Bonus Chapter: The "Best Friend"

One of my favorite movies as a youth was Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I won’t bore you with a full synopsis of the film, but within it is an urban legend of a man who jumped off a mountain to make a wish come true. At the end of the movie, the anti-hero, Jen, meets her lover stop a mountain and asks him to make a wish. He asks to return to the place where they first met in their past. Jen jumps to her death, to fulfill his wish, her lover left in sorrow.

This movie made me sad and angry as a child. Jen ruined so many lives in this tale, and just kills herself at the end. But in the years of life since I first watched that film, I've come to find she was right. Her lover made a wish that could not be fulfilled any other way. After her crimes, she no longer was the innocent, naïve girl that he first met in the desert. She in asking that question she confirmed that he loved the memory of her, not who she was at that time. And so, in her death she gave him a chance, to forever let her be a memory of a love long past.

Too many times in life we love people for who they were at a specific time and place in our lives, refusing to see who they are now, versus who they once were.

I always thought Zero would be in my life. In fact for many years, I considered him one of my best friends. He was the first person that I felt affinity towards in college, and I remember out adventures together fondly. But as the years went on, things changed. Or maybe they were always different and I just refused to acknowledge it. We lived in separate parts of the state, but whenever we reunited over phone or in-person it was like no time had passed. In hindsight, we spent hours chatting about him and his life. But it was understandable because his life was always in a much more turbulent place at that time.

I couldn't see what others my the wider circle always warned me about. Zero had a negative reputation with my other college friends. He was known to cancel people, and more than one person had noted to me that he was dismissive towards them. But I never had that experience with Zero, so I excused and explained it away. Maybe Zero didn't vibe with them like he did with me. Or maybe they were just not a good conversationalist with Zero like me. I was special.

Until I wasn't.

What I realized in hindsight was that Zero had a reputation for a reason. It wasn't until I was part of the wave of disrespect that I could see it.

For 15 years, I showed up for Zero. I would take his calls for hours when he needed to chat, and drive out to see him despite my travel anxiety. Even if I was tired, burnt-out, exhausted, I gave him my time, because I thought he'd do the same for me. I gave and gave and gave, and I didn't mind that I received so little back, because I was chosen by him.

That was until, my so called perfect life started to crash down. When I was going through my divorce, I needed to occupy space and take up more of the relationship with Zero. Then the discard started. I felt it acutely, because it was a very similar feeling to what I felt with Severus. Finally things came to a head after a night out with Zero.

This time he had came to me, and we went out for dinner. While out I was sharing a update that a former mutual friend had shared with me about someone I had dated very very briefly. I said I felt weird about the full update. I told Zero that I would only share part of it with him. What I shared with Zero was that the person had transitioned. I didn't share the other part, that this person had cheated on their wife and then blamed their partner for the cheating, saying that they were being unavailable. Worse, the way this person cheated was using a illegal "massage" which this friend ran a legitimate business and hated that those other types of illegal businesses harmed hers. It was yet another ex, with illegal ethical concerns and that's what I felt weird about, knowing that I was attracted to lying, gaslighting men. The transition was public information, the cheating was not, and I did not feel comfortable sharing that at that time. Because I hadn't told anyone, not even Zero about Severus's crimes, and I was not ready for that conversation. I soon found that Zero took me withholding information as a reason to punish me.

Afterwards, Zero left that conversation apparently assuming that because I said I felt "weird" about the update of this person, that I was transphobic (false assumption). However, he never mentioned that to me directly. Instead, he stopped responding to my texts, and stopped reaching out to me. Finally, I called him out on the avoidant behavior, and the first excuse was that he was busy.

When I pushed further, saying I was really in a difficult place in my divorce and needed a friend's support. I said I needed him to be there. What I received back was confirmation that he was indeed pulling away because he had made an assumption that I was transphobic (which again is not true at all) after the last conversation. He also said he wanted to give me the chance to have a conversation to clear up the confusion but didn’t have capacity for that conversation until he finished his own therapy two months later. Until then, I was forbidden to talk or reach out to him.

I cried the whole night. I couldn't believe that I was being accused of such a terrible thing by a so-called friend, and on top of that despite my ask for support, I was being put out in the cold after being deeply insulted.

It was actually an extremely vulnerable and difficult season for me. That was just days from the first holiday season without Severus, the first anniversary of Moon's death, my first wedding anniversary being separated / divorced, first Christmas, first new years, etc. I was also realizing that Severus didn't love me and was actively abandoning me, and here was my supposed "best friend" doing the same. Also I would never expect someone that who truly knows the type of person that I am call me transphobic. It is so against everything I personally believe. And in fact, years prior, I was the one who was lecturing Zero on trans and the choice of surgery being fair options for folks to explore their identities, because as a gay man he didn't understand it.

I didn't hear from him the whole month-long. The new year started and a part of me hoped that he would realize how cruel his so called accusation and boundary actually was. But I soon realized that would not be the case. All I saw was the cruelty, because no matter how hard things were for me, I always made an effort to show up for him in whatever capacity I could.

If my marriage wasn’t ending at the same time, I probably wouldn’t have been paying attention to other relationships in my life, but right in that moment it was forefront.

During my winter of abandonment, I stumbled upon a video by Simon Sinek where he says, when a friend is in a moment of crisis, all they need is really 8 minutes to be heard, validated, and eased of emotional distress. 8 minutes. Yet, here I was being on hold for months for a conversation that could have happened in less than 10 minutes.

I realized Zero had told me, no showed me this pattern, I just had not been on the other end of it. Zero’s first boyfriend had extreme anxiety, and Zero felt like this person needed them too much and drained their energy. Zero had abandoned a supposedly close friend in college that might have had trauma from an assault, but Zero didn’t like that this person was “messy” emotionally and didn’t take their advice. Finally, I had a former colleague turned friend that had a wild night out and turned to Zero for advice. Zero was so triggered by this, that he basically cancelled her and refused to talk to her. So of course, it should be no surprise when I no longer was an emotional pillar for him to lean on, that Zero basically iced me out too. Zero wanted my time and energy for his support, but couldn't respect or care me.

Now that I could finally see what others warned me of, I wanted no part of it. I deserved more than to be put on hold during the most challenging season of my life. It was his choice to leave me waiting for him. I just decided he wasn't the wait and made it permanent. Honestly, this was deeply painful, because I did respect and care for Zero and I thought he was someone who cared for me too. It wasn’t easy to realize that in both my romantic relationship and my friendships, that after over a decade there were these folks that didn’t value me.

During that winter, I saw so many other friends show me the deepest love and care that I'm so eternally grateful for. They literally saved my life, as there were times when I truly could not move forward anymore from the ashes of my life. Those true friends were small, but mighty in their empathy and ability to care. They were friends who remembered the date of Moon's passing and reached out to check in on me. Friends who remembered my wedding anniversary and thought to give me a call or text to make sure that they knew that they were there for me. Friends who opened their homes to me for the holidays because they didn't want me to be alone. Friends who brought me food or gave me money for DoorDash cause they knew I was a depressed mess. Friends who let me vent for the 100x about Severus because they knew I just needed space to be heard and validate my experience after years of gaslighting. These folks gave me so much light, and reminded me of what a healthy friendship is supposed to bring. They showed up.

All of this love, was such a stark difference from what I got from Zero, that I felt comfortable reaching out to him and ending my connection with him. I broke his boundary because I realized that it was a pattern of behavior, and saw from the way he treated others that he couldn't love me in the way I needed anymore. I had started to value myself, my time, my energy, and also I started to value the people who showed me love. I was no longer afraid of losing folks who didn't serve me.

Like Jen, I took the leap, so I could move forward, and we could leave the memories of what once was in the past.