A Friend’s Dilemma
I spent Saturday night at my friend Mack’s place in central New Jersey. We drove out to New Hope, Pennsylvania, to party at the Cartwheel, a place I’ve written about before.
Mack is 35 years old and gay. He’s an attorney, and he works as an in-house counsel for a big company and makes a lot of money. He lives in an anonymous condo in one of those anonymous housing tracts that litters central New Jersey. He spends lots of time looking for sex, but other than that, he doesn’t really have any hobbies. Also, he’s on medication, something in the Prozac family I think. I guess RJ would call them “crazy pills.”
We were standing on the patio of the Cartwheel, holding our drinks and talking. He’s frustrated. At 35 he’s never been in a long-term relationship, and he can’t seem to find someone who wants to date him. He can find people to have sex with, and he can find people who want to be friends with him. But he can’t find someone who’s interested in him romantically. He’s overweight — he’s got a paunch, and his face is kind of fleshy below the chin. But he has no desire to go to the gym. Oh, and he only wants to date guys who are under 30 and sexually attractive.
Why can’t he find someone? His body might be part of it, but I think there’s more. Frankly, Mack can be hard to take. He has a loud nasal voice, and he likes to talk, and he laughs at his own jokes and looks at you as he does so, but he looks at you a little too long, as if he’s waiting for a response. It’s annoying. He can also be a know-it-all. Not just that, but he repeats himself. He’ll tell me about something he knows, and then he’ll tell it to me again an hour later, having forgotten that he’s already told me.
He’s actually a smart and funny guy, but he’s insecure and he seems to need an audience. And when I’m with him, I have to be that audience. After a few hours with him it gets annoying, and I become passive-aggressively quiet. He doesn’t know when to shut up.
Last summer, he and I went to a Fourth of July party, and someone asked me what my job was. I hesitated, because I wasn’t sure how to explain it, and then Mack stepped in and explained it. In detail.
He’s my friend, but he can be a tad obnoxious. He just comes on too damn strong. He tries too hard.
He asks me why he can’t find someone who wants to date him, and I suspect that this is the reason. But I don’t know if I should tell him. He’s my friend, and I wonder if I owe him the truth. But who the heck wants to be the bearer of bad news? He’s insecure and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. On the other hand, I don’t want to patronize him.
I don’t know what a friend’s supposed to do in these situations.
Oy, I only have, like, 37 Macks in my life. Well, probably less, but it’s hard to tell: they’re so goddamn irritating that 2 can seem like a platoon.
My personal opinion? Macks don’t change–especially Mack chickenhawks. When the subject’s brought up, they’re prone to agree with your assessments and say something like, “I know, I know, I’m working to fix that,” but of course, six months later, they’ve had dozens of “dates” and scores of sexual encounters and if anything they’re worse than before.
I’ve tried interventions, I’ve tried my own low-tech methods of shock/aversion therapy (9-volt batteries don’t get you very far, lemme tell ya). Short of kidnapping a Mack and sending him into the Peace Corps for a couple of years so that he figures out what’s good and real and important and gains some self-esteen, all you can do is sit idly by and laugh at his jokes.
Too bad you have to drive out to an anonymous housing tract in the middle of New Jersey to do it.
Good luck.
“I don’t know what a friend’s supposed to do in these situations.”
Um … hope he doesn’t read your blog? Or hope he does?
I guess the question that ran through my mind as I read this entry (other than “Why can’t I ever think of anything to write in my blog anymore,” but that’s not your problem) was: Why do you consider this guy a friend? If he’s really that irritating, why are you wasting your time putting up with his problems?
Maybe that sounds really obnoxious and bitchy, but … from where I stand, life’s too short to spend your Saturday nights being an audience for someone you don’t find particularly amusing or interesting.
No, he doesn’t read my blog… I’m not *that* crass.
We’re friends because there are some good things that counter the bad things. Despite the annoyances, we do connect. We’re both gay Jewish lawyers from New Jersey, and our lives are parallel in some ways. And last year I lived in his guest room for six months because I needed to move out of my apartment, and we made pretty good roommates, strangely enough.
Anyway, these days I only see him once every couple of months or so.
I felt a strong reaction to this post because, in a lot of major ways, I *am* Mack. The physical description, the lack of self-esteem, are right on. Plus, I just came out, so finding my way in these new circumstances, shall we say, has been confounding.
I guess I would say that there are ways to talk about these issues with him, and we all have friends who do things that drive us crazy. But friends are a precious commodity, not to be taken lightly, in my experience. Those connections are worth some annoyances.
I think that you’re doing what you can right now. Friendships aren’t easy but sometimes we push ourselves too hard. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Keep being a friend because that’s the right thing to do. And don’t feel guilty about not fixing your friends’ life…just love your friend because love is love romantic or not.
situations like these only get resolved smoothly in movies. mack probably knows what his problems are; he’s not stupid. you could have a session w/ him and a wine bottle where you try to get him to face to the truth, but most likely you’d just end up w/ a tear-soaked shoulder and a bad nite’s sleep.
since you only see him once every two months or so, i don’t think you’re obligated to be that bearer of bad news. if he asks about love again, tell him honestly: it’s random, it’s unpredictable, no one really knows anything, and the best thing anyone (hint: he) can do is just be open.