Friend: �It�s all your fault!�

Me: �What did I do??�

Friend: �What didn�t you do!�

Me: �Fuck a biological brother in the ass: I�m an only child..�

What�s strangely funny about this to me is one of my best friends for many, many years had, in fact, done such a thing. And oddly enough I never thought anything about it really. I reserve my moral judgments for people that don�t asked to be fucked, but get screwed, or people that can screw others en masse such as white collar crime.

Anyway, he and I aren�t friends anymore though after having been best friends for about 13 years. His wife thought a comment I made about a friend of hers was unfair, and sent a catty email to which I responded in an equally catty tone. I immediately felt bad about it, and followed up with an apology. Of course, she saw the first email before the apology and fired back ripping me apart. When she saw the second email, she replied: �Apology accepted, but I still mean what I said� I thought that was mighty big of her, so I responded and told her that she�s surprisingly opinionated about art considering how talentless she is, and to go fuck herself. Husbands tend to side with the missus I guess, so that was that. But that�s another story�

Looking back, Cyd and I always had a complicated relationship. I think I was one of the first people he came out to and in the next breath he alluded to an interest in me. He�s the person that trained me to be unflinching when it comes to peoples personal interests and lifestyles, and this was my first lesson. I don�t know how I responded save to say that I wasn�t interested. And I had to decide then whether or not we could be friends in spite of this uncomfortable situation. In a way, this was to become a trend in our friendship that in a slightly different form, would repeat itself over and over. He�s in therapy now, and I find it funny when he keeps referring to �boundaries� since he certainly violated mine a number of times over the years.

I�ve realized over the last while the way it�s affected me, our precarious relationship. There was a need to be �tolerant� and to avoid being judgmental even though for the most part, I don�t feel my feelings were respected. And it lead to a certain edited, protective nature when it came to my feelings or thoughts on sex. He was very �in your face� about his sexuality and wants, and to avoid any misconceptions, or to even suggest that there was any possibility that I was interested, I simply quit talking about and revealing my feelings on that subject. I didn�t want to lead anybody on. A lot of people had their own thoughts, theories and opinions about my sexuality, and the more they tried to impose that identity upon me, the harder and thicker the walls became�