I'm having a Maalox moment
Feb. 19th, 2008 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"True friendship is defined by the ability to alleviate sheer boredom with mere folly simply for the sake of company."
- Unknown cartoonist
The above quotation is taken from a comic strip, clipped from a Pittsburgh-area newspaper and sent to me during my freshman year of college. The clipper was GDM, my oldest and best friend dating back to Mrs. Chapman's 5th grade class. Today is his birthday, and I wish him a happy 31st.
Our friendship is a strange one, in that it is been durable while at the same time being almost weightless, without burden. It is practically self-sustaining, based on nothing but itself, and requires very little maintenance. It is light but strong, a marvel of friendship engineering.
It seems we are friends simply because we have always been friends. We lived in different neighborhoods, played in different little leagues and chased different girls. We were both unqualified nerds, of course, but within that circle he was always quiet, patient and devastatingly cynical while I was anxious, insistent and absurdly frustrated. As we grew older, it was almost comical how the high school scheduling gods conspired to keep us in separate classrooms, though some of this could have been attributed to the fact that I was always a "words" guy and he was always a "numbers" guy.
About the only thing we've consistently had in common is an affinity for professional sports and the ability to hang out for hours while seemingly doing absolutely nothing. Bowling, ping-pong, video games -- these were merely excuses to get together for observational humor and shallow armchair philosophy. And even when we talked, we never delved too deep; our conversation was always entertainment, never therapy.
Since we each graduated college, he's settled down in Pittsburgh with a wife and a son, a house in the suburbs and a successful numbers-oriented career. We don't talk or visit as much as I'd like, and I feel bad about that, like I'm really testing that durability. I would hate to lose our connection, not just because I believe deeply that he's the most decent and gentle soul I know, but also because it is a link to a time of innocence and simplicity, things we can laugh about now even though it didn't seem funny at the time.
I think of the friendships I've gathered since then, and it seems they have all been forged through intense collective efforts, like play rehearsals, college newspapers and cohabitations. But I also like to imagine that they also fit the template of that relationship I share with GDM: that it's not the what or the where or the why but the who that's important. And I try to be the kind of friend that GDM has always been to me.
Only I like to think of myself as a better ping-pong player these days.
- Unknown cartoonist
The above quotation is taken from a comic strip, clipped from a Pittsburgh-area newspaper and sent to me during my freshman year of college. The clipper was GDM, my oldest and best friend dating back to Mrs. Chapman's 5th grade class. Today is his birthday, and I wish him a happy 31st.
Our friendship is a strange one, in that it is been durable while at the same time being almost weightless, without burden. It is practically self-sustaining, based on nothing but itself, and requires very little maintenance. It is light but strong, a marvel of friendship engineering.
It seems we are friends simply because we have always been friends. We lived in different neighborhoods, played in different little leagues and chased different girls. We were both unqualified nerds, of course, but within that circle he was always quiet, patient and devastatingly cynical while I was anxious, insistent and absurdly frustrated. As we grew older, it was almost comical how the high school scheduling gods conspired to keep us in separate classrooms, though some of this could have been attributed to the fact that I was always a "words" guy and he was always a "numbers" guy.
About the only thing we've consistently had in common is an affinity for professional sports and the ability to hang out for hours while seemingly doing absolutely nothing. Bowling, ping-pong, video games -- these were merely excuses to get together for observational humor and shallow armchair philosophy. And even when we talked, we never delved too deep; our conversation was always entertainment, never therapy.
Since we each graduated college, he's settled down in Pittsburgh with a wife and a son, a house in the suburbs and a successful numbers-oriented career. We don't talk or visit as much as I'd like, and I feel bad about that, like I'm really testing that durability. I would hate to lose our connection, not just because I believe deeply that he's the most decent and gentle soul I know, but also because it is a link to a time of innocence and simplicity, things we can laugh about now even though it didn't seem funny at the time.
I think of the friendships I've gathered since then, and it seems they have all been forged through intense collective efforts, like play rehearsals, college newspapers and cohabitations. But I also like to imagine that they also fit the template of that relationship I share with GDM: that it's not the what or the where or the why but the who that's important. And I try to be the kind of friend that GDM has always been to me.
Only I like to think of myself as a better ping-pong player these days.
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Date: 2008-02-23 07:45 pm (UTC)-GDM
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Date: 2008-03-12 05:57 pm (UTC)Anyway, I'm glad to see that you check in here every once in a while. That will help me to feel a little better about the chronic radio silence.