Friends Watch: A success

At 16 years of age…something happened.
Me and Aaron just stopped being best friends. The relationship had been decaying for a while but it was finally pushed over the edge.
Tuesday night we re-united.
We went to the pub and there were no awkward silences, no ego’s…just two good buddies talking openly and freely….like a true friendship should be.
It was such a good night that we got barred from the pub.
If you had told me this would happen a week ago I would have laughed but here I am.
Shall I tell you who was a crap friend?
Nina.
She was an awful friend. She stood me up, she took the mickey out of me and was generally just a horrible friend.
She’s a great girlfriend though.
Friend Rating - 1/10
Comment - Friend or enemy?
As a girlfriend she gets 10/10 though :D
And since being my girlfriend she has been a great friend too.
I’m sat here and I’m really struggling to eat this orange, I’ve never been good with oranges.
Friend rating - 3/10
Comment - Tastes nice but they are a lot of hard work.

Friends Watch - Like a moonlight shadow

So I went to the nightclub by myself.
Yoink.
I made progress with two ex friends though. Aaron and J!mmy both texted me back saying we should all get drinks.
Cool I thought. And I headed off into town.
I got to the club and was realised the people from work would not be arriving for another half an hour.
Crappy.
So I got myself a drink and started talking to these two girls at the bar. I was fresh and made up some rubbish about needing a pen.
A pen. In a nightclub.
Anyways they kind of went for it.
It was bloody good night overall and I woke up feeling hungover and glad that Aaron and J!mmy contacted me back.
They are not friends yet….but maybe in the future they will be.
Jimmy was a dude from school.
Friend Rating - 7/10
Comment - He got the piss taken out of him really badly at school. We just connected what can I say. It is also my fault our friendship died.

Friend Watch - The Hope

I am now starting a new feature of this Blog.
Friend watch.
Quite simple really.
I will now, hopefully, do a day by day, or every 2 or 3 days, entry in this blog which will document my attempts to regain old friendships or create new ones.

Having Nina is great…I finally have a girlfriend...but it is not enough.
I’ve been invited to a nightclub by an acquaintance at work. Great. She is not a friend however. It’s hard to describe…she just isn’t.
Her and some friends and new people from are meeting up at about 10.
There is no way I am walking into that nightclub by myself.
Call it stupid…I don’t care. It’s not that I have a problem with walking in by myself…but that I am always walking in by myself!
So firstly, in today’s Friend watch, I want to discuss Louis.
Where do I begin eh?
Louis and I have a relationship with no commitment. If I was in jail and rang him for bail, he would literally bail. All we do Is play computer games together…that’s it.
We have been out a few times but nothing much. Tonight I asked him to go with me to the club. He started making excuses up and basically didn’t want to bother. He would prefer to stay in tonight. I don’t feel let down because that’s just him. We are very similar in many aspects but in other ways we are not at all. Having said that, he will always text me every couple of days if we haven’t seen each other for a while. He has also been loyal while away at uni….he hasn’t forgot I exist…like the rest of ‘em.
Friend rating - 7/10
Summary - A good relationship for what it is.
After Louis rejected the invite I started to become desperate. I scrolled down my mobile phone looking for someone to contact to go out tonight.
Name after name went by….most of which I don’t even know why they are on my phone. I think I only keep them there to make it look asif I know more people than I do, but hey, at least I’m being honest with myself.
One name stood out though.
Aaron. My childhood best mate. The last time I saw him was a year and a half ago. He gave me his number then. So I texted him but there was no reply. He could have changed phones. I’m just hoping he contacts me before the night is out.
Can I re-establish my close friendship with Aaron…hopefully I can have something to report on that in a future friend watch.
Waiting….
Waiting….
….waiting….
Nope, Aaron has still not text me back.
Friend rating - 10/10 for the past and 1/10 for the present.
Summary - A friend from the past. Possibly never the to be the present again. L
“if I leave here tomorrow…would you still remember me?”

The bag of tricks (Random title)

I saw a picture of Ben at college.
It is 3 years since I last talked to him.
It was weird seeing his face before I started my college class. He looks to have lost weight.
There were two contrasting photo’s of him. One was something I hadn’t seen before, I didn’t expect to see that.
He was almost smiling at the camera, confidence shone through the picture. The other picture was exactly what I thought it would be.
He had his hand up to his face, almost like he was covering it up, and he looked timid. I saw so much in that look.
I saw myself in that look.
I noticed a picture of a lad in my current class and I asked him if he knew Ben.
“Yup, I know him.”
He didn’t tell me much but he ended it with “I haven’t seen him at class for a few weeks.”
It wouldn’t surprise me if he had quit the course.
I also had a dream about Ben last week. It was a really long dream. I invited him for a night out and he knew nothing about what you had to wear or anything.
I think that is one of the things I really like about him, the fact that he knew nothing about fitting into “this society”
Like me, he had no fashion sense at all. He would wear white socks with black shoes to an interview (like I did) and he would wear a bright orange coat that was hideous but he didn’t realise it was.
We were both like that. Completely unready for the real world lol.
We should have stuck together through thick and thin but I bailed.
Well, he bailed first.
But what’s happened has happened. I’m just grateful for the friendship we did share.
The good times were fantastic.
It was always the simple things. We always found the comedy in the tragedy. Always.
After I saw his picture I walked out of college and I thought to myself “Ya know, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we bumped into each other.”
It is with me to give him a ring someday.
As time moves on the wounds of what happened 3 years ago heal over.
I always moan and cry about not having close mates now but he was my close friend, unfortunately every time I think about getting back in touch I remember how unfriend like he could be.
The situation forced a lot of that on him though.
The reason why this blog has been drying up is because I’ve started to feel less sentimental about things. It was a conscious effort and it also started to occur naturally.
Me talking about Ben then. That’s how I feel about it. If I get caught in the moment or something reminds me of a memory of our friendship, then I will think about it.
But I don’t go looking for it anymore.
Moving on.
I had a meeting with my manager at work and it was refreshing to hear her views about life in general. We agreed on a lot of points and I found myself revealing quite a lot of my inner thoughts.
It’s good to have someone like that at work. I know that once a month we will meet up and we will get to bitch about people in the workplace….sorry but I love it.
Not in a spiteful way.
But it’s good to talk about the moaners there.
These certain people always moaning at work. Then when you challenge them to change jobs they immediately perk up and say “well, it’s not that bad.”

They...cannot...touch...her

I noticed it. Right there. It had all shifted.
New years day I was with my mum and dad at the annual family get together. This year it felt different. The togetherness wasn’t there.
With the so called ‘kids’ as well. They are noticeably older now. Craig is now 13 and I could sense the difference in him.
He was unwilling to talk. That childhood enthusiasm had evaporated.
Replaced with sarcasm.
One of the other kids reacted badly to my mum when she tried to hug him. I could see my mum struggle with this.
She then tried to hug him again but he was having none of it and she got more desperate. It was horrible to watch.
My ma and pa are extremely naïve.
I am in a lot of ways…but I know the rules.
They don’t.
I caught a late train to go see Nina afterwards.