Dear Dave Gibson,I started this post on July 14, when I was still quite pissed off, and wishing I could sit you down and yell at you for while. But, during the process of getting some of those words out of me and onto this post, the anger leeched out of me, and left me not caring so much, and actually kinda satisfied that you've extricated yourself from my life. I had to delete the previous post, and start fresh on July 26 - the words no longer rang true.
Breaking up with a friend of 14 years is much like breaking up with a partner - usually for the best, but including the usual nostalgia and sadness. It also includes friends and family saying what they actually think of the other. Let me tell you, Dave, that the number of people that have said `I never really knew him, just through you and Sam' and `He seemed sad and aloof' and`Dave Gibson? Spineless and lost!' is quite astounding - people have been implying: I always wondered why he was your friend. And, really, I've started to wonder that, too. I was initially quite taken aback at your assertion that I've not been a good friend to you for all of our years as friends. Now, after much reflection, I wonder the same of you - really, how good a friend, how much a friend, have you been to me over the last 14 years?
This whole experience made me really think about the nature of friendships. To me, friendships start with communication, and continue with positivity and support. While they may be hard at times, a friendship is not complicated, as you asserted, nor does it include insults. The definition of friendship that you seem to hold is much more cinematic and unrealistic than what bears true in life. Given that you closed the door on authentic and sincere communication with me at about the time Jenny moved in with us, this friendship break-up was actually instigated by you much more quietly and subtly, and well before, any of the recent histrionics. And, communication was traditionally cut off in the past when you became involved in a `serious' relationship - your pattern is to become insular and isolated when focused on a relationship - and only re-commenced when you were done with that relationship. That makes me wonder how `best' of a friend I ever was, if you didn't need me when you were focused on a `committed relationship'.
You've become angry and isolated, and a very different man than I thought I knew when we were roomies. Obviously the seeds for this behaviour have always been with you, and I was just blind to them; I never thought you were capable of this type of negativity and, frankly, insane behaviour. The limited words you've provded me throughout this experience were quite shockingly self-contradictory, and the conversation you had with Sam, as related by Sam, is also quite disturbing (and, as an aside, you inspired a life-long enemy in Sam as a result). In the end, that high-maintenance, juvenile, and energy-draining behaviour is not something I need in my life, nor something that I'll let back in. Twice bitten, twice shy.
Yes, twice - the similarities between this situation and the crap that went down with Diane are chilling. As an aside, this latest incident was partially prompted by the insistence that I take responsibility for my girlfriend. You might want to consider the same - you appeared to have absolved yourself from any responsibility for your girlfriends' actions towards me. And, while the parallels in incidents is weird, so are the parallels between Jenny and Diane. Both are emotionally unstable, with quite pronounced self-esteem issues. Both have very deep-seated problems with their parents, much deeper than the usual parent/child strife than is usual. Both are alcoholics. And both were friends of mine first, drinking buddies that I associated with back during the most self-destructive and awful days of my life. What makes such whirling dervishes of destruction and pain attractive to you? Have you really chosen love?
Finally, while I hate to say it, beware. Throughout the entire 11 years of my friendship with Jenny, almost every two years she has reinvented herself, and destroyed the life she was leading at the time, leaping into something new regardless of the personal and emotional toll of those around her. I was an audience for those extreme life-changing events, until the wave of mutilation finally washed me away this past June. The clock has now started counting down to the next two-year mark. She might take you down, or out. Nonsense, you say? One of the biggest predictors of future behaviour is how we have behaved in the past - almost all business use this behavioural model when screening applicants for a position, from banks to police services and most other serious employers in between. Think what you may about `business practices', there is definitely something to that well-studied theory.
So: good luck, and good riddance.
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