Fragile Friendships

Photo Credit: Jerry Hoffman

Friends are like life-experiences, some collected and treasured for the moment, others vaguely remembered then turning to dust. A few lock onto some corner of our brain and remain there for the rest of our lives. Generally speaking, the majority of them are scattered back into that dustbin of old memories; good and sad mixed together.

I was never ‘friends first’ with my two girlfriends, one in high school, the other in college. Perhaps that’s why neither one lasted more than a couple of years. If we had started out as simply friends, our relationship might have progressed to something deeper. ‘Such is life.’

High school friends, Army buddies, first job comrades-in-arms and the like all fall into that same category of fast friends for the moment. Then graduation, discharge or job transfers end the close relationship and oftentimes another one takes its place.

Whether they’ll admit it or not, a lot of folks like to search ‘Facebook’ for traces of their old friends, past acquaintances, co-workers, boyfriends, girlfriends, and lovers. It’s a safe way to scratch away the fog of time and find out ‘whatever happened to’ with some degree of accuracy.

Last year I wrote to an old friend I hadn’t heard from in some time. I got no response. We were best friends in the early years. We shared the drama and trauma of high school, attended sporting events together, and often times double-dated. Then he went off to the monastery and me to college. We got reacquainted after our 50th class reunion. My wife and I saw him and his lovely wife several times here before he began ghosting me and that was the end of it.

We have several friends who are going through major life changes now. It’s almost as if the writing is on the proverbial wall. Fewer get-togethers for the theater and other outings. They are moving on with their lives; new interests, and consciously or otherwise, shedding the cloak of the past to wrap themselves in the newness of new life experiences. Our old friends as we used to know them are slowly changing even as we both move on with our own respective lives.

Long term friends are a real rarity, especially among men. My latest play ‘Widow’s Waltz’ deals with this issue. Add the perspective of single older gay men and the complications compound exponentially. All the standard clichés pop up here: people change, time moves on, ‘things’ happen in our lives. The play was a challenge to write but deeply satisfying at the same time.

Over this last summer, I’ve been able to solidify my ‘coffee and chat’ sessions with five solid partners with whom I can share general, specific, bland, sometimes outrageous, interesting, and occasionally intimate details of our respective lives.

Will it last? Who know? I certainly hope so. We all seem to enjoy the meet-ups and the sharing that goes with it. For now, I want to enjoy the moment, savor the sharing and keep plowing new ground in hopes of solidifying the friendships that have grown from this shared experience.