me and crying and leaving the country, and I felt mixed again. I didn’t know how to respond. How could you? What more is there to say? I like this guy. I would prefer if he were around. But unless we’ve got some great plan to undertake together… what’s the point? I think something else I’m learning is that there are no better friends than business partners. Even if the business isn’t making money. Even if the ‘business’ is that you happen to live near each other or that you travel together for video game tournaments or any real shared circumstance. 

The “It’s just me and you hanging out” circumstance, sadly, is not enough for me. I need something else, ALL THE TIME, with ANYONE. and this makes some people think, that i don’t like them. but it’s not true. i also like them. but i can’t help but see to the logical ends of things and if we don’t have a well defined goal, what are we doing?