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The thing about this friend of mine is that I really care for him. I don’t think that even if my life were on the line I could explain to you why I care for him so much, I just do. He’s always kind of been like a little brother to me, someone that can take care of himself, but that I can also take care of in small ways… just to make the day better for the two of us. He’s also been like a best friend too, for the most part it never really mattered to me what we’d be doing, as long as we’d be doing it together, because without regard to what we were doing it was always fun anyway. I’d always buy him lunch or dinner if he was here, the money wasn’t important to me, I just wanted to see him happy. I really would go out of my way for him, and I had no problem doing it, because I felt like he wanted to be with me.

I got the feeling sometimes though that he was just seeing me because I’d spend money on him or I’d be able to do things for him, or because I was willing to drive the hours required to spend time with him if he was bored or wanted to do something. I’ve basically always been the kind of person that gains happiness from bringing it to those whom I care for. I tried to not let this feeling of being used overwhelm me and I would chalk that over to just being insecure. I would talk to my boyfriend about it, along with some others whose opinions I find value in, and they’d tell me I was right, for the most part. I found myself defending this friend of mine anytime I mentioned him and I vehemently stated that they just didn’t understand him, they just needed to give him another chance. I wanted the other people I care for to be able to see those little things about him that make him worth all the effort I put into him. Oddly enough I think I was able to convince the one person I wanted to like him the most that he really was worth it… and then things started to change.

You see, I may not open up to people very easily, so they may not be able to learn all that much about me at first, because that’s at least something I can control. What I’ve never been able to control is how someone effects me, I might not be showing them how much I care for them, but my heart is there, it’s involved, and if I spend enough time with someone, they bring me to some level of happiness, whatever it happens to be, something clicks, and I find myself caring for them, usually a lot.

It hurts me very deeply for that sort of love to be misconstrued, for it to be taken as something carnal, for there to be an underlying lack of trust after so much time. It’s especially offensive for this to arise so suddenly after nothing more than a misunderstanding with someone known for a miniscule period of time by comparison.

I don’t lie. I am sometimes guilty of not completely telling the whole story, which in itself is a lie of omission, but the only reason that happens is because of self-defense mechanisms that are so engrained in me that they are virtually impossible to get around… those cases are the only times I’ll lie; if you ask me how I’m doing or if I’m okay, ninety-nine percent of the time I’ll tell you everything is perfectly fine, even if it is anything but.

I tell this friend of mine that I do tell my boyfriend about everything I do. To me that implies that I also tell him about things that he might not want to know about, things that could potentially hurt him, but I’ve always wanted the people in my life to be honest with me, even if it is painful, thus I’ve always done my best to be honest, particularly with someone that I care for, because I want them to be honest with me. I know there are things that he’d rather not have known about, because he didn’t particularly need to know when it really comes down to it, but at the time I thought he did and I’m glad I told him, because, and maybe it’s selfish, but it makes me feel better that I’m not hiding anything. Communication and honesty, which lead directly to trust, are the pillars of a good relationship, are they not?

So this boyfriend of mine, he really is wonderful. I had started to take him for granted, lost sight of just why I wanted to be with him in the first place, and that week we spent apart, broken up, brought all of that back into view in a rather jarring fashion. For all of my intelligence, compassion, and experience, I do behave as though I don’t have a clue sometimes, I need to be smacked in the face with the nose I just cut off myself sometimes. I found this guy, by pure luck really, that makes me feel so comfortable with myself, makes me so comfortable with him, and allows me to be me… He’s someone that doesn’t want anything more from me than for me to be me, he’s treating me how I’ve always tried to treat others, and really, it’s amazing to me, I appreciate it so very much, but I really do have trouble conveying that to him sometimes.

I have this thing about trust… it’s extremely difficult for me to trust someone, they need to basically prove themselves to me over a lengthy period of time. I’m not talking about simple trust, what I’m referring to is quite a bit more major. As nearly impossibly difficult it is for me to open up, I know with him that I can. He trusts me enough to spend time with someone that could very well be threatening, because he knows that no matter how much I may like him, I’m not going to act upon it. My relationship with him is far too important to me to squander it on something so fleeting.

This friend of mine though, he has a boyfriend too. As I’ve been known to do on perhaps too many an occasion, his boyfriend lives rather far away. I know what it’s like, I know how painful it can be, how frustrating it can be, how it just eats you up inside when the only thing in the world you want is to be right there with them and you can’t, you just can’t be there. Just thinking about how I’ve felt when in that situation brings tears to my eyes… I told this friend of mine that if he ever wanted to talk about it, that he could with me, because I’ve been there too. He hasn’t, and that’s fine with me, but I still wanted him to know that he could. Relationships are difficult enough, when you throw a thousand miles between two people it is even more difficult. You want to be there to experience their everyday life, you want to be there to comfort them if they are sad, and you want them to be there with you for those very same reasons. I could not live with myself if, by my actions, I caused it to be even more difficult for them.

My friend and I are having problems. I don’t feel that he understands where I’m coming from when I say the things I do. I get the distinct impression that he’s concerned that I only pretend to care for him because I’m interested in him for something a lot more than the friendship we’ve had. I don’t really have any way of convincing him of my motives, I can only point to the past between us, I’ve not done anything that I would consider out of the boundaries of friendship. Maybe he feels differently, the problem is we’ve not been able to have any sort of true conversation about it. Lately any discussion between us ultimately ends with us fighting with each other. I am angry, but that’s because I’m hurt. When I wrote my entry entitled “The World Isn’t Catholic” I had him in mind, I feel the affection of friendship toward him. We hug each other when we leave each other’s company. Sometimes I give him a kiss on the cheek, not because I want to kiss him on the lips, but because to me it says “You are my dear friend, I care for you.” It is, simply, what it is.

To me affection between friends is essential. Caring for each other, and showing that you care, is a crucial difference between someone that you simply spend time with, an “activity partner,” and someone you consider a friend. I come from a family that routinely shows affection, hugs, kisses on the cheek, this is what I’m used to, we care for each other, we love each other. My friends are like family to me, to not show them the same affection is unthinkable and I cannot fathom why someone wouldn’t want a hug or to be shown they are cared for, particularly when it’s always been a part of the friendship. In a way it hurts too, because why would someone not want affection from me? Especially when they’re completely boyfriend-safe types of affection, and by that I mean, as I’ve said, hugs, kisses on the cheek, or just holding them for a bit. They’re the types of things I’d not hesitate at all to tell my boyfriend I’ve done with someone else, because there is nothing wrong with it. I also don’t hesitate to tell my boyfriend that I’ve had a friend sleep in my bed with me, because what we’re doing is actually sleeping. Maybe it’s a modernist point of view, if you want to call it that, but if neither of us in that bed intend on something more to happen, why should it matter? The only person I have intentions of rubbing up against naked is my boyfriend, he’s who I want.

When it comes down to it, I love them both, but in quite different ways. I love my friend as my friend, I love my boyfriend as my boyfriend, it is easy for me to understand, just perhaps not as easy to explain. There has been difficulty between my boyfriend and me, but we talked about it, we worked it out, we gave ourselves time. Right now I think my friend and I need time, I want for us to be able to talk about our difficulty, I want for us to be able to get this worked out, because I want for us to be able to go back to the friendship that has brought certainly me, and hopefully him, a considerable amount of happiness. I just don’t think we can do it right now, we’re too frustrated, possibly too angry, and I know that I am very hurt; we both need time.