Friendship: A Love Story

When I was a high school freshman, I attended a church dance where I met Steve. To this day, I have no idea what Steve was doing at a dance at my church, but we danced there, and I developed a huge crush. At the end of the evening, we exchanged phone numbers, and he called me the next day. To my dismay, one of the first things I learned about Steve during that phone call was that he had a girlfriend. Steve was a year older than me and attended a rival high school, but his girlfriend, Charla, was in my grade at my school. I didn’t know her, but I instantly disliked her with an intensity only a 14-year-old girl can muster. Considering that Steve continued to call me daily, and we spent hours on the phone together, I don’t imagine Charla liked me much better.

Steve and I lasted many years longer than Steve and Charla. By the time they split up several months later, the bond between Steve and I was formed. There was no separating us. As friends. Never again did we visit the crush/dating issue. We dated pretty much the entire circle of each other’s friends, but never each other. This was the best possible outcome because Steve became the best friend I ever had. (OK, the best friend I ever had and didn’t marry.)

We did not have one thing in common. I was short, brainy, college-bound, grade-focused, and had no self confidence. He was tall, had no interest in school whatsoever, and was overflowing with self-confidence. I was overly contemplative; he was an absolute jokester. My parents had been married forever. His mom was single, and he refused to ever discuss his dad at all. I was nervous sneaking a sip of beer. He was perfectly comfortable with a bottle of Jack in one hand and a joint in the other.

Yet Steve treated me with absolute kindness and respect 100% of the time, and he insisted that others did, too. For my 17th birthday, I got chicken pox. Steve, who shared a car with his working mom, rode his bike more than 10 miles to my house (over road that was not particularly bike-friendly) with a single serving of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup in hand to bring me lunch on my birthday. Without calling to tell me he was coming first because he wanted to surprise me. This was totally normal for him, but it was the single kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. He knew everything there was to know about me and never once criticized or judged. Occasionally teased, but never judged.

There was not a single person in either of our circles who understood our friendship.

At some point, when I was about 16, I dated Steve’s best guy friend, Allen, for about five minutes. Allen had the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. Once we started dating, I also realized he was one of the nicest guys I ever dated. This is probably why it only lasted five minutes—I would have eaten him alive if we’d gone out any longer. High school encompassed my self-destructive years. If I dated someone who was thoughtful and kind, I treated him like crap until he couldn’t stand me anymore. If I dated a guy who treated me like crap, I fell head-over-heels for him until he broke my heart. (Considering I have friends who continued this pattern well into their 20’s, I suppose I'm lucky that I got smart by the time I graduated from high school. Literally on the day I graduated, but that’s a story for another day…or not.) Considering Allen and I remained friends for several years after our dating experience, we either parted ways before I turned into the Witchy One, or he was truly the nicest guy I ever dated in high school. But even Allen never understood the bond of friendship between Steve and me.

After I graduated from high school, I went off to college while Steve stayed home, worked some, and partied a lot. Now our worlds were really different, and it became harder to maintain our friendship. We tried, but by two years later, when I was 20 and he was 21, he was married with a baby and I was about to head into my junior year at Texas A&M with a serious boyfriend (now my husband of 18 years) and a dying father. Steve’s wife was not too keen on the whole girl-guy best friends thing. Actually, she wasn’t having it, and that was that. Thomas didn’t begrudge my friendship with Steve, but he, like everyone else, didn’t get it and had no interest in helping me maintain it by, say, double-dating with Steve, his jealous wife, and their baby daughter. And our grown-up problems didn’t allow us much energy to fight for our friendship. So we went our separate ways. Technically, it was by choice, and we made a conscious decision to break off our friendship. We didn’t just drift apart. But it wasn’t something that made either of us happy.

Would we have stayed friends for all these years if we hadn’t been coerced into parting ways? Who knows? Probably not. You tend to be friends with people who share your interests, your background, your values. Steve and I shared none of those. But then, we never did, and we were still the closest of friends.

Lately I’ve been thinking of my old pal. Not constantly, but he pops into my head every few months, and I don’t know why. I searched for him on Facebook, but he’s not there. His mother, sister, and one of his brothers are there and would likely remember me. I could contact them. His daughter and what must be his son are there, too, although they, of course, wouldn’t have a clue who I am. I would certainly not contact them. I also found his young wife, who is clearly no longer his wife. But there is no sign of Steve. Now, Thomas has no interest whatsoever in Facebook, and so none of his long-lost friends will ever find him there, either. But one glance at my Facebook page shows our lives clearly intertwined, and more than one of his old friends has found him through me. There is no sign or mention of Steve anywhere on what I can see of these Facebook pages. (Yes, I realize I am outing myself as a Facebook stalker here. I swear I’ve never stalked anyone else on Facebook!)

Today I found Allen. That would certainly be the easiest route to finding out what has happened in Steve’s life over the last 20+ years. But, alas, Allen is not accepting Facebook friend requests, so I can’t contact him, either.

There is something holding me back from contacting Steve’s mom, sister, or brother, and I don’t know what. I think it’s the fear of what might have become of Steve. I pray he’s happily married and living an amazing life. Maybe he, like me, has found faith, happiness, and the American dream.

But what if he didn’t? What if he continued down the destructive path he was starting on when we parted ways? What if his life is bleak and miserable? What if he’s in jail? What if he isn’t interested in knowing about me at this stage of his life? What if…what if he’s dead? I once literally stumbled onto the grave of an acquaintance from junior high. He happens to be buried less than 100 feet from my father. He had been gone for more than 10 years when I found his gravesite, and it had been more than 25 years since I’d last seen him, but the discovery of his tombstone brought me to my knees. And that was just a person I kind of knew when I was 12. I think the loss of Steve, even years after he really was lost, would tear me apart. Without knowing, I can still imagine he’s happily living life out there somewhere and someday we might bump into each other.

Yet every time I put his memories away and go on about my life, he returns to my subconscious a few months later, more insistently each time. Am I supposed to go in search of him? Or am I supposed to let go of a fond friendship from the past and just enjoy memories I am intensely thankful for?

I wish I had a clue.