I still want to spend time writing about 2015, but I just wrote this out for someone and I figure that I may as well share it here.
I’d lived with Je from mid-2013 to early 2018. From 2013 to early 2016 we lived in Glebe. I’d moved there with my ex and someone else as my ex wanted to be close to her mum and it meant Ewe and I could live next to each other, which was really great for stuff like bushwalking and, when I was living off redundancy, going to the beach a lot (Glebe is a very convenient place to live).
When Je and I had to move we moved to Balmain, which was fine. Decent enough place.
In 2017, for his birthday Je was gonna have a party. Usually did for his birthday anyway, but this one is the one that involves the event I’m about to talk about.
I asked if Je was gonna invite Ewe. He said not really, because he didn’t think of Ewe as much of a friend. But maybe.
A few things:
Ewe had sat there and listened, multiple times, to Je offloading and D&Ming about life issues.
Ewe had hung out with Je a good few times just in general.
Ewe also helped both of us move when we went from Glebe to Balmain.
So naturally, and in part because – by that point – things were pretty strained between Je and I, I told Ewe, who was not amused, but also didn’t care too much. But I told him to come anyway.
Come the party day and I did most of the cleaning of the house whilst Je hung out with one of his friends instead of helping with the cleaning. Party started, things were okay. I ended up crashing early because I generally do with these things. My partner was there at some point, hanging out.
Before I crashed I’d asked Ewe when he was going to come. I can’t quite remember the details, but he had either a work party or a wedding-related party beforehand. Might’ve been a birthday; not sure. Anyway, he ended up showing up after I’d crashed. When he showed up my partner was outside talking to someone else and it was dark so she wasn’t too visible. Ewe was drunk I believe, or most of the way there. He started talking to my partner and the other person who was outside and pretending he didn’t know anyone at the party, and this may have gone on until he realised my partner was there.
At some point I woke up because someone was being really loud and it was around this time that Ewe had come into the house and started giving Je shit, and it was glorious. Stuff like “Hey, you remember when x y z? Well I guess it doesn’t matter much because we’re not really friends, hahahaha! I’m just kidding”, and then he’d kind of engage in normal conversation, then give Je shit again, and it kept going for a bit.
I can’t remember who was being loud, but I was awake to hear Ewe talking to Je and I came out of my room and engaged in the party for a bit more until either I got too tired to do so, or Ewe decided to leave. But it was a good time.
Normally I’d frown upon this kind of thing, but Je had a history of being two-faced about his friends, and I heard a lot of it. A good deal of his friends had problems, and the view I was given was that they wouldn’t deal with them (the joys of being in one’s twenties [not that that’s all people, naturally]), and it created pressure. I know I had some issues with a couple of them, and some of those reached a boiling point at one stage, but that had more to do with their behaviour than their issues. Regardless, they usually meant well. But Je would really be anti-them, but he also wouldn’t speak much, if at all, to them about it and try to lead them into getting help.
Sometimes people don’t want help and just want to talk and that’s fine, and I get that there are limitations on hearing that, but the way Je was about it was not conducive to being a friend, and he’d just do the same about them (and other things) to myself, or someone else like Ewe, and he would refuse to go and get help when it was suggested. But we weren’t there to be his emotional vent.
I remember when, a number of weeks after going through the breakup with my ex, Je said to me the “Bros before hoes” thing which, I get the sentiment, but be a little bit less shitty about it. Anyway, after we moved to Balmain he decided to tell me that he’d had my ex and her partner come around to the new place so they could hang. I asked him about the whole “B b h” thing and his response was along the lines of “Oh it’s just a figure of speech”, and implied that it was more to cheer me up rather than anything else, and he got shitty about the fact I didn’t want my ex in my house.
Don’t get me wrong; if Je wanted to hang with my ex, then that’s his business. However, for various reasons I don’t think that, when you’re going to make some sort of loyalty statement (I have issues with these in a few situations and, despite the acrimonious separation, I wanted people to remain neutral in the split, but naturally that’s easier said than done), choosing to disregard it, especially when you know that someone’s ex makes them really anxious and tense, is a shitty move.
So I’d dealt with stuff like this happening, and I’d dealt with being the one who had to clean the house as Je would rarely lift a finger. When we moved to Balmain we had a wonderful housemate with us. After she moved out the subsequent housemates that filled her room were about as willing to clean as Je, and it wasn’t a fun time. When I started dating my partner, there were times when she’d be around and she’d do more cleaning than Je, and it was frustrating. There were other issues along the way, and I started to get bad from it all myself, and it didn’t help anyone.
So I quite enjoyed Je getting pilloried in front of his friends by someone who had been there for him. It sucked for Je, and to an extent I feel for him because no one should really have to go through that, but I did enjoy it.
Besides which, it didn’t kill the mood. Somehow.
Stupidity Hole 