Wait For It… a blog by Andy Ross

Friends Growing Apart

I think my friend Janet’s baby and I are starting to grow apart.

I don’t know---we used to have so much in common. We both enjoyed lying on our backs and staring at the ceiling. We liked the jangly sounds my house keys made. And, we’d both giggled at our own farts.

Plus---and this is what was so great---we had reached that point in our friendship where we could just sit and be quiet around each other. You know when you get to the level where you don’t have to fill every silence? That’s huge.

But, people change.

Now it’s talk talk talk. Janet’s baby babbles on and on. Blah blah blah. And, it’s never about anything real or substantial. Just vapid small talk. “Ooh doggy! Doggy! Doggy! Arf arf, doggy!”

What is that? I mean, if we have to talk about something, can’t it be something we’re both interested in? Yes, a good conversation can be invigorating, but one-sided conversations like that are sooo tiring.

And, we always have to be going somewhere. This guy, he’s always toddling around at full speed, and it’s up to me to keep up. First it’s this side of the living room, then it’s that side. Then it’s the kitchen or the laundry room. Do you know people like that? It’s always on to the next hot spot, the next cool thing.

That’s not the friend I knew. The friend I knew used to squirm from the rug to the couch over the course of a whole afternoon, and that was a fine pace for me. Seriously, our hang out sessions used to move along at a crawl.

Plus, we’re not into the same activities anymore. Like me, I’m into chilling out, having a cocktail, playing the new version of You Don’t Know Jack on the Wii.

This baby, all he wants to do is open drawers and put tennis balls inside. That’s cool; I’m happy to do that for awhile. For awhile. But, he always wants to open and shut drawers. He never wants to play Wii. Or, if he does, he just bangs the controller on a pan or something. So selfish.

I’m really worried about all this. I mean, it’s fine to grow apart from friends. But, my good friend Janet from college is the one who introduced me to this guy. If I tell him we shouldn’t hang out anymore, will that jeopardize my relationship with Janet? I mean, this dude is super clingy with her. And vice versa.

I guess I could look past it and try to get along better with Janet’s baby. He’s still really cool in a lot of ways---he never talks about politics, he shares his Cheerios, he smells nice.

But, this whole thing with him and his pulling the cat’s tail … I don’t know. I guess we’re just at different stages in our lives.