You’ve Changed! You’re Different Now!
“Wow! You Changed!”
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou
In life, there is some shit that you are going to change (that you control) and some shit that will change in your life (you can’t control). Any type of personal change (new direction) will create a level of pressure (stress) to adapt (make adjustments) for the change(s) to feel seemless and to become a lifestyle. Everything from your attitude, beliefs, behavior, priorities, time management, etc., must align with the change for it to stick. If you fail to adapt then you will fail to succeed. As you age, your priorities and responsibilities change naturally. Or should I say, as you mature or reach higher levels of success, your priorities will change presenting you with new responsibilities that you will either embrace or reject.
As you go through life’s different stages and phases, you will encounter new obligations that will create different daily routines. You might have a new job where you work from home or a career that takes you on the road every week. One day, you might be that active grandparent that has to pick up the grandchildren from school or that retiree that chooses an exotic country to live abroad. As your responsibilities, obligations and lifestyle changes, your friendships will also change. You will have less social time to spend with your friends. Similar to having a new job, age related changes will create a new direction that can have a adverse effect on even the closest frienships.
As a result of your age-related changes, the activities that brought you happiness and your expectations of certain things that once made you happy will evolve. Generally, growth and evolution are not dictated by all the good shit falling into place for you. Personal transformation and character is predicated on how well you handle the adversity of life, love and friendships falling apart.
Amongst all your friends, you’re either going to be on the cutting edge of change or the last to change. You will either be at the forefront of accepting grownup responsibilities or the last one to break off from the pack. Typically, the first friend to change isn’t always the smartest, maturest or most ambitious of the group.
With friendships, the last one is a rotten egg theory; suggests that the last friend to change their routine will sour on the friendship. The last friend to take on new responsibilities is usually the first person to have his or her feelings hurt. The friend that still wants to drink or get high, still make it to every happy hour, still attend the new hottest night club or still run the streets late at night on a week night, will be the first one to be somewhat irritated about their friend changing the social routine. For those people that are giving too much time to certain social activites, their personal and professional growth is often delayed or will come to a complete standstill.
When your actual change (new responsibilities and obligations) takes place, you will no longer be available to go certain places or even be interested in doing certain activities like before. The question is, who’s going to change first? You or your friends? Will you have to adapt to their changes? Or will they have to adapt to you changing? Who will be the first to reduce time spent in the friendship?
Changing, maturing or succeding are not a race or competiton between friends. But when they begin to happen, it can become a struggle to maintain a friendship. One friend succeding or evolving faster than a friend can create a covert battle between friends. Personal growth and self-improvement of one friend can destroy a friendship. When change ocurrs in a friendship, either you’re going to be the one to notice that your friend has obviously changed and is now differrent. Or, you’re going to be thinking or the one saying, “You’ve changed! You’re different now!” Or you’re going to hear from a friend or family member, “You’ve changed! You’re different now!
Now, remember, your perspective is your truth and your perception is your reality. Your opinions about youself are subjective; shaped by your issues and various insecurities. It’s not normal to admit to having issues or be honest about them. Your family and friends have a subjective perspective about you. Hearing that you’ve changed can either be taken as a compliment or feel like an accusation. You will either receive it as praise or resent the implication. You will either react quickly with anger and become defensive, or thank them for noticing.
A friend joke. “What is an important vitamin that two friends should take everyday to be good friends to each other? Vitamin, B-1.”
Don’t be so quick to react with anger or become defensive when you hear that you’ve changed. Let that shit seep in a little to see if it resonates before responding. Be the bigger more mature person and ask for clarification. Ask your friend, what are the saying or implying? If they’re really your friend and have no hard feelings, they will at least tell you something specific that you’ve done. They will give you a laundry list of facts or point out something foul you did instead of just rambling over and over again, “You’ve changed, You’re different now.” Anyone that can’t elaborate on their statment, simply can’t be honest about how upset they feel about you changing.
Change Creates a Delicate Balancing Act
It’s very difficult to make personal, professional and romantic changes in your life and maintain the same quality of friendship. It’s impossible to have the same level of loyalty or committment to a friend when you’re growing and advancing in life. Career advancement and even retirement presents challenges that change friendships. You can’t be good at a new career or enjoy the fruits of retiremnent if you’re trying to still be loyal and committed to friends.
Take a pro athlete that becomes a sportscaster, radio talk show host, color commentator, or journalist, etc. He or she is both retired and has changed careers. Let’s put them under the umbrella of a media personality. A pro athlete that becomes a media personality is faced with the challenge of being good at their new job and being a good friend to active players. It’s virtually impossible to be very good at both because as a media personality he or she has a responsibility to their new employer while entertaining the audience slash fan base.
Former athletes, turned media personaliity have actually changed their careers and transitioned to the other side—the media often viewed as the enemy. These particular media personalities have a new challenge of telling the truth while trying to preserve personal relationships. It’s a difficult balancing act for a media personality to write or tell a good story, and still maintain good relationships. Some pro athletes that become media personalities often get confronted by active athletes and friends for the comments they make.
Regardless of their talent as a former player, or lack thereof, they are now paid to report what they see. They are paid for their opinion (or take) which also has to be entertaining. Some newly turned media personalities were mediocre as an athlete but are very entertaining. To the contrary, some great coaches and super star athletes are horrible media personalities because they lack the personality to be entertaining. That said, all media personalities have biases and blindspots. Similar to when they played, they have strengths and weaknessess. They have to know how far to go in terms of critiquing and criticizing active athletes.
Former athletes that become media personalities, must often develop amnesia about their pedestrian careers. For fear of being dull as a media personality, some become very political, messy and tabloid-ish with their reporting. Becoming a media personality is tough for a former athlete because they can’t make eveyrone happy.
Some of these former athletes are very good at being objective and descrptive while others struggle with objectivity and empathy. Some have great personalities and are very good right off the bat and some take a while to find their footing and voice. Some media personalities have strong personalities and don’t care about what they say and who they hurt. Some are too critical and are full of vitriol. Some will blast active players, a coach and an organization. And some are not critical enough to point out egrigeous activities of a team or an athlete.
An athlete, although very talented and an imposing figure, can be very sensitive to criticizim. Athletes are human beings; not robots. Negative comments and the truth about their performance can hurt their feelings and impact their mood. A media personality can start a narrative that can damage and derail an athletes career. Some media personalities are more diplomatic and are very careful about what they say for fear of an active athletes pointing out how horrible they were when they played the game. Some media personalities will never say anything negative about their former team. They must apease the team’s fan base.
Despite how inferior their former team is to their competition on any given night or that week, a loyal media personality will either pick their team as the favorite. Or, regardless of the odds stacked against them, they will state that their former team has a good chance if they do something right or don’t do something wrong. They use a lot of rhetoric to support their opinions and conduct soft interviews with certain teams. These are called “homer” media personalities.
Regardless of how well an athlete; turned media personality walks that thin line, at some point not eveyrone is going to be happy with his or her commentary. They’re either going to be too cruel or very protective, or too insensitive or very vanilla. They are either socially tone-deaf or too agreeable; understanding everything and not have an opinion. Their over the top commentary (very sexist, racial or political) will either cost them their job or their friendships. Their underwhelming take on a topic will also cost them their job. As an ex player turned media personality, it’s difficult to maintain both their quality of work and quality of friendship at a high level. Sometimes an ex player has to be a good media personality and sometimes they have to be a good friend.
In any good friendship, good friends often make plans to spend time together; do things and go places together. They may decide to meet at a destination at a certain time. The reality is that, good friends don’t grow emotionally, advance professionally and succeed at the same pace. As individual, each friend may take different paths in life and their careers may take off at different times. One friend may no longer be interested in spending time, doing the same things and going places together. At some point, you must start planning your own life and deciding what best for your life. Those who succeed in life decide to take control of their life.
When you make changes in your personal life, your loyalty will shift causing your committment to your friends to be impacted. You can’t apease your friends and also maintain an upward tragectory to be successful with the personal choices you make outside the friendship. Will you be loyal to a fault and sacrifice or delay your success to still maintain your friendship? Will you be so loyal to your friendships that you can’t see that you’re not growing as an individual?
Everyone will have a moment in their life where they must decide to either fully embrace their new change (responsibilities and obligations) or not change (remain stagnant or make sacrifices) in order to keep their old friendship. Similar to a media personality who evaluates and criticizes active athletes and former temamates, you will have an subjective opinion of how your current friends perform and how your former friends performed in the friendship with you.
The question is, when your moment comes to evaluate and criticize your past and present frienships, what will be your commentary? Will you take the attitude; it was what it was? Is there an ex friend that you can criticize for failing to adapt to your changes? Is there an ex friend that can criticize you for failing to adapt to their changes? Will you take the high road and see only the positives and not see the negative? Will you lack empathy and be cruel? Will you blast them for everything and give them no mercy? Will you only highlight the negatives in your commentary and not remember the good times? Well, my moment has arrived.
How my Change, Changed Friendship Dynamics
“With any type of friendship or relationship, you must have the ability to nurture it’s growth and development but also be able to navigate the jealousy or issues that manifest from asymmetrical advancement.” — Sraight Raw
Have you ever heard the words? “You’ve Changed! You’re Different Now!” Well, I have. Like an ex athlete that becomes a media personality or any person that gets promoted to supervisor, I felt like I was working for the other side when I made certain changes. My loyalty to other people and my focus on new priorities outside the friendship had an adverse effect on my frienships. It was a difficult balancing act to evolve as a person and try to make the people I love feel comfortable about my growth or less threatened by my success.
When the stage of adulthood created new priorities which manifested a vast array of responsibilities and obilgations, the “new me” presented challenges for my most valued friendship. Between me and my childhood friend, who was my A-1 from day one, I was the first to jump ship to make personality changes and take on adult responsibilities.
My childhood friend was the coolest guy and nicest person in the world. Although he was fun to be around, I must admit, he was the alpha between us. And at times, our friendship felt like a teacher student relationship. He was more sophicated and smoother than I was. He was my best friend slash super hero. I admired his style but frankly in junior high and in high school, I was both jealous and in awe of his prowess to meet girls.
See, he rarely made the first move. Other than his good looks, (yes my buddy was handsome…pause) he had this inviting demeaner and a magnetism that attracted the girls. Like zombies, girls often came over to talk to him like they were sleep walking. In junior high school, every year, he received tons of cards on Valentine’s Day. In high school he was asked to the prom by so many women. In the 10th grade, he went to the prom with a girl who was a senior. In the 11th and 12th grade, he went to the prom with the prettiest girl in the school both times. He would laugh and say, “I got them all wrapped around my finger, buddy.”
His confidence was in the stratosphere. On one occasion, while at a club, he pointed out atleast 6 different women he was sleeping with at the same time. At every nightspot we went to, he had been with at least one woman.
I witnessed my best friend’s lady skills from the age of 12 years old to around 42. We had a great run; longer than most. Throughout those 30 years, we competed in sports together and against each other. We watched sports and went to sporting events together. On Fridays, we did the happy-hour thing somewhere. Saturday mornings, we played pick up ball and when the sun went down, we hit some hot nightclub. If we weren’t at a Ubiquity Productions event, we were at a NKD function. At every social event or party, there I was by his side. We were thick as thieves.
My buddy wasn’t too cool to dance either. Like a human skyscrapper, he stood head and shoulders above everyone while on the dance floor. He could do a simple two-step or the lastest intricate dances. At the end of each night, he would either have a pocket full of phone numbers or he was holding a woman’s hand that he was taking home for the night. We were inseparable…until my partner went off to college.
My First Change
Around the age of 19, I started hanging out with another partner who was like a big brother to me. My big bro (3 years my senior) was the most well dress man I knew. His gear was on point and his shoe game was tight. He said women could tell if a man was cheap by looking at his shoes. He drove a Benz and rode a Harley.
In full disclousure, my big bro was a hustler with street cred and a fat bank account. He wasn’t very big on going to clubs. He didn’t always go inside the club. He did what is referred to in the hood as, “Parking Lot Pimping”. This is when you cruise around the parking lot after the club lets out to pick up girls. The idea was to let them see your nice car and entice them to give you their number or run enough game to get them to agree to let you take them home. My big bro would always tell me, “Women are visual. Let your gear and your whip do the talking.”
At that point, I decided to revamp my wardrobe. Like my big brother, I was always sharp from head to toe. I even changed my hairstyle to compliment my facial features. It was the mid 80’s so I went away from having a shag to the trendy high top fade. I definitely became more markertable in the various meat-market settings. Because of my new confidence, I was getting more attention.
At 5’9”, I started walking through the club like I was possessed by George Jefferson—the arrogant protagonist of The Jeffersons sitcom. Although I felt more attractive, I still needed to master the art of attracting and meeting women. I needed to work on my game. My conversation needed to be smoother. Once I learned how to be more engaging and approacable with the ladies, I started to loosen up and have more fun.
Following in the foot steps of my big bro, I got some business cards. Instead of asking a woman for her telephone number, I would just hand her a card at the end of the conversation. If she didn’t call, no worries—next. Anticipating a call was definitely better than calling a woman and her not remembering me, or no longer interested in me. I was batting around .400 which means I struck out 6 out of 10 times. With those dating numbers, I could get into the Playboy Hall of Fame. After awhile, I realized that 6 out of 10 women was only talking to me just for the free drink.
In trying to keep up with my big bro and to hang out with him to have even more fun, I bought a new motorcycle—a Kawasaki, GPZ 750. This was before wearing a helmet was law in California. I rode around the Bay Area looking cool. I often showed up on my bike as the clubs let out at 2 a.m. I was fitted with Cazal glasses, leather pants and matching jacket. It was another sort of honey trap to lure women. My bike was super fast and because my loved of speed, I nearly killed myself several times.
My Buddy and I Got Right Back At It!
During Spring break, the following year, my childhood friend came into town for spring break. We got right back at it. We hit the club scene. We dicided to go to Silks night club in Oakland. We both used fake ID’s.
With the new clothes and a new atittude, I was definitely a changed person. Being a little more confident, instead of standing like a statue in one place for hours, I would socialize and dance a little more. I handed out several business cards. At the end of our first night hanging out, I shared all my sexual exlpoits with my friend on the drive home. Yes, I was having more sex. Casual sex was a typical goal around that age and I was having a lot of it. Instead of giving me an atta boy for my sexual conquest, my buddy strated quoting bible scripture and saying that sex before marriage was a sin. WTF!
In reflection, my level of confidence was leaning toward being cocky. Not sure if my buddy was trying to keep me humble or knock me down a few pegs. I kept questioning myself; scratcthing my head asking myself did I change or did he change? Then the car dealer called about locating my dream car.
They found the model I was looking for. I purchased a Porsche 911. I called my buddy and told him that I just bought it. It was now summer time and the weather was perferct to remove the Targa top. I told him that I would pick him up at 10 pm. When he opened the door to get in he said, “Don’t be speeding brotha.”
That night, I noticed my buddy passing out business cards. As we were driving home, I asked him how many numbers did he get. I was actually fishing for him to admit that he took a page out of my book. He just said, “I just got a few.” He never mentioned anything about changing his approach or co-opting my card approach.
As the Porsche floated effortlessy across the Bay Bridge back to San Francisco, I asked my buddy, “Hey man, you want to drive and feel the power?” He replied, “A car is just a car.” I then realized he didn’t say anything about my shoes or my new fits. “Hey man what you think about these new kicks I got?” I asked. He just looked straight ahead and said, “Shoes don’t make a man. It’s what’s inside his heart.” It was another WTF moment.
The next time we went out to a club, I drove the Porsche again. I didn’t want to leave and go home after the club let out. I just got the Porsche freshly detailed. The goal was to either park it right out front so when the girls came out they could see me or cruise the the parking lot a few times. As soon as I did a u-turn to go back, my buddy said, “Come on man. You turned into a thug. Take me home and drop me off. You can come back and do this ghetto stuff by yourself. We can take seperate cars next time.”
It was of no consequence that my buddy didn’t want to hang out after the club let out. I had options. I could call my partner who had a 450SL; peanut butter top, fitted with trues and vogues. I could call my other friend with with a drop top 1965 Mustang or my friend with a 6 Series BWM. I had one rule to Parking Lot Pimping; I never road 4 deep (four people in a car). Too many cats yelling out the window at the girls wasn’t a good look and we would be an easy target for the police to harrass us. The next weekend, my buddy said he was doing something else. Our perfect attendance record of hanging out was broken.
My bullshit attenna started to go up but he was my friend so I didn’t give it a second thought. That was until I started casually dating a woman that he was once attempted to pick up a few years back. Back in high school, she never would have given me any play or the time of day but now, she was ready. The feeling wasn’t mutual for her and my buddy. She politely rejected his advances. She wasn’t an ex at all. He read our intmate body language as we were talking. He knew I was hitting that, and I told him that we were smashing.
Things were cool between me and my boy that entire evening but by that, I mean icy. He became a little distant and more serious over the next few days. I’m assuming that his ego was somehow impacted by me dating a woman that rejected him. Something was definitely going on with my boy. He didn’t show up at the court the following Saturday. He said he wasn’t feeling well. The next Saturday he decided to skip pick up ball and wanted to play one-on-one.
I noticed that he was playing harder than usual and being super aggressive on defense. Despite my Herculean efforts, he beat me four games straight. He was 8 inches taller than me and I coudn’t stop him in the paint. After he made the game winning shot again, he said somberly, “Man we need to talk.” In what sounded like a rehearshed breakup speech, he implemented guidelines for who we can and can’t date. He was basically telling me who I could date and who not to persue romantically.
For example, if I found someone attractive, he would say, “I already tried to get that. She’s not your type anyway.” This means, she rejected him and leave her alone. This restriction significantly narrowed the pool of women that I could date because he tried to hit on all the girls. It was a twist on the traditional bro-code. I agreed because I loved my boy and it was always; bros before hos. We continued to hang out; party, socialize, play sports etc., until the second change; my lifestyle, behavioral and personality.
My Second Change
While my best friend dropped out of college, I was finishing up engineering school. By 24, I had my first child. Then I had my second child; then my third and final child. Yeah, I was in baby making mode. While my buddy was looking for employment, I graduated from an engineering school and got a great job with the city. On top of my 9 to 5, being a husband and daddy, I started a record label and opened a music recording studio.
I got rid of the Porsche and purchased an SUV. My wife forced me to sell the bike. I had a family, I bought a house, I had to commute, and pick up my children from daycare, etc. With a family and full-time job, my plate was full—overflowing with personal and business responsibilities. Me and my childhood buddy were now 30.
Little by little, me and my buddy saw each other less and less, until we stopped hanging out all together. My inner circle was my family and my wife’s family. I was working a rotating shift—12 hours a day; nights and weekends. My 9 to 5 and my business consumed all my social time. Along with my job and business putting a strain on my marriage, I was always exhausted. Instead of spending my off days trying to recover, I had to spend time with my family or drop by my business to check on how things were going.
My childhood buddy and I would check in periodically but it wasn’t the same. Occasionally he would ask me about my availability to attend a concert, happy hour or a club. This is where things got even more sticky between me and my buddy. That alpha in my buddy resurfaced.
Everytime I said that I wasn’t available, he would always say, “I know you’re spending time with your little wife, your little family or you can’t leave your little house.” Everything was little; your little job, your little business, etc. Every now and again he would say that he never wanted children because they were money pits that only grow up to be ungrateful cry babies that blame their parents for how shitty their lives are. Although cryptic, those comments were directed at me.
He was condesending and marginalized everything I did or that was important to me. He did make a point of how important having balance was which I gave some weight. But I countered with, “There is balance as a single person and balance as a married person. I can’t run the streets like that anymore man.” I was somewhat taken back by his snobbish comments but I let it go. Moving forward, for temptation reasons, I had to be selective about the venues me and my partner attended and when I could go. It was all for not. I then got a divorce.
My Third Change
My family was broken, I had no social life, my business was failing and I had very little money after the family court judge got done with my ass. A year or so after my divorce, me and my buddy made plans to hang out. Being close to 40 years old, we changed things up a little. Yeah, with our hormones still raging, we were still interested in chasing the ladies but we pickup up some other hobbies. We talked about traveling more and seeing the world. We always played basketball but we added playing pool, racquetball, table tennis, etc. to our list of activities. Although I was out of practice with the ladies, I added online dating to the list of my extracurricular activites. I was excited to share with my buddy all the women I was meeting online—the potentials and the psychos.
Honestly, my buddy was good at every game and he let me have it after stomping me into the ground. After sinking the 8 ball, he would say, “I own you. You my liitle bitch.” For an entire year, I couldn’t win or beat him to save my life. For the entirety of the time, he talked major shit. But that changed. Pool was a game of angles and his height didn’t give him an advantage.
I then started winning and kicking his ass at pool. With each passing month, I started to win more and more until I was wiping the floor with his ass in every type of game we played. I wasn’t only beating him in pool, table tennis etc., he was no competition for me in basketbal. In basketball, although he towered over me, he gained 30 pounds and was huffing and puffing like he smoked cigeretes. He was too slow and had no lift to his jumper. I blocked his shot several times. He couldn’t out rebound me or stop me from driving to the hoop. Basketball was his number one sport and now I was number one.
One night, I won six games straight of pool. I could see his frustration building as I would either sink the 8 ball or call game point and beat him. Then I committed the cardnal sin. I talked shit to the alpha while I was a little tipsy. “Who’s the bitch now,” I said after sinking the 8 ball. What was good for the goose, wasn’t good for the gander. I could feel the alpha ready to explode.
On top of being inebriated, I could tell he was pissed. As we drove home a little buzzed, he let me have it. A drunk mind was ready to express sober thoughts. I couln’t believe all the shit that spilled out of his mouth.
He went on this rant about how I wasn’t following God’s will and not being obedient to His Lord and savior Jesus Christ. He was Bible thumping again. He said that online dating was unnatural and immoral. He continued. “I can’t believe that you were hanging out with some questionable characters; rappers and drug dealers.” He was making reference to my big bro and the clients and customers at my recording studio—years ago. He continued. “I feel you’re trying to show me up by talking to the women I struck out with.” He then said, “Man you changed and I don’t like it.” I sat there in silence with my mouth opened; thinking what the fuck!
Although some shit he brought up was already discussed and reconciled, I had to process what he said and put everything into perspective. Our friendship was important to both of us so we decided to make a pact that night. Well it was more his idea to conduct ourselves accordinly. It was bro code and friendship guidlines time—again.
We, or I should say he, instituted another “bro-code” that had some very tight parameters. As with any bro-code, we couldn’t fuck each others ex’s regardless of how insignificant she was—understandable. He reiterated that we couldn’t try to talk to a woman that the other had been rejected by. That was a little much, but okay. Also, no more talking shit after we win a game, and to always be a good sport about winnng. And lastly, he put in a dress code; dress casual. Only wear jeans, tennis shoes, Dockers or loafers. He asked me to stop over dressing. Now, he was fucking with my style and trying to suppress my individuality. Relunctantly, I agreed.
We checked in with other before persuing certain women. Here’s a shocker. He mentioned in gest that he was dating a few women he met on a dating website.
Ending Our 30 Year Friendship
I’ll cut right to the chase. My buddy didn’t stick to the friendship script we created together, and he violated our agreement several times. He enjoyed beating me at sports and took pleasure in winning. He couldn’t control his mouth when he won. I noticed he was wearing some new oufits, and get this; new shoes. Talking about overdressing. Suddenly, he always had a date after we hung out. He was double-booking me and this justified him dressing up. I just kind of laughed to myself but what happened next, was no laughing matter.
While on vacation together, our 30 year friendship encountered a straw that broke the camels back. 30 years of friendship, finally ran it’s course. We were in Vegas sitting at an outside cafe when one of my ex’s walked by. I called out to her and invited her to sit and have lunch with us. The three of us conversated and had a few laughs. I made plans to see her later that night.
“I thought “he” was your boy,” my ex said while removing her clothing. “What do you mean?” I asked. She reached into her purse and said, “He handed me his card earlier when you went to the bathroom. He winked at me and said what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
My long time best friend slid her a card. How ironic; a fucking card. The words hypocricy, judgemental and self-righteous immediately popped into my head. I was steaming mad. I couldn’t let that shit go. Fuck that alpha shit. Respect is not deserved. It’s fucking earned. I needed to check his ass.
While at breakfast the next morning I asked, “What’s going on with you man? “Sharon,” for real bro”? I asked. He knew, that I knew. I wanted him to tell me about sneaking my ex a card. I was hoping that it was a misunderstanding on her part or he would have a reasonable explanation. This MOFO blurted out, “Man you changed. You’re diiferent now.” “What the fuck. Man you’re making this about me?,” I said out loud. A typical gaslight move.
I looked him dead in his face and without blinking I asked, “So you’re telling me that me changing some how justifies you trying to fuck my ex? Man you’ve always been a judgmental, hypocritical muthafucka. You have both shamed me and forced me into accepting your bullshit. Everything’s fine when you’re “The Man” but as soon as I get a little shine, you have a problem with me. The problem isn’t that I changed bro. The issue between us is that you haven’t.” He just got up and left in the middle of breakfast. Of course, leaving me to pay the check again. “Good riddance muthafucka!”
We took seperate cabs to the airport and sat in different seats on the flight home. After grabbing our luggage from the carousel, he vanished into thin air. We haven’t spoken or seen each other since. It’s been over 20 years. I think about my buddy often and miss the time we spent together. I still love my friend. Over the years I have had many thoughts and realizations. Of course, this is my perspective which is subjective speculation. But here it is.
In reflection, I made several mistakes in that particular friendship. I was doing better than him financially but I puffed out my chest as my confidence grew. I knew he was the alpha and as long as he was outshining me in everything, he was okay and life was good. The moment I had a little glimmer of success and felt good about myself, it appeared to bother him. I wasn’t supposed to talk shit to him. It felt like I was supposed to stay in my place and be beneath him forever. My buddy shamed me often and couldn’t admire me or give me credit for any of my accomplishments. This may sound paranoid, but when I started to up my game, it felt like he was copying me.
It wasn’t always crystal clear why he wanted to control who I persued romatically. With any ‘bro code’ I could understand that he didn’t want me to taste the fruit he had enjoyed. But not being able to date a woman who rejected him was purely related to ego.
When it comes to dating, you are not going to be everyone’s type or be attractive to everyone that you’re attracted to. Rejection is often taken personally. But it should not be a reflection of what you don’t have. People rejecting you is often about what they don’t have or what they believe you need to have in order for them to be happy. People empower rejection to fuck with them emotionally and impact their self concepts; self-confidence, self-esteem self-image, etc.
So what, if I succeeded with a woman that rejected him two years ago or ten years ago, in his mind that made me somehow better than him? But what was going through his head to make him try to hit on my ex behind my back? Was he on some mimetic desire type shit? Was he trying to fuck her to boost his ego or to get back at me? Was there another competition between us that I was unaware of?
My friend had so much early success as a teen with with women. The world gets bigger after junior school and high school. Probably there was a drop off in his success numbers as he got older which made him reckless in his pursuit of women or desperate to do whaever it took to boost his ego. All this is speculation, but here are the objective facts. Realizations can be very believable but confirmations are factual.
The Facts of a Friendship that Became Phony
“The average person on Facebook has over one hundred “Fakebook” friends. An above average person, maybe; has three people they can call a real friend. Three friends that truly respect them, accept them for who the are and are not threatened by them.” — Sraight Raw
I ran into one of my buddy’s ex’s while shopping at Costco. Of course we asked each other when was the last time we saw our mutual friend. I told her that we fell out but didn’t go into the details. This appeared to give her the green light to open up and spill the beans about what he said about me and the issues in their relationship. She told me how he often spoke highly of me but also how he sometimes disparaged me. How he admired me but it felt like to her that he despised me.
She said that he was a bully; not in the classic sense but it was either his way or no way. She said that he was very demanding of her and was placing restrictions on what she could and could not do. Also, he told her that he didn’t want her to go out to certain places socially. Lastly, she told me that he borrowed money from her on several occasions which he failed to repay. When she asked for her money, he said, “That money was a gift; not a loan.”
Although some of what she said sounded familiar, I had enough shit to process about our friendship. She appeared to be a bitter ex. I wasn’t going to allow her influence me or taint me against him for what he did to her. I could tell that she wanted to gossip and was fishing to hear what happened between us. I needed to focus on the facts and dynamics of our frienship. The red flags of our frienship were always waving brightly in front of my face. Although we were competitive in sports, the proof that our friendship evolved into a competition was now revealed. Here are the facts.
Being my best friend, he rarely remembered my birthday. I always remembered his birthday and I treated him out to lunch, dinner or drinks for his special day every year. We celebrated him finally landing his dream job which he got fired from 6 months later. On any other ocassion where we ate out, he developed aligators arms when the check came and wouldn’t pay for anything or even go dutch. He would say, “You can afford it Mr. Big Bucks.” Was I stupid or was he using me?
As an engineer, I was earning more money than him. Not that my field of engineering paid more than his line of work, he was always in between jobs and filing for unemployment. Whereas, I had a steady income. He was my man, fifty-grand. Whatever he needed, I had his back. So, paying for his meals was no problem for me. But what was really fucked up was that—I paid his air fare and for his hotel stay for the Vegas trip. Although I had is back, he decided to stab me in mine.
Another glaring fact. Although he was always invited on several ocassions, my bestfreind never came to any social funtion or to one single barbeque at my house. He never even came to my house or by my business—not once. I wanted him to be proud of me and celebrate with me. He never congratulated me on becoming an engineer. He never commented on my Porsche. What friend would get into his friends new car and not say anything? When I did something that I thought was good, he either criticized it or didn’t recognize it. Speaking of criticizing, check this out, he hated all my other friends.
He judged and negatively commented on everyone I invited to hang out with us—always referring to them as either being too stuck up, thugs or low lifes. Apart of the ‘bro code’ was that I couldn’t bring anyone else around him. I was far from a thug. I wasn’t a square or super conservative. Because I was an engineer, and had hustler freinds, and produced predominantly Hip Hop music, I learned to morph into certain personalities to deal with record label execuctives and cats from the hood to make deals.
I think the most glaring observation was the lack of fun and the serious tone he had with me toward the end of our friendship. There wasn’t any more laughter or kidding around in our friendship. The funny thing is, (and I often laughed to myself), he was always 5 to 10 years behind me in doing everything that I had done. From dating, to getting married, to having children to having a career, etc. Good friends can have an occasional pissing contest. We compete to earn more money, have more women and win. Strong egos destroy good friendship.
Typically women play games to be social, to bond and to connect. While men play games to determine a clear winner; the most skilled, the strongest and the fastest. Although the optics suggests equal power in virtually every friendship, whether male or female, there is always one friend in the group that belives they are the most attractive, smartest, strongest and better than the other.
My friend had all the boxes checked when we where young. He was; The Man! I started checking off boxes a little later than him. I admit, I was both jealous and in awe of him. I could never be as tall or as handsome as he was. I felt proud to be his friend. He taught me so much about being cool, devolping a style and being a gentleman. But when I got my own style, became smooth and he saw how I had evolved, it bothered him.
When you’re young, your’re excited about your accompliments and advancements and want to share with your friends. When you don’t tell them, you’re either really not a friend or you believe they’re really not your real friend. If you tell the wrong friend, then you take a chance of them being jealsous or cynical. There is no formula or metric to really determine who’s going to be genuinely happy for your success and who’s going to be tripping with you because of your success.
In my subjective opinion I had a healthy jealousy of my friend that empowered me to step up my game rather than competing with him or disliking him. Also funny, I heard at the last class reunion, he has two young children, and that he met his current wife on an online dating site. So ironic and hypocritical. Imagine that, him having children from an online relationship.
Question: Are you secretly competing with one of your friends or does it feel like one of your friends is covertly competing with you all the time?
