I have had three very long term friendships with boys for whom I’ve never met. And yet, they are really three of my best friends. They have heard a little about each other but they each have never met the others. I have very good relationships with all three.
Brandon is the person I refer to as BraN. BraN lives in London, England. We met on Freetel over 8 years ago. I believe it was in 1999. He played techno music for me while we simultaneously chatted to each other on black screens with green text. I have always loved his South African/English accent and he’s always ranked as the absolute nicest person I have ever met to date online. I once wrote a poem about him that included the line “you are like a giant smile” because he is. He’s the personification of all things good. He’s always happy and cheerful and optimistic and those are three things I have always wanted to bottle up and take as a pill for myself since those are the three things I struggle the most to be. BraN and I speak every few months via email and it’s always a pleasure to hear from him. One time I lamented the notion of trying to be friends with someone so far away. He responded, “You never know when you’ll be in London and you’ll be glad you have someone to call.” This attitude about friendship has taught me so very much over the years. BraN recently got married to his long time girlfriend Michele. I’m very happy for him and I think they make a great match from all that I’ve been told about her. The thing I often love about BraN is that somehow he comes around just when I need a happy smiling face to make me in turn smile. He’s a person that I can go months upon months not speaking to and then go on to have the years best conversation with, just when I need that the most.
Bryan and I speak on a weekly basis. Mostly I call him Bry or Bwyan. And usually that’s in a long naggy kind of way “Buttt Bwwwyan…” when arguing my points. We mostly talk about current events, (hey did you hear about the astronaut who wore diapers while trying to go off her man’s other woman?” “yes, but did you hear about the girl that bit off her boyfriends lip while kissing him?”) Our friendship is based upon debate. We debate everything. We debate politics, movies, books, current events (that’s a big one..yup) and we discuss our current situations and our goals and all those things. We have never been romantically involved. (At all!) Bryan is over ten years older than me and he’s divorced, has been for a long time. He truly helped me a lot when I was going through the bad former marriage and the subsequent divorce. He gave me advice, some of which I took, some of which I didn’t. For years he lived in a motel room and I spent years trying to get him to move out, move on and let go. He was angry for a long time over his divorce. He, like me, is much better now. He now tells me about his girlfriends. The last one talked like the person in the “Rrrrufffles have Rrrridddgges” commercials and he would call me up to tell me the funny stuff that she said. He would ask her what she was doing and she would say, “I’m buzzzzzzyyy worrrrrrking.” I never fail to laugh when I speak to Bryan because he’s far more conservative and religious minded than I’ll ever be but he’s silly personified. He finds humor in everything. I sent him a text message the last time I was in the doctors office asking him to entertain me as I was bored waiting. He sent me back a text message that said, “poof you are entertained”. I could just picture him with a magic wand turning me into “entertained”. It made me laugh. Perhaps laughter is the foundation of any friendship? I’m not sure. Bryan and I have had many huge arguments and slamming off of cell phones ensued but we always manage to get over it and speak again. I think we just respect each other and enjoy our whacky conversations.
Brad is the person I often refer to as “him”. Brad and I speak more and more rarely than we used to. Mostly I have reached a point with him where I realize that when I talk to him it’s going to be me sitting around listening to Brad talking about Brad. He has been successful with his medical supply business and I’m happy for him, however I have grown farther apart from him. I do include him in the three B Musketeers because I do call on him from time to time to discuss career decisions and the like. For the most part I think he has changed and not all of those changes have been entirely for the better. Some yes. Some no. Brad also has a girlfriend who can’t for the life of her figure out how to take care of herself and therefore she is his liability in most all ways. She works for a daycare, that came after she dropped out of college without a degree. This is all fine, however for years I listened to how quitters were bad and how I had to set goals and reach them and have a “no excuses” attitude. He’s basically right but then he lives with someone who is the polar opposite of everything he preached to me about for years. It has all taught me that no one is without fault and most often people say what they would or wouldn’t do in a situation and it’s all bunk because they’ve never been in that situation. When they are, they never do what they tell you that you should do. Brad’s a good guy and he’s got his head screwed on right except for when it comes to women, he picks the wrong ones all the time. He will also probably never marry her and refers to everything “they” have as “his”. I see now, years later, that while I clung to him for a long time so that I personally would not drown, he is certainly far from perfect. I include him in my Trinity of B’s because he changed me. He encouraged me when everyone else was kicking me in the head and for that, I will not forget. I am a different person, yet for him, like the proverbial parent, he only see’s the person he got to know, not the person I have grown into. He stopped investing his efforts into me once I got it together because I stopped going to him for anything.
Brandon, Bryan and Brad oh my!
It recently occurred to me that the three B disciples came into my life at a crucial time. They were unexpected, unasked for, and certainly at times under or completely unappreciated. Of the three, I speak to Bryan the most often. Mostly because Bryan is single and can take my calls without pissing off someone he wants to disrobe later that same day.
I could talk for hours about the B trinity…but I just wanted to document that I’m fully aware of how much they changed me, helped me, supported me and mentored me…each equally but differently. Friendship is good.
