The Land of In Between

There are some serious value differences between me and some of my friends. Whenever they come up, I am faced with questioning the worth of the friendship itself, which usually gives way to doing nothing at all -- I mean, c'mon, it's easier.

"Can you have friends whom you don't respect?" I used to ask my students. The responses were always strong, one way or another -- never anything in between. Lucky for me, my role was simply to evoke discussions, not to offer my own opinions. I live in the Land of In Between.

Old boyfriends who cheated may still tell great jokes; a completely fun and supportive friend who happens to be in prison (for something completely unrelated) thinks it is fine to cheat an insurance company. My best male friend is a racist, which has to be a difficult path, given that he has to work and interact with all different kinds of people every day.

Once, he told me I looked like a Jew. I got huffy with him; what the hell does a Jew look like, anyway? Judaism is a religion, not a race, I said.

"Well, all I know is, if they lined you up with 25 other women and someone said, "Pick out the Jew girl -- face it, Honey: You'd be picked."

Who can argue with that kind of logic?

I have friends who drink and smoke themselves senseless, and though I used to do the same things, there came a point in my life when I shed all that. They continue and then want to make long, slurring phone calls to me and rant angrily about politics. I have a few who are "half-friends", who never seem to be able to be there for me, even though I'm always around when they need someone.

These cronies stunt me creatively. I can't write about them without hurting their feelings. I've often said that if I wrote a book with characters who exhibited these idiosyncrasies, I'd have very few friends at all. What does that say about me?

"So, you don't like your friends," said one of them to me yesterday.

"No kidding"?, I asked. She nodded in the affirmative, which made me wonder what the hell I was thinking when I did her a favor minutes earlier by picking her up at the garage where her car was being repaired. As I drove, she took a call and talked to someone about how her mom's "filter" was gone, and would say just about anything.

This was especially interesting to me, because she'd just gotten through saying that she would really like to put her mother in a home and take away all of her medications. I suggested that maybe she should just get a gun, but that's a whole different tangent.

Regardless, her statement shook me up a little. Of course, I don't want to think of myself as a bad (or worse, insincere) friend.

As I dropped her at her destination, my friend flashed me the most amazingly-artificial smile.

"See ya. I look forward to reading about myself in your book."

I knew in that instant that there was nothing more I could do; this was indeed goodbye.

But, part of what she's saying is true. I don't like some of the things my friends do; their actions really bother the hell out of me sometimes. (I'm sure some of them don't like mine, either.) It's completely hypocritical to keep friendships with some of them at all. The rub is, I still have my filter. Weak as it may be at times, it's one that (for the most part) keeps me from writing things that will hurt people's feelings. Some would debate that, I'm sure.

"Fuck 'em," said another friend of mine, an avid blogger who says he won't leave anything out even if it offends someone. What freedom that is, to be able to say that! Especially if you can pull it off and not miss anyone who leaves because of it. I'm not entirely convinced that even he wouldn't hesitate; he's a very sweet person.

So, instead of following his example, here I am writing about writing about people. Some of the most published authors do, you know.

I won't promise that you won't be in my book, but if you shoot your Jewish insurance agent, I might have to 86 the friendship first.