Well, another year of college goes into the books and what it year it was. However, despite having such a great year, I find myself in a pickle (yeah thats right…a pickle) in terms of living situations next year. I had intended on sticking around here, in this apartment for the next year, but given the fact that my roommates are just about the sloppiest people I have ever encountered, I think it might be best for me to move out. Plain and simple, I want to upgrade. I want to live in a place where people from out of town feel comfortable when they come visit me, a place where I can throw parties (think “parties” not great gatsby-like galas…idiot) and have girls come over and not feel grossed out or uncomfortable. Now I know I am on a shoestring budget here in college and I always laugh at all these young kids who once they have one year left to go, get some sudden urge to go out and buy a condo or a expensive townhouse, only to find themselves a year later out of school, without a job and up to their neck in mortgage payments. I have no interest in such, which is why returning to the lodge makes alot of sense on the surface. However,  let’s weigh the options…………….

Move to: St Pete

Advantages

Closer to work and family.
Save hundreds a month on gas ( thanks alot George)
Live in a city I actually like
Way better area
Nicer, more intimate campus setting

Disadvantages

Roomate? I know close to nobody that would move to St. Pete with me
Friends? I know a handful of people in St. Pete, but nobody out of my usual weekend crew. Would this mean I would have to drive to Tampa just to go out and have a good time?
Potentially more expensive
Miss out  a bit on “college experience”, especially during football season.

Stay in Lodge

Advantages

Cheap…dirt cheap
No furniture to buy
Already settled in

Disadvantages

Dirty apartment
Hassle of looking for visitor spots
relatively small room
Dreary area

So basically the point being that my “pickle” is something which I have much to think about. I really want to move to St. Pete, but would miss out on alot by doing so. Perhaps it is time to grow up and sacrifice friendships for the greater good of convenience and comfort?

Behind all this, probably the real reason I woke up a 7 am the night after my birthday, hung-over and exhausted  and somehow felt like typing was discussing (my new favorite “thinking out loud”….) about how a friendship with someone that I have always admired appears to be heading sour. For close to six months, I constantly brought up that I wanted to move in with a buddy of mine, to my surprise, he would say things like “alright” and eventually, “definitely”. This was obviously a subject that had meant a great deal to me as if I have to live in this pigpen next year, I swear…Anyways, for close to 4 years now, this “friend” of mine, who is someone I have always admired for his well-known genuine, brutally honest, “tell-it-like-it-is” personality, has grown to become one of my most important friendships. Spending the majority of weekends with someone for 4 years will do that to you, it will. Anyways, I have recently realized that I do not achieve or gain anything, from being this person’s friend. I have always felt that in time, I could almost become brothers with this person, due to a mutual admiration for all the great times that have been had over college, someone I could call some 20 years down the line and have a drink talking about all the crazy times that we used to have and  as old men, cannot have anymore. This may sound a bit selfish and you may even be saying to yourself “You seems to expect the same out of his friends as he would with a girlfriend”. I really don’t, but when you dedicate so much time to something, I feel you should at least gain or acquire something from it and what saddens me is that I don’t.

The point of this is that the final straw occurred at a birthday party recently, where I brought up the fact that since our leases at lodge had to be resigned somewhere in the near future, we needed to start thinking about places to live. Now at no point, was there ever an “official” agreement to live with this person, but what was said next shocked me:

“No man, you’re out. No way, I can’t live with you”

Perhaps it was the enormous margarita I had just drank and even besides the fact that there was a good chance he was joking, I took major offense to the comment. Imagine being a friend of someone that you are around so much that practically all of your tagged Facebook photos are with that person, someone who you’ve always been around for,  weekend after weekend, even when they were clearly depressed, even going as far as letting some of your female friendships, people you love, deteriorate a bit just because that person doesn’t want to be around them anymore, even gladly taking a back seat when friends who were never around for four years decided to show up, even creating so much association with this person that when you went out people would ask you “How’s [name] doing?”, “Where’s [name]?”….you get the point, I have treasured this friendship because I felt it was one of value because of how much I have put in to it and to see it go to waste has turned to be disheartning…

I had been talking about this for close to six fucking months and with one fucking sentence I get shunned completely. It was like all of my assumptions had came true. I may sound upset, but I am more disappointed than anything, ( ah man I sound like someone’s dad right there) disappointed that clearly nothing I have done or will ever do will make my friendship stronger with this person. I have always admired people like my friend who march to the beat of their own drum, who do not follow the crowd, the great visionaries and leaders of this world, but I find that maybe these people who “are their own best friend” have figured out something, that we all haven’t. As much as you may think  writing blog entries to the 12 or so collective people that read this stuff may sound otherwise, I don’t need anyone in this world to fill any sort of void in my life. I could care less to keep friendships with people who not only don’t appreciate me, but who refuse to let others get close to them. Now I know people change, you go through friends like water in this day and age and this is all merely a fact of life. Hell, if I stayed in touch with the people I was friends with in middle school and high school, I would be probably be stuck in Rhode Island, working at some gas station, still rocking out to metallica and becoming a classic example of a “townie”; that proverbial case of that guy from high school that never grew up, showing up to the reunion trashed, hitting on the girls he used to think were hot, despite the fact she is too busy out there accomplishing things, you know like a family and a uhhhhh career. God knows if I was still hanging around with my middle school ruffians (had to use that word)  I would either be living in some relative’s basement, flipping burgers some where or worse, in prison. Friends truly come and go for a reason and people who don’t realize this (which makes up a hefty percent of the population I assure you) become stuck in their ways and can end up living very meaningless and sad lives, lives that never progress.  However, I guess I always hoped this particular friendship would be much more than that. I was wrong and perhaps everyone we meet turns into that “kid in my ninth grade gym class”, “the hot girl with the big boobs that  works at Blockbuster” ” Greg, you know, down in accounting?” . Who knows maybe things will get better, but for right now, not only do I need to start figuring out a place to live and definitely need to question the friendships I have but…..I have to go watch the first place Tampa Rays!!!!

You like that last sentence? I very well might start getting rid of the trademark “thought- provoking-dramatic-statement-to-finish-a-entry” last sentence that I have become so accustomed to…..