friendship

Diego had a son, Jaime moved in with his 40-year old boyfriend, Fernando dropped out of med school, Francisca moved to Canada, Lenny passed away, La China is pregnant, Jenna went back to school, Jonathan fell in love, Karina gained weight, Fernanda is finally a lawyer, Carlos is in jail, Trini cut her stunning red hair, Vincenzo is traveling the world, Mauri finally came out of the closet, Julia’s fiancé died, and El Italiano proposed to his girlfriend. These are all my friends, and although we barely talk, I shared fantastic moments with all of them.

Childhood: Claudia & Taty

The other night, that precise moment before falling asleep, when the head looks for the cold side of the pillow, I thought about my childhood friend, Claudia. It wasn’t a nostalgic moment; it was just a distant memory of a person I haven’t seen in nearly ten years. But because I knew that if I kept thinking about her I would get so anxious that falling asleep would become an impossible mission, I tried to make my mind go blank. But I couldn’t. There I was, rotating in bed and, as usual, counting how many hours I had left until I had to wake up. So, in honor to my impulsivity, I got up, looked for my laptop and made a quick Facebook search to see what was going on in Claudia’s life. I couldn’t believe it: she was married and had two kids.

It was already 1 a.m., so I promised I would only stalk her for a couple of minutes. But anyone who is as nosy as I am would understand that once you look at one or two photos of an old friend, it is quite difficult to stop scrolling. So, I kept going until I discovered that our mutual friend Tatyana had died 2 years ago in a car accident.

“How could I miss that?” I thought. After all, we were all good friends until I was 10 years old, when my dad got a substantial promotion and we could move from Valparaiso to a much better neighborhood in Viña del mar, Chile. And well, aside from moving, climbing the social ladder often translates into putting the kids in better schools and therefore being part of a different social circle. In other words, I moved on and made new friends.

The extremely delayed news about Tatyana’s death left me in shock, so I went to my kitchen, lit a cigarette and thought about all the friends I’ve had throughout my life. There I was, having my first nostalgic moment as an adult.

The next day, I was in one of my favorite classes—macroeconomics—but I couldn’t focus. Looking for old friends on Facebook seemed more interesting than listening to my professor’s lecture about foreign investment in the United States. The idea of having lost contact with nearly all my friends from childhood, adolescence, high school and even college was terrifying.

“I even lost contact with the people I studied abroad in Spain during my sophomore year of college,” I thought. “What’s wrong with me? I can’t keep in touch with anyone”

So, feeling emotionally afflicted, I messaged most of the old friends I already had on Facebook and friend-requested the ones I didn’t. Until today, some of them haven’t even accepted my request. But I don’t blame them—people move on.

Adolescence: Fernando

A couple of hours later, my phone vibrated and I received a notification saying “Fernando Cortes accepted your friend request.” Fernando marked an important transition in my life. I met him at my new school, when I moved to Viña around 14 years ago. All my classmates came from wealthy families, and along with one or two other exceptions, I was the only one who came from a working-class background. I never felt discriminated against or anything along those lines, but once I visited my classmates’ homes, for instance, the difference in our social realities became apparent: while my mom cooked and cleaned our house, their mothers had one or two maids to help with the house chores; while my father took out a mortgage to pay for our new house, they had their main house plus another one near the beach; while we had one car for the whole family, they had three; while I had a membership at the local public pool, they had one at home. Although I was in the same school and had access to the same social circle, there was definitely a difference—a difference I didn’t want anyone to notice. I was a kid, but I was already aware that I didn’t want to be the bourgeoisie or the new rich. Fernando was one of the wealthy kids, but unlike many of them, he was such a humble person. He was good at everything, including math, science, writing, sports and so on. Within a week at my new school, we bonded and quickly became best friends.

With Fernando, we experienced a lot of our “firsts” together: our first time watching a porn movie, our first demonstrations of loyalty, our first time getting drunk, and our first real party. I was even expelled from our ridiculously strict Catholic school, but we were still inseparable after that unfortunate event. However, when I came out of the closet and met new people with whom I thought I had more things in common, I took a different path; I immersed myself in the gay scene, as I was curious and wanted to meet more people who understood what I was going through. Fernando and I kept in touch for a bit, but we wouldn’t religiously hang out every night as we used to during six years. At 16, going out, meeting boys and experimenting new stuff was way more interesting to me.

When we both turned 18 or so, we took the Chilean universities’ admission exam and we both did quite well; he got into a prestigious med school and I got into law. The big difference is that he actually went to med school, unlike me, who moved to Argentina for a boyfriend who turned out to be an escort. Sometime during his freshmen year of college and my sabbatical year in the country of tango, Fernando and I lost contact…and never talked again until a couple of weeks ago.

So now that Fernando had accepted my friend request, I was thrilled to know about his whereabouts in the last six years. But there I was, in shock again. He told me how he hated med school and had to drop out during his fourth year; how he was in a toxic relationship for three years with a pathological liar; how his father couldn’t forgive him for dropping out of university and kicked him out of the house as a punishment; how he was working as a cook for a fast food restaurant and living with his new girlfriend in her parents’ house; and how his grandma, the women who called me every time she made her amazing lasagna, had died from heart failure. I couldn’t believe that this kid from the suburbs, who attended an elite private school, had a car at 17 and had a brilliant future in whatever he decided to do, had done so bad in life. And I also couldn’t believe that I knew nothing about it.

Fernando and I messaged back and forth that week, but the constant communication became unsustainable. Although I was glad to be in touch with him, soon enough I caught myself rolling my eyes every time I received one of his wordy messages. I mean, they were paragraphs and paragraphs of nothing but whining about his misfortune. I’m not proud to admit it, but I blocked him from messenger and never talked to him again. I guess that was our friendship’s real denouement.

Karina, the high school friend and Jaime, the gay friend.

A couple of days after blocking Fernando, Karina, another good friend from high school, messaged me to inform me that she would be in New York for a week. I met Karina at a school that was infamous for its student body: rebel, wealthy kids who weren’t admitted to any of the top private schools in the city. I’m not even exaggerating; the school appeared to be specifically designed for the trashy kids from affluent families in Viña. In other words, the White Chileans with foreign last names that only teachers in private schools could pronounce. The descendants of the Italian, German, Spanish and English settlers who arrived in Chile practically homeless, yet made their fortune thanks to a systematically racist country that favored and promoted European immigration by supplying them with fiscal lands and property. Actually, after 1973, when Augusto Pinochet overthrew democratically-elected President Salvador Allende, violated every constitutional right that one could think of, and claimed Chile’s executive office through one of the most violent coups d’etat in history, they had the chance to become even wealthier.

Karina was one of those Chileans. She was always conceited and spoiled; she was a blonde girl who woke up in Gucci slippers. But as disagreeable as her personality was, she was one of the funniest girls in school. I remember that I always loved hanging out with her. Although I was quite busy the week she was going to be here, “there’s always time to see old friends,” I thought.

“Let’s hang out! I’ll show you around and you can come to my friend’s birthday party with me,” I responded.

“Honey, no need to show me around. This is my fourth time in NY and I probably know it better than you, but definitely yes to house party,” she said.

“How rude,” I thought. But it was ok, because Karina always had a black humor, and I was glad that, at least, she hadn’t changed her essence. I picked her up from her hotel in Chelsea, and before even hugging me, she mocked my “ghetto” new hairstyle and asked me if my red leather jacket was real. I felt astonished. She was considerably fatter, but I was a gentleman and said nothing about it. I felt tense and odd during the first 15 minutes, but as the night went on, and we remembered the good moments, I decided to have a good time. Karina made me realize how much I’ve changed. I wasn’t that shallow high school kid anymore. Although it was fun to hear her talk about our friends in common, saying things like “Francisca dyed her hair blonde and now looks even more vulgar,” I realized that I had moved on. That even though I thought I was one of them, and acted similar because I wanted to fit in, I was not.

At some point, she mentioned Jaime, my gay best friend from Chile. It brought me back to all the crazy stuff we did together. Although we barely talk, I had a great time with him when I was exploring the gay world for the first time. We were both super young, irresponsible, promiscuous and had no limits. He was my partner in crime.

However, there was always some sort of rivalry between us. I used to think that it was only from his side, but years later, I realized that it was bilateral. One day, Jaime got tested for HIV and found out the he was positive. It was the worst day of his life. He called me to pick him up from the clinic, and when I did, he didn’t stop crying for hours. I tried to be supportive, but I must admit that I’ve never been the best at comforting people. Overnight, we stopped hanging out and he made new friends. Frankly, I always thought, and keep thinking, that he resented the fact that we were both equally irresponsible and promiscuous yet I was lucky enough to remain negative. And when I say lucky, I mean it. After all, back then none of us really cared about the risks of having unprotected sex. We were two kids exploring the crazy gay world.

A couple of days after my lovely meeting with Karina, I messaged Jaime, asking how he was doing and what he was up to in life. “Aggiorname[1],” I said. Surprisingly, he was doing more than well; he had a great boyfriend, he had already graduated from university with a bachelor’s in clinical psychology, he moved out of his mom’s house, had a beautiful dog and was planning on going to New Zealand on a Work & Holiday visa.

I couldn’t believe I was happy for him. I mean, I’ve never been an envious person, but I must confess that I never felt truly happy for Jaime when anything good happened to him. For instance, I felt horrible when he was studying at a prestigious university while I was living in Buenos Aires with a boyfriend who turned out to be someone totally different than I thought; I felt some sort of satisfaction when after a bad haircut he had to shave his head and, just like Samson, lost his charm; and I felt some comfort when he broke up with his boyfriend two months after my relationship with the escort failed. But now it was different: I felt truly happy for him. And most importantly, I didn’t feel the need to brag about my own successes in order to undermine his; instead, I just said I was doing fine and that I was about to graduate from college. So, Karina and Jaime, who represent the extremely shallow and superficial stage of my life, made me realize that I had changed.

College and adult life: Jonathan

Although I shared an apartment with my brother when I moved to the US for college, I was quite lonely at first. Like, I never felt the need to have too many people around me; however, my brother and I were too different, and our relationship was, at best, complex. I worked at a Peruvian restaurant back then, and though I got along with my co-workers, we never bonded. So, in order to meet people, I created a profile on a dating website, ignoring that I would meet one of the best persons I’ve ever met in my life. Jonathan and I talked for a couple of weeks, until he proposed meeting in person at a gay bar in the city. I was nervous, but it went great. We had some Fireball shots, hit it off, hooked up and, when we realized that we weren’t compatible, we became exclusively friends. We became so close that, after two years, we decided to introduce our mothers. Even they became friends. We shared thanksgivings and Christmas eves together, his sisters’ graduation parties, trips, my brother’s birthdays and many other wonderful moments. We both filled each other’s empty spaces and, as a result, the relationship became a bit pathological after a while.

During our five years of friendship, I’ve been in a few serious relationships, but I’ve never let any of my boyfriends interfere in my special friendship with Jonathan—and believe me, they’ve tried; however, the minute he got into a relationship, he made it his sole priority and forgot about the rest of the world. I hold nothing against him, because love is important. But it made me reconsider and think about my interpersonal relationships and how some prominent friendships have influenced different stages of my life. It made me realize how I’ve been moving from one friend to another, not only leaving behind a friendship but also an entire chapter of my life.

So, here I’m sitting in front of a computer, listening to a Spanish song about friendship… wishing all my friends the best.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Italian idiom used in Chile and Argentina to say “let’s catch up.”