Several times in my life, when I’ve found myself alone in
new situations, I’ve selected a person from the crowd and told myself, “That is
going to be my new best friend”.
Being
naturally distrusting, I’ve always had a talent for being able to quickly
size-up a person – a trait even my most recent supervisor was able to
acknowledge.
“You read people
exceptionally well,” she said.
It’s easy
to remember this compliment, since compliments were actually few and far
between from her.
But then, that’s why I
loved working for her
Jeff and I met and became instant friends in 1989. We met one night in a bar when I ran into Matt,
an old high school chum, who introduced Jeff to me. Having just broken up with my first
boyfriend, I needed a new best friend.
And I decided right then and there that Jeff would be that person. He was new to being out and this was actually
his first night in a gay bar. He knew nothing,
so I saw myself as his new mentor. When
I had come out a few years earlier, there was no one to show me the way. I knew no other gay men. There was no internet. So I set out by myself to observe, absorb and
learn what I could, on my own. For the
first few years – at least in those days – being gay was all trial and
error. And it is only for the fact that
I can “read people exceptionally well” that I am still here.
But where previous best friends had eventually gone by
the wayside over the course of time, Jeff somehow remained in my life as a
constant. I couldn’t possibly count the
number of hours spent in a vehicle driving back and forth from everywhere we
went; countless trips to the only gay bar within 100 miles of our homes;
driving 300 miles round trip just to be on a gay bowling league; several journeys
to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware; two vacations to Disney World; not to mention
the hundreds of thousands of dollars we spent on brunches, lunches, dinners and
cocktails. And when the time came for me
to move 150 miles away, the unimaginable amount of time we spent on the telephone,
talking a few times a week, waxing sentimental on days gone by and planning our
next great adventure.
Over the course of one score+ years, Jeff was there with
me through my college education, 5 boyfriends, 9 jobs, and 12 apartments across
5 cities – not to mention all the stuff that both goes along with and comes in-between. I figured we would be best friends until one
of us died.
And then we both joined Facebook.
The ruination of our friendship didn’t happen
overnight. And there were extenuating
circumstances as well. But I blame
Facebook for showing me a side of Jeff that I had never seen in the 20 years I
had known him. About 6 years ago, Jeff went on complete disability from work, which gave him lots of time to sit at
home and watch TV. And his TV show of
choice: Fox News. I could write thousands of words on why Fox
News is not healthy for America, but millions have come before me already doing
just that. What I know is that Jeff is well-educated in
what Fox News espouses. I don’t have the
time to sit and listen to the news all day, every day. I know the topics, but not the minute details
as Jeff knows them.
One of our last exchanges on Facebook took place 2 years
ago. It was during the winter that the
Washington, DC area was crippled with several blizzards and snowstorms. The
exchange went something like this:
Jeff: Well, what do all those global warming enthusiasts
have to say NOW?
Me: Actually, Jeff, global warming is expected to
increase heavy precipitation in winter storms, and for the Northern Hemisphere,
there is evidence that these storms are already more frequent and intense.
It can’t be freezing outside for months at a
time and expect me to believe the globe is getting hotter.
Well think about it, Jeff. Global warming affects the entire GLOBE. So when it’s winter here, it’s summer
someplace else. And right now, there are
record hot temperatures in Australia.
Well excuse me for having an opinion!
You can certainly have an opinion. I’m just debating you with actual facts.
…
Hello?
There are a few people in my life who I love in person,
and hate on Facebook. When I mention
this to other friends, their response is usually something like, “well isn’t it
better to know the real person?” But I
have to wonder, then, who IS the real person?
Is it the person I laugh with, drink with, joke with in his company – or
is it the person who posts “Obama is a foreign-born Muslim”?
I don’t shy away from confrontation. I’ll confront a friend who posts “Sarah Palin
for President” by telling him that supporting the Tea Party is essentially
supporting an organization that wants to put me to death. And I’ll confront the relative who posts “Mike
Huckabee is my kind of people” after Huckabee posts that the cast of Duck Dynasty is just supporting good ol’
American family values. And when a
Christian posts that we should “keep Christ in Christmas”, I tell them that it
might be better to start by “keeping Christ in Christian.” I’ll do all this, but I shouldn’t have
to. And I didn’t have to before
Facebook.
Since that exchange, Jeff and I have chatted briefly and
even curtly, through Facebook; usually he is responding to a post from me just
checking in on him. But he never
initiates a conversation. And we haven’t
spoken on the phone or seen each other since. In some way, I feel like I have
failed Jeff. When we met, he was a
sheltered person who didn’t know anything about gay life and I think he looked
to me as a guide. And as time wore on, I
think I continued to be the lead in for him on how life situations are handled,
how to talk to people, how to get what you want. And when I finally became so caught up in my
own life, I left him on his own to figure things out. And he did it through a source that I find
troubling and surprising.
I wonder when my opinions no longer mattered to him. I wonder when he decided to no longer trust
my advice. And I wonder how on earth we
had even remained friends, let alone best friends, for over two decades if my
presence in his life was so disposable. I
wonder . . . and it breaks my heart.
And I have Facebook to “thank”.