Wolfrom Writes

I’ve lost touch with many people over the years, some on purpose, some by accident, and some by growing apart or just not caring.

I just recently lost touch with someone pretty much by accident, since we worked together and now suddenly she’s not here anymore, and she was gone before I even arrived in the morning (most things happen before I show up to work).

It’s sad to think that I’ll probably never see her again, never have the chance to poke fun at her upbringing and life choices, and never be able to debate her on sensitive topics like religion, politics, and whether or not Harvey’s burgers are worth trying at least once. (Yes, there’s a Harvey’s opening up nearby, and for whatever reason it feels like the longest night before Christmas ever. People tell me that I’m losing touch with reality on this one, and I can’t say I disagree.)

The whole sad affair reminded me of some of the other times I’ve lost touch with people:

1. My beer vendor friends: we used to hang out all the time at work, obviously, but once they left for other jobs, we’d never see each other again. Sometimes we even did things away from work, like make very odd short films about cold war wrestlers, or that time I went with a guy to lunch at Monty’s just after his girlfriend left him. We ate our roast beef and then the stripper music started to play. “I can’t handle seeing that,” he said, so together we walked out of the bar just as the show began. I imagine that poor dancer quality may result in people leaving during a show, but I’m not sure too many guys walk out at the beginning.
2. My evangelical friends: I didn’t have too many of these, since I didn’t go to the scary Baptist church often enough to know anyone. But I did have one such friend from a later point in my life, long after I started spending my Sunday mornings sleeping in. But we drifted apart. I’m not sure if it was because his wife hates my guts, or because I once told him that the Intelligent Design books do not belong in the science section of the bookstore, even if we are in Texas.
3. My high school friends: we used to play poker, go to movies, confess our strange teenage sexual perversions, and so much more, but now I don’t really speak to a single one. My wife meanwhile has a huge stockpile of high school friends. Which one of us is the healthy adult? Probably neither, considering who we married.
4. My social climbing friends: this is the strangest group of friends, since it contains people who are friends until they “outgrow” you, even though that growth isn’t universally agreed upon. One instance: we worked together for a few years, but there was always something a little odd about him. (Funny aside: my early-twenties’ beard was so bad his girlfriend thought I was thirty-five.) He once came to a party at my house. I asked “do you want the tour?” and he said “definitely not”. He also wouldn’t share food, so if we both wanted ham and pineapple on our pizza, we’d have to get two smalls instead of pooling our money. (This resulted in the birth of my favourite pizza, pineapple and mushroom, since that was less strange than two grown men not sharing a pie at the same table.) The last thing I saw from him was when he bought his new house and put the photos up online. The last photo was of the bill of sale, clearly showing the price he had paid. I guess he wanted to say something; I’m still not sure if the message was “what a great deal” or “look how rich I am”.
5. My mooching friends: I’ve had a few of these, some male, some female, and they’ve all shared one trait: they didn’t have much money. One friend of mine (a politico, now, but for the “wrong” team) used to have a long-running tab with me in junior high. We estimated it was up to around $5,000, but obviously that’s just a sign that we had a poor understanding of math at that time in our lives. We used to go to the Circle K for lunch, and I’d get my standard Wunderbar and Slurpee (except they didn’t call it that at the Circle K), and he’d get something small and I’d pay for it. I had a paper route, so I was Mr. Money back then. I also had a short career selling Jolly Ranchers before they were easy to find in Winnipeg; since my mother paid for my supply, my expenses were basically nil! But that friendship worked, because he didn’t pressure me to pay, and I knew that he would have paid me back if he could. I had one friend who cost me substantially more than $5,000, and I don’t think there’s any remorse there. But I’m lucky now, because as a parent I’m perpetually cheap. Whereas five years ago I’d take ten people from a bar out to a $100 meal at 3am (a few of whom I’d never met before), now I actually cringe at the notion of spending five bucks on anyone else. That’s called personal growth.

It’s nice to reminisce (I spelled that correctly on the first try!) about the past, now that I don’t feel as insecure as I did back then. But the truth is, I’ve lost touch with dozens of close friends over the years, and I do miss a handful of them quite a bit. I think another person has just been added to that pile, and that makes me sad.