I’m not sure where to begin. Today, Saturday; June 16, 2012,
at 5:35 pm, a friend of mine asked me if I would be coming along to swim. I had
sat home all day watching interesting science documentaries to pass the time.
It was a hot day. Temperatures in the mid 90’s. I wasn’t wearing anything but
boxers and sweat was dripping down my face onto my chest. Having been home all
day, I replied, “Yea” and that I would be coming. At 6:30 I got to the pool and
sat at one of the chairs in the corner under the shade. Only two others friends
of my friend were there, Varun and David (not my brother). Looking at the pool
and seeing the little kids in there, I stated that playing water polo wasn’t
going to work. I asked them if they’d rather play football. They agreed, although
Varun rather play basketball at night at the lighted courts we played at a few
days ago. Another friend of my friend, Gokul, arrived and we convinced him to
play football. We walked out of the gate of the swimming pool and I see my
friend coming out his minivan. I joked with him, saying that because he was 15
minutes late, we were going to play football- not that he would have really
minded as he played strong safety in high school. I walked back home to change
into basketball shorts, grabbed my football, and headed toward Dilworth
elementary school where we would be playing at.
I told my brother, David, who was out with my mom and sister,
that we would be playing football and we needed him to come to make it six
people. He said he would be there in 20 minutes. The five of us gathered on the
field. My previous attempt by the poolside to convince my friend, Anup, who had
gotten back from UC Davis a day ago to come play had failed. Now Varun decided
to call him in an attempt to convince him to come. Varun hangs up and tells me
that Anup isn’t going to be coming today because he wants to rest his ankle
that he had hurt minorly. I felt like it was an excuse as he played full court
basketball the day before and seemed fine. Looked like we were going to have to
play football with only 5 people. Should we wait 20 minutes for my brother to
arrive? Play basketball instead? Or try to play a 2 on 3 football game? The
decision wasn’t clear and no one stepped up to make a decision. Instead, I
began to talk to my friend about the fundamentals of throwing a football
properly, as I had none. As we discussed, Varun, Gokul, and David walk off
towards the playground. I looked at my friend and said, “What are they doing?”
We laughed about it and continued discussing about football. About 5 minutes
later, the three of them finally walked back towards us on the field and said,
“Well, what are we doing? Are we playing or not?” I replied, “I was waiting for
you guys!” Gokul responded, “Do we really want to play football with just 5
people?” a bit as a rhetorical question. I thought in my head, “probably not”.
All of a sudden, a bit randomly, my friend asks me if I had ever drank alcohol,
as I imagine he knows I tend to avoid parties although having been in college
for two years now. I responded in a softer and quieter tone, “only one time and
it was a bit”. I felt a tad bit nervous and unsure about where this
conversation was headed.
He responds, “What about your social life?” Not liking where
this was going, I responded, “Well, it depends how you define your social life”.
He quickly fires back saying, “Well, if you don’t count weight lifting, or
playing basketball or football with guys a year younger than you…” At this
point I can’t remember exactly what he said but I remember the feeling of
embarrassment and inferiority overwhelming my train of logic and I did not know
how to respond. I remember looking to the side or down to avoid carrying on
this conversation. My friend continuous, “We should have a barbecue and bring
some beer and alcohol, you’ll see, there have been times where Varun,
Gokul,…(he lists all the people we play football save for Anup, my brother, and
I) come over to my house and get drunk and have a blast!” At this point, he was
looking at his friend Gokul and talking about a time when even David (their
friend, not my brother), who is a very quiet individual, having fun and being
stupid. With my eyes fixed towards to side to avoid eye contact, I immediately
began to feel left out, and judged as a guy with no social life. I proceeded to
say, “I do have guys I hang out with besides you guys”. He responds in a
curious tone of voice, “oh really, like who?”- I don’t think he meant to make
it sound like an insult, but I felt like it came across that way a tad bit.
Feeling like I had to prove myself, I listed two friends. One of the friends I
mentioned, I had met only a few weeks ago but I mentioned out of an attempt to
prove myself, and the other, a good friend of mine who I haven’t seen for close
to a month now for reasons I’m not too sure of. This friend, was the friend I
mentioned previously in my posts that I felt really close to, has sadly begun
to drift out of my life for unknown reasons. Perhaps he’s too busy with school.
But we didn’t have that problem while I was still in school and not yet out on
summer- we met up once almost every week when school was in session. I feel
like there has become a lack of interest to hang out with me. I’m almost always
the one to text him to get together even during the school year and now that
it’s summer for me- he’s still in school at a community college for about a
week and a half more- we have rarely texted each other, and even when we did,
his text responses would come back hours at a time. I find it truly hard to
believe that he has all of a sudden become too busy to hang out on Friday or
Saturday nights. Sadly this close friendship I had with him seems to be ending,
especially since he is heading to Davis after the summer. In my private
moments, I conclude that he is most likely choosing to spend his time with
other people. I have texted him saying that, “Tell me when you are free to hang
out”, only to get responses hours later saying that this weekend is a no go.
This is why when my friend brought up this subject of whom I
actually socialize with outside of playing football with them, I felt like a
loser. As much as I know intellectually that I am not, I felt like one. I
didn’t have many friends to begin with, now losing a good friend of mine, and
having my friend I was playing football with expose me tensed up my body and
caused me to become a loss for words. I didn’t want it to seem like the subject
of drinking and social popularity bothered me, but deep down, I was
embarrassed, felt inferior, and slightly angry that he “exposed” me in front of
the rest of his friends.
They finally decided to play basketball and my brother
arrives at the basketball courts. I voice my disdain for basketball now as I
just muscle my way in and toss up a lay-up. As we begin playing the half-court
game at Dilworth’s small basketball courts, I play with little energy and no hustle.
On the outside, it may have seemed like I was apathetic because of my dislike
for basketball nowadays, but deeper down, I was still thinking about and
bothered by the conversation we had on the field. Thoughts would come into my
head as we were playing, thoughts like, “This guy is basing off his definition
of a social life on how much someone parties”. “This guy gets the impression
that I have no friends outside of these guys I play football with”. “This guy
thinks he’s better than me just because I don’t go to parties and drink”. “This
guy thinks that I have no social life”. “This guy thinks that those who don’t
party don’t have fun”. In my mind, these thoughts of my friend believing these
things and judging me for them, made me slightly angry at him. It wasn’t over
though.
After losing the game in which my brother was trying
decently hard in, I went to get a drink from my water bottle. My friend goes
around giving high fives and saying “good game”. Normally this wouldn’t be a
problem if it was conventional after every game. However, my friend only does
it after his team wins the game as a joke and indirect insult to the losing
team. My brother and I are the two best players out of all the individuals we
play with and against, so losing to them, and having the indirect insult slapped
right in front of me, I was hesitant to give him a high five. I reached out my
hand slightly, not meeting his hand out all the way, and forced him to come to
me if he wanted the high five. At this point, Varun, who is standing about 5
feet away from me, asks, “so rematch or what?” I shrug my shoulders a bit while
drinking from my water bottle. Most likely not sure of my slight gesture, Varun
asks me again. This time, I look off into space, ignoring the question, and
drink my water. I walk back onto the court waiting to catch the ball after
being shot and stand there stoically. Prior to the game that we just played, I mentioned
that my friend who guards me fouls a lot. I joked with him that I would count
the number of fouls he has in this game and expect to see the number in double
digits. Now that the game has ended, he comes to me attempting to bother me
about losing the game. I continue to say nothing and begin to walk away slowly.
He follows me and continues. He now realizes that I’m ignoring him on purpose
and says something to the extent of, “look at this guy, he’s giving me the
silent treatment”. I walk away from him again, furrow my brow, and look down on
the ground to ignore him. He continuous to badger me. “He’s just trying to look
determined for the next game!” He walks away from me for a bit, giving me more
space away from him.
I’m standing at the top of the three point arc and this guy,
about three or four feet away from me at the three throw line. Someone asks,
“Well, rematch?” He looks at me as I can see him with my peripheral vision. I
pause for a bit longer and finally annoyed by his harassment, I look at him and
reply, “Does it matter? This game doesn’t mean anything!” Not a second goes by,
and he fires back saying, “oh this guy is mad!” The game ensues. I start out
lackadaisical. Anger boils inside me and after rebounding the ball and clearing
it beyond the three point line, I attack the hoop with ferocity. I check the
ball to him after our team scores and he tosses me a bad pass. I register this
as another insult. The ball rolls at my feet. I don’t pick it up and the ball
rolls back towards him. I am starting to have less and less tolerance of his
disrespect. A few plays later, I pass the ball to my brother who could sense my
anger and annoyance. Being the strongest players on the court by a mile, he
attacked his defender with his strength, posting his defender, also named David,
up. My brother’s emotions got the best of him, as did I, that after missing the
second attempt, he slams the ball against the blacktop. This guy replies, “Hey
these twins have some sort of telepathical connection. When one is mad so is
the other.” At the end of my rope with him, I look up at him, stare at him
right in the eyes, amazed that he has the audacity to keep his mouth running. I
see his smile, and at this moment I knew it was time to walk away. With the
ball in my hand, I turned my back to him, dropped the ball, looked at Varun and
said, “You guys play, I’m done.” My brother immediately followed. We got our
stuff, said, “Let’s go”, and never looked back.
Walking back home, I thought to myself, “this guy just
doesn’t know when to stop annoying others”. This entire time, starting from the
beginning where he inadvertently poked into a sensitive topic for me to the end
where his mouth was running on and on with jabs and indirect insults, I had
enough of him. Odd thing is, I’ve known him since approximately the end of
senior year of high school. I met him at Anup’s birthday and we hit it off
rather well. I knew he had an extroverted and a relative smart mouth
personality at times; however, he was someone I enjoyed bantering with. I
invited him to go to six flags for my birthday in July, the summer post-senior
year. After today, I’m not sure what our relationship will be like, or even if
we will talk to each other anymore. Right after I got home, I prepared to go do
my HIIT run. If this incidence did not happen and I wasn’t fueled by anger, I
would not have had the energy to run. While breathing heavily after my run, I
thought to myself how useful this strong emotion can be as motivation. I am
reminded of the Kobe Bryant Love Me or Hate Me commercial. This is exactly the
type of fuel that can really help me achieve my goals of self-improvement
ironically.
About an hour after I stormed off, I received a text: “Yo
what happened bro? Is it something I said?” From this text, I conclude he does
not even know what upset me. I don’t know if he really doesn’t know what upset
me, or if this is his attempt at an apology. Not knowing how to respond or even
if I wanted respond, I left his text unanswered- mostly out of
self-righteousness. I won’t be playing ball for a long time and I may never
play with them again. I’m not sure where to go from here. I’ve heard of the
saying, “would you rather be right or be happy?” To be honest,
self-righteousness seems like such the right option right now. In the long run,
it might not be. If this friendship isn’t repaired soon, it’s likely the end.
Is this a grudge that I am holding right now? Depends how you define a grudge.
I definitely feel angry at him. I feel justified imagining him suffering in
some way in the future, as evil as that sounds. If it were to happen to him in
reality, years down the road, I might very well feel justified initially
followed by feeling bad for him afterwards.
Tomorrow, Sunday the 17th, my friend Anup is
planning to play ball in the morning with them. He asked if I am coming. I
politely declined, saying no thanks. I didn’t tell him the one major reason I
declined. Friends can be lost fast for reasons known and unknown. It’s ironic
to think that his comment earlier, “We should have a barbecue and drink
together…” is one of the last things we may say to each other. An invitation to
get together to try alcohol one second, and the potential end, less than an
hour later. So ironic. Yes, I know I am in victim mode right now, but only time
will tell how long it will last.
