Max Davine's Blog - Posts Tagged "healthy"
Goodbye 2018, amongst others.
It has been a year of changes. I’ve noticed it with friends and colleagues everywhere, and it’s interesting how major shifts in our lives seem to synchronize. For me, it’s been a year of relief in the form of goodbyes. Some were friends I still wish the very best of, some were dead weight I’m glad to be rid of, but it was all for the best. In every case, it was a matter of having held on because of the notion of friendship as a moral obligation. It seems to me that in the same way people cling to marriages that are no longer serving them, or have even become dangerous for them, we hang on to friendships because we feel obligation by tradition.
Don’t get me wrong here. Nothing is more important that friendship. But what actually constitutes friendship?
For example, one friend I got rid of recently I’d known since we were nine years old. We had a number of mutual friends, and I guess because we’d invested so long in knowing each other, we thought of one another as just part of life. But he was an opinionated, bigoted racist. He voted no on our same sex plebiscite. He called me a “faggot” out of anger. He argued that black people bring the unfair reputation the American judicial system has labelled them with on themselves. He’d trash every form of feminism, and he has a daughter. He was not my kind of guy. But what was he doing around me? Why was I hearing these abhorrent views and being subject to a barrage of hateful insults whenever I challenged them? Well, we were mates. I’d known him since I was nine. By golly, I’m glad I don’t know him anymore.
Another example was some I was very close to. I had entered with romantic intent, but she’d taken a year to make up her mind and then when she did, she first decided we could be a couple, then withdrew via text message. It hurt, but I felt ashamed to say no to a friendship. I like being around her and I valued what she added to my life. But as well as this, she often told me how valuable her time was. How special it was that I got to partake of her precious time. Then, as months rolled by, I only heard from her when it was a favour she needed. She played the helpless one – there was me and another friend, we were the only ones she could depend upon. So I gave up my time, which was evidently not valuable, to look after her son and to drive her from one end of town to another for a publicity thing she was attempting, only to find out that all this time, she had a boyfriend. Of sorts. Not only this, but he knew all her other friends and her parents. So, he could have been looking after her son. He could have been driving her to this and that thing at all hours of the night. “But it’s just a casual thing” she’d say – then why keep him secret? She didn’t think I’d help her if I knew? Why not mention him, and say that he’s too shit to help her? That’s called lying. It’s manipulative and wrong. When I said as much, she called me “toxic” and said she didn’t want me in her life – via text again, of course. She’s since told friends that it was because I was still trying to couple with her. Actually, I can do better than a lying fraud.
You’d think I’d be hurt but in truth, the relief I felt was unimaginable. I’m smiling as I type this to think that she’s gone. It’s been four months since I heard about how lucky I was and how valuable her time was.
Lastly, there was another man I’d known since childhood. One who’d slipped into such a state of alcohol and drug dependence that he thought nothing of bringing meth to the house I was living in and sharing it with recovering addicts, undoing the work they’d put into their own lives for however long. Regardless of what was at stake for them. He urinated all over my bathroom floor and tried to use my towel to clean it up. He trashed my house repeatedly. His selfishness knew no bounds, but that’s addiction. This was a hard one, because you need friends when you’re so much in the grips of destructive addiction. But friends also need to know when their presence isn’t helping. My forgiveness was giving him leave to go and do it all again. For both our sakes, I had to back away.
In all three instances I’ve broken the sacred rules of friendship. You forgive your mates, you be friends when the lady rejects you and you stand by them no matter what. But I was damaging myself and, in one case, damaging someone else as well. I know how much I value friends, and amongst my current circle are people views I disagree with, women who’ve rejected me romantically and people with emotional problems. But these three, amongst others, took my kindness and abused it. They stretched friendship to its extreme, and it broke.
There comes a time when we have to walk away. A cruel friendship can be just as damaging as a bad relationship. As society revaluates what a relationship truly is, maybe it’s time to think about what a friendship really is as well.
Don’t get me wrong here. Nothing is more important that friendship. But what actually constitutes friendship?
For example, one friend I got rid of recently I’d known since we were nine years old. We had a number of mutual friends, and I guess because we’d invested so long in knowing each other, we thought of one another as just part of life. But he was an opinionated, bigoted racist. He voted no on our same sex plebiscite. He called me a “faggot” out of anger. He argued that black people bring the unfair reputation the American judicial system has labelled them with on themselves. He’d trash every form of feminism, and he has a daughter. He was not my kind of guy. But what was he doing around me? Why was I hearing these abhorrent views and being subject to a barrage of hateful insults whenever I challenged them? Well, we were mates. I’d known him since I was nine. By golly, I’m glad I don’t know him anymore.
Another example was some I was very close to. I had entered with romantic intent, but she’d taken a year to make up her mind and then when she did, she first decided we could be a couple, then withdrew via text message. It hurt, but I felt ashamed to say no to a friendship. I like being around her and I valued what she added to my life. But as well as this, she often told me how valuable her time was. How special it was that I got to partake of her precious time. Then, as months rolled by, I only heard from her when it was a favour she needed. She played the helpless one – there was me and another friend, we were the only ones she could depend upon. So I gave up my time, which was evidently not valuable, to look after her son and to drive her from one end of town to another for a publicity thing she was attempting, only to find out that all this time, she had a boyfriend. Of sorts. Not only this, but he knew all her other friends and her parents. So, he could have been looking after her son. He could have been driving her to this and that thing at all hours of the night. “But it’s just a casual thing” she’d say – then why keep him secret? She didn’t think I’d help her if I knew? Why not mention him, and say that he’s too shit to help her? That’s called lying. It’s manipulative and wrong. When I said as much, she called me “toxic” and said she didn’t want me in her life – via text again, of course. She’s since told friends that it was because I was still trying to couple with her. Actually, I can do better than a lying fraud.
You’d think I’d be hurt but in truth, the relief I felt was unimaginable. I’m smiling as I type this to think that she’s gone. It’s been four months since I heard about how lucky I was and how valuable her time was.
Lastly, there was another man I’d known since childhood. One who’d slipped into such a state of alcohol and drug dependence that he thought nothing of bringing meth to the house I was living in and sharing it with recovering addicts, undoing the work they’d put into their own lives for however long. Regardless of what was at stake for them. He urinated all over my bathroom floor and tried to use my towel to clean it up. He trashed my house repeatedly. His selfishness knew no bounds, but that’s addiction. This was a hard one, because you need friends when you’re so much in the grips of destructive addiction. But friends also need to know when their presence isn’t helping. My forgiveness was giving him leave to go and do it all again. For both our sakes, I had to back away.
In all three instances I’ve broken the sacred rules of friendship. You forgive your mates, you be friends when the lady rejects you and you stand by them no matter what. But I was damaging myself and, in one case, damaging someone else as well. I know how much I value friends, and amongst my current circle are people views I disagree with, women who’ve rejected me romantically and people with emotional problems. But these three, amongst others, took my kindness and abused it. They stretched friendship to its extreme, and it broke.
There comes a time when we have to walk away. A cruel friendship can be just as damaging as a bad relationship. As society revaluates what a relationship truly is, maybe it’s time to think about what a friendship really is as well.
