How My Best Friendship Began, Kathleenside

This is the story of how Joey and I met.  Or rather, the story of how and why we became friends, and the start of the relationship that has come to be one of the most meaningful friendships of my adult life.  To understand the story fully, however, you should read his parallel account, which was written in tandem with this one and will be publishing simultaneously.  If you choose to read this story in its entirety, please go to Perspective Odysseum and read his account of the same story.  Only by reading both accounts do we believe you can get a true representation of what happened on this occasion.

I’m going to apologize in advance to anyone who heard a different version of how we met, one in which he miraculously saved my midterm paper from the evil library computer when I was stressed about school and my computer was dead and it was late at night and I was so tired… That story is true, in fact, but it’s not how we met.  The true story is one which I’ve never shared with anyone until today, and which I never anticipated sharing in so public a manner, because it is embarrassing and frankly doesn’t reflect very  highly on former me.

There are three reasons why I’m choosing to share this particular story at this particular time.  The first is that Joey asked me to share the telling of this story with him, and I want to do everything in my power to help him tell his story, to share what needs to be shared with the world concerning his realizations and who he is as he continues his struggle with the forces of nature… The second is because for years I’ve felt guilty about the fact that nearly every person we meet and most particularly friends and family who are closest to me have looked down on and misinterpreted my relationship with Joey, and I have felt incapable of convincing them how wrong they were because I could not tell them the truth.  My pride and my shame kept me from sharing stories such as this one, which would have illuminated for anyone listening the true nature of our friendship from the very beginning… and Joey has had to deal with those negative perceptions of him and of us for the same number of years, and has done so without complaining, without trying to set the record straight, because he knew how important it was to me.

Until yesterday, when Joey asked me if we could tell this particular story, I had never intended to share it with anyone.  I had buried these feelings and facts so deep inside me that I thought I could pretend they were gone.  It was only in moments where I have felt the judgment of people I care about, the judgment of Joey and of the nature of our relationship, that I have realized how hard I’ve been working for years to try and explain away the doubts in a way that kept me from having to share my own shame and blame for some of the mistakes I’ve made in my life.  Mistakes which, as you will see, Joey saved me from and helped me to learn from.  I think it’s time to set the record straight, for those who are and always have been curious about us, and for those who are just joining into the story and will no doubt have the same questions about whether we’re romantically involved or whether one of us is secretly in love with the other… (for the record, it’s no on both counts).  But nobody ever really seems to believe the simple answer, so now I will finally begin to share the truth that explains the evidence to the contrary.

The third reason I’m sharing this story is because I finally feel at a point in my life where telling how I was before, sharing the things which I’ve been through which have been hard for me, and being able to see how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown… Now, finally, the ability to choose to share those stories makes me feel stronger rather than weaker for them.  The fact that I did grow, and change, and learn from all the mistakes of my young adult life, most of which Joey was direct witness and confidante to, makes it okay to talk about and to let out the bad feelings which I had buried so deep I had almost forgotten they were down there, festering away in the bottom of my gut.

So, it all began when I was a young, naïve, 19-year-old sophomore in college.

  Here's me in my dorm room, around that time:

I had recently ended my first ever relationship with a high school boy who knew even less about dating and relationships and adulthood than I did.  We had parted as friends, but even so I was feeling somewhat lost and alone at this time.  I had become very active during my first year of college in the swing dance club, which was incidentally how Joey and I (though he was going by the name ‘Adrian’ at the time) had come to be acquaintances and even I would say, friends, though we hardly knew each other.  Here, by the way, is what "Adrian" looked like at the time:

The story starts when my friend’s friend Adam came to visit from out of town.

I contemplated leaving his name out of the story, as I am going to leave out a few names of people who might not wish to be written about, but it occurs to me that aside from the fact that there is no conceivable reason why he would be reading this or connected to it any way (nor will I use his last name as I am not writing this out of vindictiveness), the story will show that I really have no reason to try to *protect* him in this instance, as you will see shortly.

Adam was a Navy cadet and a wrestler, and he looked the part.  It’s strange for me to admit that I actually can’t remember what he looked like, aside from that he was a little on the short side but had big arm muscles.  Anyway I suppose at the time I thought he was kind of attractive, and he must have had some charming qualities to him because I found myself interacting with him (some might say flirting, but I maintain that at the time when this took place, I had no idea how to flirt, nor would it have occurred to me to *try* to do so) for the better part of a day, and that we had somehow gotten disconnected from our mutual friend (with whom, supposedly, he was staying for the weekend as apparently his car had broken down).  It got to be late and he needed someplace to stay, and as we were enjoying each other’s company (and because I’m such a nice and trusting individual by nature) I finally agreed to let him stay in the common room of my dorm.  This, of course, was against dorm rules, but I didn’t think anyone would catch us.

At some point in the night, I began to get very uncomfortable.  I have tried so hard not to think about this night that I think I have legitimately forgotten the exact details and timeline of events, but we may have been making out on the couch and I know at one point I got nervous and told him to stop touching me and went into my room.  I also know that at some point, he followed me into my room and tried to get into my bed and feel me up.  I believe that my roommate was sleeping in the next bed at that point, so when I began to protest (I believe by starting to cry) he eventually went away and slept in the common room on the couch.

The next day, I had no idea what to make of this.  Having never dated a college guy, I didn’t know if it was my naïveté making me feel so awkward about this situation or the fact that I legitimately was being made to feel uncomfortable by a guy being too forward with me in a manner I did not feel comfortable with.  And yet somehow I was sort of stuck with him, not wanting to abandon him and not knowing what had become of our mutual friend.  And also because part of his being in town was to attend the swing dance club’s big Halloween dance (a yearly ritual involving a costume contest), which was to be that night.  I threw on a jean skirt and some cowboy boots and went as ‘a cowgirl’, but it was a half-hearted effort.  Adam followed me around all day, ate with me, hung out in my room, and accompanied me to the dance that evening.

Here is a photo from the dance.  You can see Joey the second from the left:

Within five minutes of arriving at the dance, Joey somehow knew that all was not right with me.  He had seen me come in with a guy he did not know, could tell that I was feeling awkward and uncomfortable, and did not like the way the situation looked from the outside.  And even though we hardly knew each other at that point, he felt the need to find out what was going on.  He will tell you himself, and he told me years later, that it was at that point he felt a driving need to protect me, to make sure that I was okay, that nothing was going on that would hurt me in any way.  Joey pulled me aside to ask what was wrong, and when I nervously didn’t say anything, asked me to step outside with him to talk.

Joey was dressed as Indiana Jones that night.  I can still picture him exactly, with his leather hat and the whip and his airsoft pistol (which technically probably shouldn’t have been brought onto school grounds, even though it was not a real gun and had no ammunition).  I had been taken aback by Adrian (sorry, Joey) from the first time I met him because he was so… disarming.  His easy wit and charm and the confidence with which he could approach and talk to even complete strangers and engage them in meaningful conversation out of thin air seemed miraculous to one as shy and self-conscious as myself.  Anyways, on this particular evening he seemed to look straight into my brain and see what was going on, but he made me try to tell him for myself.  I was embarrassed, but told him the basics – that Adam was stranded because of his car, that I didn’t know where our mutual friend was, that I kind of liked him but that I was uncomfortable by the circumstances of his being in my dorm.

Somewhere around this point, Adam himself came outside to see what was going on, and he looked like he didn’t like the situation that was developing.  I got so nervous that, as was often the case with me at the time, I completely clammed up and became physically incapable of speech.  [Side note: I’m sure Joey could tell you from personal experience how frequently this would become a problem between us in future conversations, how completely frustrated and crazy it made him when I did this, and how long it took me to finally get over that defense mechanism to one where I could actually speak my mind, to him as well as others.]  Joey, however, had heard enough, and he confronted this navy cadet with all the confidence of someone who had a right to be in the middle of this situation.  Never mind the fact that the navy wrestler could probably beat him to a pulp if he wanted to.  Never mind the fact that we barely knew each other and that he only knew a tiny bit of what was going on at the time.  He knew enough: that I was in trouble, and that this guy was the reason for it.

Joey told Adam that he was making me uncomfortable, that he was overstepping his boundaries and that he had to go away and find someplace else to stay that night.  A further fact that I have left out but which probably factored into the conversation was that Adam had actually asked me to lend him money to help fix his broken car (a good amount, if I remember correctly) and that I had blindly already agreed to such.  Telling this story now I just want to slap my former self for being so weak, so afraid, so gullible.  I want to warn her, to protect her.  But at the time, that was what Joey saw, what he felt, what he needed to do.  He protected me, he stood up for me and he acted as the older brother I didn’t realize I was missing at this moment.  [No offense to my true biological older brother, who was off at college himself over an hour away and would have had no idea any of this was happening at the time.]

The situation looked bad.  I had never seen a real live fight before, but I felt sure there was about to be one in front of me.  And worse yet, *about* me.  I didn’t know what to do so I continued to stand there saying nothing.  I vividly remember sitting on the edge of the sidewalk and Joey handing me the airsoft pistol, asking me to hold it for him.  I felt a little better knowing I was holding a (fake) weapon, because at the very least it gave me something to do with my hands.

Before they could actually start beating each other up, at that opportune moment five of our fellow swing dancing friends (all male) came out to find out what all the ruckus was about.  They were wondering where Joey had disappeared to.  Our dear friend Andrew, who you all know from one of Joey’s previous blog posts as the one getting Joey involved with the ‘Tough Mudder’ event, was one of them.  I don’t recall how much Joey told them, but realizing that something had happened to me and that Adam was causing problems, the situation immediately became one where six (some of whom were very tall, I might add) male friends of mine were suddenly facing down one navy cadet, and I think he felt his chances were lessening that this might turn out alright for him.  I believe he left at that point.

So many thoughts and feelings were going through my mind at that point – shock, that I might have been in a situation requiring me to be saved, amazed, that I had new friends who cared enough to defend me from perceived injustice, but most of all shame, that my private life and uncomfortable embarrassment had suddenly been made public knowledge.  I needed time to process these feelings, so I decided to walk home from the dance, which was a bit far but which I had walked many times before, enjoying the quiet of a nighttime stroll and needing the space to clear my head.  Several people, including Joey of course, tried to talk me out of walking, of going alone, tried to get me to accept a ride home from somebody going that way.  The building where we held the dance was separated by the formal campus by a few blocks and it was a bit late to be walking at night, especially given the circumstances of the evening so far.  But I flatly refused, insisted I would be fine, believed that any threat was over at that point and walked myself home.

I must have realized at some point that this was not the best choice, and I think by the time I reached my dorm I was a little frightened that somehow Adam might be there waiting for me, might have remembered where I lived and made his way there.  I didn’t know what I would say to him after that whole incident at the dance, but he was supposed to be staying with me again so I did not know what I expected to find when I got back.  However, I would find out later that Joey had already anticipated this scenario and had acted in my best interests, without waiting to see if there was need for alarm.  I remember being on the phone with him and being angry that he interfered in what I felt was a complete overreaction.  He had called the campus cadets, and they had sent someone to check out the dorm building.  A campus cadet actually gave me a ride to the dining hall to grab some dinner, as I had not eaten and was feeling too shaken up to go out alone at that point.  I was ashamed and embarrassed, and I couldn’t believe Joey had the gall to interfere with what I thought was my own little embarrassing situation and not anything anybody else needed to be worried about.

Joey did not tell me until just now, but when he called the campus cadets that night, they actually had intercepted Adam outside my dorm, where he was waiting to be let in when I returned.  He had given them a description and called Adam a ‘rape threat’.  He may not have had *all* the details, but he just wanted to make sure Adam didn’t get away with being a jerk to me or of overstepping any more boundaries.  And it turns out that he was probably right to do so, and I was probably wrong to not be concerned for my own safety.  When Joey tells this story, he sees it as the time he prevented me from potentially being raped.  And up until this came up in conversation a few months ago, it had NEVER crossed my mind that something like that could have or might have happened to me.  I still thought of it as the night when I was awkward and uncomfortable and Joey overreacted.  When the campus cadets got called out for no reason and there was no real threat.  Had I known then what I know now, I think I might have seen it all very differently.

I don’t know whether anything bad would have happened to me that night, but I do finally acknowledge the fact that it was a possibility, that I might have been coerced into things I didn’t want and wasn’t ready for, that there was no good reason to let that boy back into my dorm or my room or to lend him money(!!) [that part still gets to me, even today writing this].  Joey saved me from something that night, and it was the start of our relationship as brother and sister, though I did not recognize it as such at the time.

Over the years, Joey would bear direct witness to some of the most shameful and embarrassing moments of my life.  He would pick me up from parties when I’d had far too much to drink.  He would sit outside the bathroom door while I puked all over the rug and cried about it.  He would help me into bed, give me water and Tylenol and rub my back until I fell asleep when I was too drunk to walk up the stairs.  He would help convince me to break up with the boyfriend who had been mistreating me for months after I came home from a fight at 3am and sat crying on the stairs of our apartment.  He was there when I got the news that my dog died.  He handed a box of belongings to an ex who wouldn’t get the hint even after I slapped him in the face and told him to leave.  He wrote a threatening letter to another ex just to make me feel better.  He was there when I found out I was failing a class in my last semester and would not be graduating, and he helped me to arrange it so that I could, in fact, graduate after all.

These are the stories I have not shared, the moments that defined our friendship and our relationship, the moments that made us as close as we are and that cemented the big brother / little sister aspect of our friendship that everyone always chose to disbelieve, to question and to ignore.  Everyone always assumed, always secretly thought, that the only possible explanation for how close we were was either a romantic or physical relationship, or the hidden desire of one or both of us for it to be that way.  I’ve grown so tired of trying to explain the opposite with half-information and half-truths that I hope this story has helped to shed some light on how it all began, what gave us the confidence in each other to survive and grow together through all the challenges we have faced over the years and into this great challenge of helping him beat cancer.

Joey has always been my protector, my confidante, my counselor, my mentor and my Big Brother.  I have become a part of his family, though I feel he never had the chance to become a part of mine, partly because of my own inability to be forthcoming and truthful about stories such as this one.  He has shielded me from the dangers of the world while at the same time, teaching me to build my own defenses so that I would be able to face the world myself.  He has taught me to be self-confident, to be able to share my thoughts and feelings with others, to respect myself, and most importantly, to feel like I deserve to go after the things I want in my life.  To not always put others first.

Had I not chosen to remain by this driving force, this teacher of life, I probably would have led a very different life up until this point.  I probably wouldn’t have become an officer and teacher in the swing dance club.  I might have moved back home after college.  I might have been mistreated by one or more of the male figures in my life.  I certainly would be more cautious, less self-aware and less knowledgeable about the world without his influence.  But we became roommates, and then best friends.  We helped mutual friends who were in trouble.  We supported each other when financial difficulties and unemployment rocked our foundations.  He helped me to stay strong and to keep fighting for what I believed in – that I wanted to make a life on my own.  He believed in my talents and abilities when I did not trust in them myself, and he made me want to live up to what he saw in me.  He even introduced me to my current boyfriend, and browbeat me into admitting I still had feelings for him after having broken up with him (sorry, babe), and talked me into telling the guy I still liked him and wanted to give us a second shot.  Joey has given me so much over the years that it seems silly to me that my relatives and friends could possibly not see (what I haven’t shared with them).

It’s true that we have had our share of financial difficulties that might have been avoided if we had not relied so heavily on each other for support, but I maintain that the lessons I learned and the skills and confidence I gained during those times far outweigh the value of any debt or money issues I had, no matter what my friends or family thought at the time.  I supported him through unemployment because he always supported me, through heartbreak and sickness and stupid decisions and indecisiveness and weakness, and I continue to support him in his fight against the tumors in his body because to do less would be to turn my back on one of the greatest influences in my life.  I cannot conceive of not helping, not doing everything in my power to make this struggle easier for him, to lift his burdens if I can.  He is my Best Friend, my Brother, and nothing anyone else says or thinks can take that away from us.  We are strongest together, as we always have been, and although I am now, accelerated by the circumstances of his illness, living on my own and spending much more time than I would like away from him, I will be there for him no matter what happens.

Thank you for taking the time to read this epic saga, for sharing with me as I pull these feelings of shame out into the open at last and view them for what they are: a crystal clear representation of the reasons why our relationship became what it is, and the beginning of the story of our shared adulthood leading up to the moment where he is undergoing chemotherapy treatments, sporting a new buzz cut in anticipation of the oncoming hair loss, and I am wearing a mask to prevent any risk of passing along a cold germ that could weaken him further and going home to my very own empty apartment.  We are coming into strange and hard times, but I have no doubt that we will face them together, and will do so with more strength and courage because of the friendship that has carried us this far.

As you have reached the end of my story, please go over to Joey’s blog and read his parallel account, if you haven’t already.  It’s a much different perspective but one which I believe lends itself perfectly to the understanding of everything I have herein discussed.  http://perspectiveodysseum.blogspot.com/2013/05/07-how-my-best-friendship-began-joeyside.html.