dorkalian?

Got to spend a few moments today with Janus (the stud on the right, circa 2000) and his lovely girlfriend, Beth. I love both of them - we used to spend a LOT of time together, back in the day.

The whole experience got me thinking a little bit about relationship context. We make friends in certain settings, looking through certain filters, and it’s always such a struggle to be able to look at them any other way. Janus was Bill’s best friend and roommate, back in the Northfield days. He and Beth and Bill and I spent a LOT of time together as a foursome … and as close as I ever became to him, he was always “Bill’s best friend” in the friend filing system inside my brain.

In the time since then, we’ve seen each other a few times, most notably when I was back in Minnesota for JBo’s wedding (the chronicle for which begins here). I feel like we always have this brief readjustment period whenever we see each other, where we have to decide who the fuck we are to each other anymore. I love this guy, and I have always loved him, but I feel like there is this sort of … swath … of things which are unsaid that lies between us and prevents us from ever being completely real with each other again. I wish that we could, at some point, break through that and be friends on our own terms, the way Sarah and I managed to do so long ago. She is no longer “Bill’s friend Sarah” to me, she is MY friend Sarah. How did she and I manage to make that change? Where is that line?

In any case, it was wonderful to see the two of them today. Tomorrow morning, I am probably going to be spending some time with a girl I’d like to know as “My friend Lucie” but who will inevitably always be “Bill’s First Serious Girlfriend Lucie” in my mental filing cabinet. I understand why human beings create these labels, but I am really starting to wish I could peel them off without leaving a sticky residue more annoying than the label itself.

Plus, I’m still sick. What the fuck.