WFW - Friends Tour

I don’t have a lot of ex-friends.  When I form a friendship, the connections grow deep roots, and I hate digging them up.  

But there is one.  

The summer before my sophomore year of college, I was scouting a place to live, and ran into this fantastic old farmhouse about a mile east of Corvallis on Highway 34.  It was HUGE – eight bedrooms for four guys, so each of us had a bedroom and a separate study.  

Anyhow, I met George when I checked the place out.  He was in graduate school in the same mechanical engineering program where I was an undergraduate.  

He was quirky as hell, and had no filters at all.  In most situations, especially at first, it seemed funny.  It very quickly became obvious that he simply didn’t care about the effects of his words or his actions – and that we who laughed at him were enablers.  I am not qualified to diagnose, but his behavior seems to perfectly fit the descriptions of narcissistic personality disorder.  He had an intense need to be the center of attention, and would do or say whatever it took to remain there.  

He moved out after about a year, to move in with Ann, who would one day become his wife.  She is incredibly gentle; intelligent, well-read, and kind.  In a way, they complemented one another.  Both are intelligent, but her sensitive nature offset his thoughtlessness.  With the passage of time, I would visit them, more to enjoy her company than his.  I imagine there were many like me in that regard.  

Eight years later, after I had moved to California, then moved back, and was married, I told him we were going to be parents.  Without hesitation, he responded with, ‘Don’t get too attached; it could die.’  I had known George long enough that there was no delay in my response that if she did, I would kill him.  We both chuckled at this great humorous exchange, but his comment really hit home.  As one who has spent his life catastrophizing, I have lived in fear since the day she was born that this would come true, and his comment didn’t help much.  A couple years later, when my Mother was diagnosed with cancer, I prefaced my telling him with a warning to just listen and to keep his mouth shut.  Uncharacteristically, he did.  

As horrific as his standard behavior always was, I didn’t see much of George, and it mostly didn’t affect me personally, so it didn’t create a breach.  He was just an oddity, even among my menagerie of odd friends.  

I don’t recall how I heard that he and Ann were divorcing.  The rude way he told her would have been shocking for anybody else, but standard for him.  He sent her home early from a vacation in Argentina.  When he got home a couple weeks later, he rang the doorbell and waited.  When Ann answered, he told her he was not coming in, that he wanted a divorce, and that they could work out the details later.  

I was terribly disappointed, but I really try to not judge the inner workings of other people’s marriages … or divorces.  My goal has always been to maintain bonds of friendship with both parties.  But what happened a few weeks later cut the cord with a jagged, rusty blade. 

George called to say he’d be in Vancouver, so we invited him over for dinner.  I didn’t plan to broach the subject of the divorce, and to just wait and see.  The wait was very short.  By the time the wine had decanted, he was on a roll, elaborating about what a terrible wife, and human being Ann is, and how he was lucky to be out of such a terrible marriage.  I was stunned and disgusted, but tried to be as neutral as possible.  After a while, it became clear that George was looking for validation for what he had done, and the he wanted his friends to choose between the two of them.  I didn’t communicate it to him that evening, but his insistence that I decide made the decision for me.  For years, I had shared much more in common with Ann than with him; so it was a choice of maintaining a rewarding friendship, or a complex relationship with an intelligent, but immature man.  

I occasionally have asked mutual friends about George since that evening, but have never sought him out, nor he me.  The validation he sought that night was not forthcoming, which was all he needed to know.  I doubt he grieved losing me any more than I do him.  I wish him well, along with his Argentinian wife, and their child – but don’t feel the need to ever see him again.  

I stay in touch with Ann.  A few years ago, when I was in Bend, I stayed with her and Bill - the wonderful, caring man with whom she now shares her life.