Allow People To Be Who They Are

I had a friend in college that everyone else swore was gay.  He could have been, I don't know. He denied it, so the crew and I backed him on it.  When I say crew, we rolled about eight deep.  Seven girls and one very well dressed guy, we moved as a pack.

All of us ladies lived in one dorm and William lived in a dorm across the way. Our dorms were connected by a common area that included a dining room.  We were a lively bunch that held court for hours, especially during dinner.  Of course, we couldn't go to dinner until I had watched Jeopardy and William had done his latest dance routine in the hall, cheered on by anyone who happened to be around at the time.  Even though members of the opposite sex had to be escorted at all times, the women in our dorm were comfortable enough with William that they would often bring him up on the elevator and let him find his way to our door.

We were a happy crew, but occasionally one of us would run into some dude that said he couldn't hang with us because of "your boy."  We were young, we were innocent, we were clueless.  We embarked on a mission to drag him out of the closet.

We asked Rosie, the no nonsense straight shooter of our group, to just ask William if he was gay.  She refused.  We dropped hints while watching TV like, "It wouldn't even matter if one of our friends was gay, he would still be our friend."  All of this in hopes that William would open up and come on out of his walk in closet complete with racks of shoes.  At most he'd comment that the thought of some man touching him was just icky.

So for four years we hung tough as a crew.  We'd follow William around the mall for hours while he shopped for the right pair of socks to match a fleck of color in his tie.  Yes, while the rest of us were rocking last week's dirty sweatshirt turned inside out and a pair of sweats, William went to class in dress slacks, a long sleeved shirt and a tie every day.  He got manis and pedis on the regular while the rest of us were happy to just remember to splash a coat of polish on. 

We were no closer to an answer the day we graduated.  William was a year behind half of our crew.  The fall after I graduated I got a call from Rosie saying that William no longer hung with the rest of them.  He'd found a new crew, a crew of guys that everyone on campus thought was suspect.  Later in life a few of them came out, one got married (to a woman), and others we lost track of. 

So is William gay? Rosie runs into him occasionally and dropped by his house once.  She noticed that all of his pictures were of one man, including one on his night stand.  I've decided that it still doesn't matter.  Obviously there are some parts of his life that he's comfortable sharing with some people and other parts with other people.  He still does the percolator like no one else I've met!

Friends Don't Let Friends Take Home Ugly Men

The top shelf in my dorm looked like it was sponsored by Picadilly's, the local campus liquor store.  It didn't matter that I didn't become legal until my last year on campus.  If there was liquor to be had, I had it.  I didn't drink through out the week, but come Friday night, it was a ritual for me and the crew to imbibe right before we headed out to whatever union party or frat party was the place to be that night.

Renee was the bartender on most occasions and her concoctions found me dancing on top of the speakers at the Alpha house one night.  Those same drinks had us stumbling out of there at 5:00 a.m. trying to figure out if her dorm or mine was closer.  Renee was a fighting drunk, I was a dancing drunk.  Our rule was one of us can get sloppy with it, but not both of us.  Someone had to stay sober to ensure that both of us made it home safely.  As long as she wasn't fighting, I could get my dance on.

I had an affinity for a certain frat and one year their frat house ended up down the street from my dorm.  Unlike some fraternities with stable residencies, these guys just found a house they could afford each year and it promptly became the frat house.  So here I am giddy about the fact that not only was the house in close enough walking distance that I could stumble home without difficulty, but some guys from my home town would be attending as well.

This fraternity was known for their potent drinks and it was my turn to get my drink on, so Renee stood by as I did so.  I don't remember a lot about the night except that I ended up thrown over the shoulder of a fraternity dude out to prove to me that he wasn't as mean as he looked.  I also remember meeting Big Daddy Woo Woo and promising to road trip to his school, 45 minutes away, in the near future for their big founder's party. 

Watching all of this go down was Carl, you know, the guy from my home town.  Carl had been an escort in my debutante ball in high school and his cousin was my brother's best friend.  So in my mind, he was like family.  When he asked for my number, I gave it without a thought. At some point Renee and I stumbled back down the street.  Even though her room was two doors down from mine, she noticed that my roommate was gone for the weekend and decided to stay with me just to make sure I didn't puke all over the place. (Side note: I never puke). 

The phone rang at some point during the night and I heard Renee telling Carl that no, he couldn't come over and if he was still in town later, she'd let me know that he had called.  What my drunk butt didn't know, but what Renee understood, was that Carl had watched me get toasted in hopes that he could creep on by later for a little easy action.  Yeah, Renee was trifling as all get out most of the time, but she had my back when it really counted.

Lesson learned: Friends don't let friends take home ugly men.  Being a designated driver applies in any situation where drinking is involved, even if you're walking.

Disclaimer: By no means do I condone underage drinking, but if you must drink, drink responsibly.

You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Be My Friend...but It Sure Helps!

At some point every one will have a friend that makes you question why you're friends with them.  For me it was Renee (the names have been changed to protect the innocent).  We attended a summer program together in high school, but attended different high schools so I only knew of her through the program and rumors that floated back to me.  What I had heard was that she slashed her boyfriend's tires, bust the windows out his car before Jazmine Sullivan was even thought of, and was always ready to fight.  I had never witnessed any of that first hand and it just didn't fit with the image she portrayed when I did interact with her.

I attended a college with no less than 40,000 students and that was just in undergrad.  Renee attended the same school and as a small town girl it was comforting to see a familiar face on campus.  We stayed in dorms on opposite end of the campus, but it wasn't uncommon for us to make the trek to either's dorm.  Renee was the life of the party and the men loved her, sometimes just a little too much.

The first time I got a call from her saying, "I need you to go somewhere with me right quick" I didn't think much of it.  We could have been going to the mall, out to eat, whatever.  Oh, but no.  Where we were going was to the dorm across the street from mine to confront some dude who had apparently been cheating on his girlfriend with Renee.  The girlfriend came up with some STD and dude decided to blame it on Renee.  Chaos ensued and Renee flagged her "I'm clean as the board of health" paper from the clinic in the air, which led both women to realize that there was obviously a third woman involved.  After Renee windmilled him, she happily pronounced her work done and we bounced.

To this day I don't know how Renee knew the guy and his girl were there together, though I suspect one of his instigating frat brothers called her.  So while Renee and the frat boys were well aware of the situation, I was the only clueless one in the bunch.  All I could do was stand there dazed and confused.  After that I always learned to respond to "I need you to go somewhere with me right quick" with "And where would that be?"

On another occasion I was in Renee's dorm room when her on again, off again boyfriend showed up.  They were off again and he was there to pick up 'stuff' he'd left in her room.  We all know this can be a game.  The picking up of the stuff can lead to talking, trying to ease back in, whatever.  So like a third wheel, I'm sitting at her desk while they make small talk and his chances of getting back with her are sounding good.  Out of nowhere he makes a comment about her father and the next thing I know, the room has turned into the ring at Wrestlemania.  In the midst of WWE Smackdown, she throws all of his things out of her window.  He tries to run out of the room to go get them and the fight continues down the hall.  Her perky resident advisor comes to see what the commotion is and ends up with a black eye.  When it's all said and done, Renee is written up and has to go before the residency board.

Where was I in all of this? Still sitting in the chair.  When Renee asked me afterwards why I didn't step in and help, my response was, "You were winning."  What I was really thinking was, you two fools will be right back together next week so why waste the time and energy.  Sure enough, they continued this cycle until he graduated and I stopped responding to the calls to go somewhere real quick.

Today Renee and I are more Facebook friends than anything.  I'm the godmother to her oldest daughter and she would have been godmother to PoS if she had made it to the church on time.  I forgot to mention that she's chronically late and, in fact, was two hours late to her own daughter's baptism.

What lesson was I trying to teach PoS with these stories?  Some friends are only meant to be in your life for certain periods of time.  Don't let someone else's BS get you caught up.