I
was a freshman in law school when my friend Mike was accepted by a university
in Australia for a master’s degree. He took up Finance, under a scholarship
program given by a prestigious international organization. He had a boyfriend
before he left, but they broke up because they both thought that they’ll be
incapable of maintaining a long-distance relationship.
We’ve
been close friends for a while, so we maintained contact, although mostly
through chat. We spoke with each other about two-three times a week, and
discussed everything and anything under the sun. Mike was usually tipsy, if not
outright drunk. It was in Sydney where he discovered his fondness for red wine,
especially the cheap kind that comes in a box.
Our
conversations usually start with him sending me a private message just so he can
complain about mostly inane, random stuff. I barely listened, since I was
also caught up in my own worries then. Our conversations never really
felt like actual conversations. It was more like we were
delivering monologues, and the other person was just there for the ride.
We both spoke, and neither of us listened.
I
didn’t notice the inordinate amount of glasses of wine he consumed, or the
constant stream of complaints he made. I also don’t think he noticed how
tired I was back then, how frayed my nerves were, how wrong everything
seemed to be for me.
But
the fact that he was there was a comfort, even if he never really understood,
or cared to understand, what I was going through. And it was a few years
later, when he came back, when I learned that he felt exactly the same
way. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t truly listening, or that I had my own
concerns to worry about. The important thing was that I was there, and that was
what he needed at the time.
(He
told me he was suffering from a crippling depression, and could barely function
as, well, a normal human being. In one instance, he did not bathe for
three weeks, and was only forced by his roommates to do so because they could
no longer stand the smell.)
And
it’s funny because, to be honest, I wasn’t being a good friend at the
time. But neither was he. We were both very selfish, and way too
caught up in our own problems. But it didn’t matter. I was there
when he needed me, and he was there when I needed him. And at the end of the
day, that was enough for both of us to get us through those tough days.
