Don’t be a pretend boyfriend’s friend girl

Who’s to blame when guys allow themselves to become pretend boyfriends to friend girls?

Do you know what I’m talking about? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three guys I know who’ve had friend girls for whom they act (and get treated) like pet dogs.

Each plays out the same. Normally he’ll be so self-respecting and cool. Then he bonds with some girl, single, who talks like they’re special friends. She may even refer to him as her husband or boyfriend — as a joke. She asks him for a lot more time than his other friends do. He is suddenly likely to be seen accompanying friend girl at grocery and hardware stores.

The guy will put up with endless crap from her and even start cooling to other friends the girl doesn’t like. He didn’t go out much before, but now his dating life completely peters out. It’s as if the guy is in love, but he insists he’s not.

Maybe that’s the truth. Maybe he just feels special BECAUSE of friend girl’s high demands. Like, he feels chosen to be depended on or something. I don’t know. But it’s sad, especially when he ditches his real friends and dating life for the friend girl.

I think this gentleman might talking about a way-less-pathetic but similar situation from another angle. See paragraph 2. He might have been a mild version of the pretend boyfriend to those friend girls.

And I’ve probably been some pretend boyfriends’ mild version of the friend girl.

No, I know I have. There were no “husbands” (I’d never call a friend that because it’s just dumb-sounding), but I’ve asked certain guys to spend a LOT of time with me, knowing they would always say yes even if they had something better to do. I may have asked for more time than I would gladly repay.

I really hope I’ve outgrown that. And I hope the real-life boyfriend is not the only reason.

‘Cause I feel a little sick now when I see my guy friends go down that road.

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A crossing of paths

If you ever feel like no one understands what you’re going through, you should meet my honorary sisters. Bee and Tee. My girls. The inner sanctum of best friendsness.

Bee and Tee have never met each other. But all summer they have been finishing each others’ sentences. And I really don’t know my lines in this dialogue.

Bee/Tee: It’s been more than half a decade in this relationship, and s/he’s still not ready to commit.

Me: Well … hmmm.

Seriously, what do you say to that?

Tee and her girl got back together this summer after a break-up, but the girlfriend wants it to be a “casual relationship” — a barbed perimeter after living together for years. And Bee’s boy still vacates the premises whenever her parents come to town. Shouldn’t the parents’ good graces kinda start to matter after so many years?

I can see why they’re impatient. Sure, I know people who dated for 6 or 7 years before settling down happily. Like, two people.

And I know others who went through all those frustrating years only to cut their losses, spend months in pain and start looking again. A few found someone better, a few haven’t.

And then there’s the 100 pound elephant in my head: WHO ARE THESE IDIOTS WHO SNAGGED THE TWO GREATEST GIRLS ON EARTH YEARS AGO AND STILL NEED TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT?

Both Bee and Tee seem to be waiting for some revelation that will assure them they won’t regret staying OR they won’t regret leaving. They want to be sure. That makes sense.

But how long will that take?

I know friends are supposed to smile and be supportive. But what do you say when people you love are getting less than they deserve?

Heart

It’s been a hard week for Chris and Sarah.

Chris is the friend mentioned in yesterday’s post. Sarah is his wife.

Sarah has severely progressive MS. She was a gymnast in high school. When she and Chris met in their mid-20s, she was using a walker and living in a nursing home.

She’s been pretty much quadriplegic since they got married. Chris would walk beside her and steer her wheelchair.

But she got out of the chair for the wedding:

Chris and Sarah know about real life. And these last few days have come down to the cells.

On Sunday, Sarah could not open her eyes or show any other signs of waking. She opened her eyes Monday, but she was totally paralyzed and could not talk. Yesterday she had an MRI and a spinal tap.

Here is Chris’ latest update.

The MRI didn’t turn out good. Sarah just had the spinal tap, and we should have the results in a couple of days. To be truthful, this looks like the last stage of multiple sclerosis. She’s been entirely unresponsive all day, even when her eyes are open. They are open now. I’m just going to sit next to her, rub her head, and talk to her until we both can fall asleep.

Above acrophobia

If you’ve ever strayed outside of your comfort zone, you’ll understand why I’m so proud of my friend Theresa.

Theresa went back to Michigan yesterday after a week in Utah. It was her second trip west of the Mississippi. It was the first time she’d ever seen a mountain.

Many of us Utahns are here because of the mountains. Seeing them is a comforting reminder that adventure is near. Driving into them is like Christmas morning.

For Theresa, driving into them was more like driving into a black hole. She fidgeted in her seat as we drove into the Stansburys for a weekend at Deseret Peak.

“People shouldn’t be here,” she muttered. Click, click, click of the camera. More fidgeting. “I don’t know how I feel about this.”

The hike, for me, was a walk in the park. We took a gradual ascent through wildflowers and tumbling brooks below a blue sky and limestone cliffs.

Theresa’s fun was more halting. She tiptoed delicately around rocks I’d just stomp over. She made feeble pleas to turn back at the first stream crossing. We pressed on, and she later said Deseret Peak was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

But with each obstacle, I saw more clearly how uncomfortable this was for her. She grew up in urban Flint and spent her vacations in cities. She probably never before had crossed a river without a bridge or stepped on a rock higher than her knee. Even in Iowa I spent a lot of my childhood playing in the woods, crawling on logs tipped over streams, hiking down small ditches that we called “cliffs.” It was what we did. It was the only reason the hike was easy for me.

By the time we reached the final water crossing, I realized this was Theresa’s equivalent of leaping over Class 4 rapids (boyfriend blocking her view of the scary stuff):

That is someone mustering a lot of courage.

We were in and out of the wilds all week. Each trip was a new challenge.

The rocks got wet in the rain above Red Butte Gardens.

You don’t have to be a city girl to feel agoraphobic in the salt flats.

But it was on Guardsman’s Pass, the highest road I’ve ever driven, that I understood how far Theresa had pushed herself. As we rounded a curve, she threw her jacket over her head and began to hyperventilate.

“Scenery’s pretty good up here,” I said. “Sure you want to miss it?”

“I can see it in pictures,” the jacket said.

Here you go, Theresa. You earned it.

The creative fruits of recession and Ten High

No one can remember how we got to Pink Soap Guy. Campfire talks exist in that kind of vacuum.

It was Theresa’s second camping trip ever. She and I are friends from Michigan, and she flew to Utah for a week of recovery after being laid off. We drove out to Deseret Peak, pitched our tents and settled around the fire pit with a plastic jar of whiskey. We jabbered away about God knows what until I somehow got excited about pink soap.

“You know, that pink soap that smells funny, and they put it in all the little bus bathrooms —”

“My high school had that soap!” Theresa shouted. “In every single bathroom!”

“My school had that soap! And every restaurant and office and—”

“Pink soap! The pink soap that’s everywhere.”

“Pink soap,” I repeated. “Wow. Whoever made that soap must be a bajillionaire.”

Theresa fell quiet and stared at the fire.

“What if he’s not?” she said somberly. “What if he came up with the soap, and someone else is making all the money? And now he gets all sad every time he goes to the bathroom. He tries to tell people he made the soap. He calls the newspaper, and they say he’s crazy. Every time he washes his hands he gets more and more upset. It’s so sad for him.”

This is the kind of storytelling you have to expect when you give Ten High to an unemployed Michigander at a campfire.