Breaking up is hard to do

Mrs. B and me are fine.

But I am breaking up with a friend. Seriously. I meant to write this last week, upon making this decision. But I forgot, and a good friend - not the one in question - wrote something about it on her blog, reminding me to do the same.

So for the better part of nine years I have had two close guy friends, who have been about as close to best friends as possible for me. I say "as close," 'cause I'm just not 100% sold on that whole best friends thing, not since elementary school anyway. I'm like comedian Rick Reynolds, the guy who used to do the "Only the Truth is Funny" monologue: My friends have to earn their "rank" on a sliding scale. And I'm only half kidding. I don't need friends to do things for me. I need them to be there for me. More on that another time.

Anyway, the three of us have been like the Musketeers, or the Stooges, since the day we met at a journalism conference. The three of us, along w/four others, I think, had been invited as "emerging" writers, whatever that means. We have always been typical in the sense that we laughed over drinks and cigars. We debated women. We occasionally pursued women together. We could talk politics and sociology. We could talk the basest, crudest talk about romance, and snicker like school boys. We could talk religion. If one was physically threatened, we all rolled up our sleeves and prepared to give or take a thrashing, one for all, all for one. And if one of us was down and out, we could count on one another - right along with our girlfriends (at the time), or relatives - for emotional support. Our friendship reflected that biblical principle that says a true, close friend, is "closer than a brother."

I even had one old girlfriend joke that she had never seen guys comfortable enough in their own skin to open up to each other like family, the way we three had. Some guys would get squeamish at her comment. I took it as a compliment. I know who I am.

But our friendship has always had one problem: one of the guys has no filter. He doesn't know when to speak, when to bite his tongue, or how to think analytically the split second before speaking. And his internal issues - those he hasn't really shared - are such that to rein himself in would be "selling out" in his mind.

When he's on, he's a cool guy, a stereotypical good buddy. When he's off, he can be downright mean.

On the one hand he has joked with gradually increasing seriousness that me and the third guy are corporate shills, driven each day by "the man." On the other hand he regales us from time to time with his efforts to climb the ladder at his own company. It's different, he argues, for him, because he's climbing grudgingly and we appear to enjoy "the game."

For years we've made excuses for his untimely comments in mixed company, his insults to us, flung under the guise of him keepin' it real by always, always, speaking his mind. We've always said to each other "Oh, that's just (him) being (him)!" That line even became a mantra of sorts. And when he'd cross a line, one of us would check him. And, inevitably, after a short argument, he'd sheepishly apologize, say something like "I get it now," and then say how good it was that three guys with such different backgrounds could be friends 'cause it kept us grounded. We'd forgive. We'd all have a drink. We'd laugh it off. We'd move on...till the next incident.

But recently, he crossed the line one time too many with me. At a celebratory event, he blurted out some nonsense about questioning the need for us to be friends. It would have been harmless in any other setting. It took the wind out of the sails at this event. It soured the mood in the room.

We had our usual conversation afterwards, in which he insisted he meant no harm but he had to be "real."

Then the following day, at another event, he did it again. And something snapped in me. I've had enough. I'm done. Friendships shouldn't take this much work. I'm married now. And my wife and I don't have this much grief between us.

I spent the next couple of weeks out of touch with this buddy. And I finally reached the conclusion a few days ago. We can't be friends. I share some of the blame for this happening. If I had checked him harder back in the day and told him to grow up already, he either would have, or we would have decided long ago that we couldn't be friends. But I gave him pass after pass, because he always said sorry later. In a strange way I was a little bit of an enabler.

It's weird. I've never broken up with a friend before. I've had friendships that sort of faded into oblivion. But I've never made it a point to end a friendship.

I have to though. I'm too grown and too tired to keep sparring with this guy over his inability to filter himself sometimes and his lack of confidence that compels him to put down other people for trying. If he truly is just being himself, then he's gotta be him around some other friend.

Weird situation. Really, the old breakups with girlfriends? Those were tough. But I always got over them quickly and easily, because, frankly, I knew there was another young woman around the corner.

It's different with a plain old friend though. I don't like many people enough to consider them friends. And not many people other than my wife or my relatives can tolerate me enough to be my friend, my true friend.

I think, for the time being, my friend level will remain the same. I'm not taking applications for new ones. I'll continue to develop friendly acquaintanceships as they come my way. But for now no new friends. Too much work.

Single people bite!

Or maybe I'm off my rocker right now, 'cause I just strolled back to the Herald from the dentist's office across the street, and I'm a little groggy.

I am not an anti-dentite. I am a big fan of this dentist. He gives good drugs and has hands like cotton. And that's a good thing, 'cause while I have a high pain threshold (something I learned through multiple knee-rebuilding surgeries and the subsequent therapy), all bets are off with my mouth. I can't stand even a smidgen of pain in that region. I'd rather have my fellas locked in a vice clamp than deal with mouth pain.

This dentist's assistant, however, does not have hands like cotton. She's very nice. And I have no doubt she did a great job on my teeth today, but I think maybe she was a boxer or slammed her hand into brick walls in a past life. No gentle touch here.

But I digress. I think I really might be a little loopy right now.

What prompted the title to this post was a call I got from an old friend as I strolled across the street to the dentist's office about two hours ago. One of the first things out of her mouth was "Where have you been!!!" I know good punctuation. I used exclamation points instead of a question mark on purpose, because her question was more of a statement. She was suggesting that I have been off the charts and out of the loop lately.

Now here' s the funny thing about this. In the weeks leading up to my wedding nearly two years ago this friend was one of many - male and female - who cautioned Mrs. B and me to not turn into one of those married couples after we tied the knot.

They begged us to not suddenly fall off the social radar after the wedding. They warned us that marriage would make us inaccessible and would zap our desire to stay connected with friends. They shared with us tales of married friends, who within weeks of their weddings stopped returning calls or emails.

To be fair, I believe prior to my own wedding that I said some of the same stuff to single friends who were about to be married.

But this friend was nuts. In my case, with one exception, I've found this doom and gloom prediction to be just the opposite. My single friends have been inaccessible. They haven't returned phone calls. They never send emails asking how things are, unless they're responding to an email I sent them. And so on and so forth.

In fact, when I think back to when I was giving the same kinds of warnings to soon-to-be-married friends, I realize that they didn't abandon me after they got married. I subconsciously abandoned them.

My friend this morning wasn't really scolding me when she called. She was teasing. Still, it prompted me to share all the thoughts I've just written.

I expected her to tell me "whatever!" But she agreed with me. After a friend gets married, you see them with a full-time partner and instinctively you back off a little and give them more space than you might have before. After a friend gets married you start to feel a little like a third wheel, and you get a little uncomfortable inserting yourself into social situations with them. Even if your friend and his/her new spouse tells you to continue coming around you just sort of assume that they have magical married people things to do. Really, all I do more of since marriage is yard work, maintenance stuff around our house, and run errands.

If anything, after I got married I was sort of eager to hang onto my buddies, so I didn't feel completely isolated from my old life. Did I hang out with them as often after work? Not even close. I certainly didn't stay out as late on those days we did do Happy Hour. But I kept an iron in the fire so they wouldn't forget that "Independent George" still exists. Mrs. B was the same. She still did things regularly with her girlfriends. We had become a team, not a single organism. We still had separate friends and interests.

So I'm left to conclude that in this case single people are full of it. You guys abandon us just as often as we abandon you, maybe more. I think secretly you guys just might not want to deal with your old single buddy or single gal pal suddenly becoming a Siamese twin.

OK, I'm gonna go pop a Motrin and get back to work.