"Mike": A Friendship Destroyed

Readers will note that I'm not giving autobiographical items in chronological order. I post when I get the feeling that I need to post a certain item. Mark's thoughtful comment to the previous post has moved me to post this story of love in my life.

One afternoon I was taking my break in the company caf, reading some prayers from a prayerbook, when "Mike," a fairly new guy in the office, came and asked if he could join me. I said sure. He asked what the book was and I told him. He said he wasn't very religious. I said he should be: God is important. That's how it began.

He had been raised Catholic and still considered himself Catholic, but he didn't go to church or pray very much. He joined me at just about every break for many months, and we talked about our lives and about God and faith. I got him to agree to read St. Augustine's "Confessions" and we talked about that for a while. In warm weather, we'd walk outside at lunch. We talked about faith and about other things as well. He came to Mass with me a couple of times at a church in Boston, and reported going to Mass one Sunday when he was visiting an aunt in New York.

As time went on I found myself increasingly attracted to him, and I wanted to spend more time with him, so I suggested having dinner on a Friday after work. He agreed, and it became a fairly regular occurrence. Afterwards, he'd join his brother and their roommate for an evening at a bar, ostensibly to pick up girls, and I'd go home to the suburbs. That's what started the trouble, I think. He wanted things to be spur-of-the-moment. My mother and I were living together, and I felt I owed it to her to give her advance notice when I wouldn't be around for supper. So I'd press him to tell me if he would be free on Friday for dinner, and he'd want to keep it open. And I had really fallen in love with him. He may have sensed my deepening feelings and become uncomfortable.

Then he transferred to another office, still in Boston, but 1/2 mile or more away. That ended the breaks together and left only the Friday dinners. Instead of asking in person, I'd have to call, and he'd put off committing. Sometimes we'd end up going to dinner, occasionally not. But in order to make my plans, it seemed I'd have to keep calling, every evening. He started being busy when I called. He'd agree to a get together and then have something come up at the last minute. I was getting increasingly frustrated, and I kept calling.

One time when I called, he said he was busy. I asked when I should call. He said Thursday evening at 10:00. I called Thursday evening on the dot of 10:00 and got the answering machine message saying nobody was available. I knew the friendship was over, but, holding back tears I said it's naturgesetz calling as we had agreed. And of course, he never called back.

Some time later I was taking a mini course in counseling and I read in the textbook that it is a common pattern in all sorts of relationships — family, friendship, lovers, spouses — if one person distances him/herself from the other, and the second person tries to get closer again, the first one just keeps pulling farther and farther away until the relationship is broken. The only way to save the relationship is to let the person have his/her space. With luck, he/she eventually comes closer again; but if not, at least there is still something of the relationship left.

If only I had read that book earlier, I might not have completely ruined the friendship. Perhaps we could have stayed friends. Being in love with him made me even more desperate to hold on when I should have been giving him his space. I only hope that the way I made him uncomfortable in the relationship did not also sour him on the faith.

Several years after he broke off the relationship, I sent an announcement of an important event in my life, via his parents, whose address I had. I got a card that said "Congratulations" postmarked Minnesota. I haven't heard from him or about him for about 12 years now.

I hope he's okay.

Readers can draw their own conclusions. But it seems to me that my orientation and commitment to celibacy did not prevent me from developing a good friendship, which could have endured and been very satisfying if not for personality factors (and there were some on his side too) which were not just a matter of orientation.