Intro: Wherein I give an overview.
On a global scale, 2022 was an eventful year. The world population reached eight billion. Russia invaded Ukraine. Queen Elizabeth II died at age 96. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated. Conflicts in Myanmar and Ethiopia caused more than 20,000 deaths. The U.K. saw the appointment of three prime ministers in as many months. Unprecedented protests swept through Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini, a twenty-two year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, in police custody. Russia returned WNBA player Brittney Griner to U.S. soil after the WNBA player spent more than nine months in captivity. Argentina won the FIFA World Cup.
Here in the United States, Ketanji Brown Jackson was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which less than one week prior overturned the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in search of classified material taken from the White House by outgoing president Donald Trump. The G.O.P. embarrassed itself in the U.S. midterm elections when the threatened “red wave” failed to materialize and most of the far-right Republicans running for office were defeated. Elon Musk purchased Twitter, spending approximately $43,999,999,700 more than the social media platform was worth and in the process devaluing both it and his brand. More than 267,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported in the U.S. alone. Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.
Some of these events were controversial. Some were widely condemned. Some were celebrated. Many shocked the world. All of them were front-page, above-the-fold news, or would be if anyone still read newspapers. And yet in spite of all of this tumult, I was somehow more affected by a personal matter, namely the loss of a very close male friend.
Before I go any further, I must clarify that despite the ominous wording of the previous sentence, the friend in question was not lost in the sense that he has passed on from this world to whatever lies beyond. Nor did the friend marry somebody who keeps him on a tight leash – “whipped”, if you will – and won’t let him hang out with the guys anymore. We didn’t have a huge falling-out over some aspect of pop culture or another and end the friendship in an acrimonious and geeky fashion. He didn’t dis my mother. He didn’t fuck my wife.
Okay, actually that last one isn’t true. He did fuck my wife, but I was there when it happened and so was his wife. Everyone was cool with it, and it was actually a hell of a lot of fun, so it didn’t have anything to do with the breakdown. The truth is, my friendship with this person ended passively, without a final confrontation or even parting words, once I learned that the person he’d led me to believe he was didn’t actually exist, and he’d conned me for nearly a decade into believing otherwise.
It’s no secret that I don’t have many guy friends, nor do I suspect it’s a secret as to why that is. But just in case it is, over the next several posts I will examine my upbringing in the 1980s with regard to the societal values that shaped me into the man I am today. I will explain why I find male friendships so difficult to make and maintain. I will give you background on the now-defunct friendship, I will tell you why this person seemed like a near-perfect guy friend, and why the friendship was so important to me. I will describe what caused me to throw off the friendship with great force, and I will give you my current thoughts on the matter.
This won’t be as sprawling and in-depth a story as Losing Joan, but nonetheless I hope you’ll enjoy reading it. (Perhaps moreso because it’s shorter.) And if you don’t, that’s okay too because my main reason for writing all of this is to get the feelings out.
Continued in Part Two.