OK, seriously, I try very hard not to be over dramatic and play the whole "oooh my relationships are filled with so much drama! This must mean I'm special! Everything that is said has deep, plumbing meaning" because, well, honestly, I just don't have time for that shit anymore and I've been out of high school for ten years now (obviously no offence to the high schoolers I know read this. Y'all are definately exceptions to this rule.) But anyway, I have a situation I have avoided talking about here but I am so confused and so just done with it at this point that I just need to get it out and angsty confessions is what the internet is for, right?

I have a friend, one of my best friends. Full disclosure, we used to be friends with benefits and the only reason that ended was because he moved far, far away. Anyway, despite all that, he is one of the people that I hold closest to my heart and consider part of my "chosen family" (you know, the do or die friends who you choose as part of your extended family as opposed to the folks you are blood related to). Anyway, we usually talk a couple times a month or so, we are both theater folk and we had time zones to deal with, so it could be erratic, but still pretty consistant.

End of exposition, on to the story.

At the end of October I get a message from him saying hi, give me a call, etc. I am in the middle of a hellish tech, so I call him back a few days later. No return call. So I call him a few more times on our standard schedule including his birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New years, etc. No calls back. I try to call him about halfway through January and his phone has been shut off. Now, the obvious response is that I have been blown off and he doesn't want me around. Except we have been really close friends for 8 years and there was no sign of a problem up to this point. None. I am starting to get really worried and when his phone gets turned off I start to think something is really, really wrong. I think he is dead or in a coma in some midwestern hospital or something equally horrible. After a while the Christmas card I sent him is returned to me... with a forwarding address. In Southern California. Mother fucker moved and didn't tell me.

So, I write him a letter, seeing as this is the only way of contacting him I have, and ask him what the hell is going on. Now, as I write this letter the whole time I'm thinking of an episode of Friends where Monica is trying to think of what she should leave on the answering machine of a guy she is really into. All of the guys just tell her to make it short and keep it "light and breezy." So she leaves a message and finishes with "whatever, I'm breezy!" To which the guys tell her that SAYING you're breezy negates any sense of breeziness that may have existed in the preceeding message. This is how I feel while I write this. I am trying to convey my concern without seeming too psycho hose beast. Anyway, I mail it off last Tuesday and start the agonizing process of waiting. This morning I check my email and there is a message from him. EMAIL people. Anyway, the full content of the email is:

"Hello,

Of course I don't hate you, how could I ever.

But I can't dream of you anymore.

I cannot explain.

-A (Name withheld to protect the spineless)"

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! I think you are dead for four months and this is the response???

People, I think I was just told to fuck off in Haiku. Over email.

Now, as I said, I am out of high school. I don't even know how to respond to this. Hell, I wouldn't know how to respond to this IN high school. How on earth did he manage to be so damn dramatic and passive agressive and evasive in the same three sentences? I know DRAG QUEENS who are less melodramatic. Oh, and this man is thirty years old, people. No excuses.

So, when i read this in the morning I am very, very hurt and confused and I respond as such. Something along the line of "I don't understand what this means. It is really unfair to expect to leave it like this after leaving me hanging for so long. You are my best friend, just please call me and talk to me." That isn't a direct quote, but it's pretty close.

So, that was twelve hours ago. Now, the confusion has worn off a bit and I am no longer worried, I am fucking PISSED OFF. You, as a grown human being, do not treat other grown human beings this way. I am sorry, you do not let one of your closest friends thing you are FUCKING DEAD just because you are having some sort of bizzare existential crisis. If for whatever reason you feel you can't be my friend anymore, well that sucks, but if you are going to friendship-break up with me be a FUCKING MAN and tell me about it. Don't run away and hide and then when I find you give me a pansy ass non-answer that does nothing but make me feel like shit. God, I can't believe this. I seriously have half a mind to just show up on his fucking doorstep and force him to deal with me. Would that be too stalkerish?

The thing that hurts the most is that we have been friends for so long and had so much fun and such together, I would really hate to go through the rest of my life thinging he is nothing but a cowardly asshole. I understand that friendships have lifespans and someimes the lifespan is over before one of the pair is ready for it to be, but at the same time, I have fucking feelings and it is not ok to run over them with a mack truck.

I don't even know what to do at this point. I am so very sad and angry and confused and there is way too much going on in my life right now for me to deal with this. God, I do not ask for this, I try very hard not to serve this upon other people. So, why does it happen to me?

OK everyone out there in D-land, any suggestions?