Success Stories

© 2008 Stan Spire



Check my new email and there it is, waiting. Worse than any spam. A “friend” from my past is trying to contact me.

It’s happened a couple of times. A backstabber I knew in college. Then another asshat I tolerated in high school. Each acts like he’s my Best Buddy.

Each Best Buddy – high school and college - wants to know how I’m doing. True concern or is the competition continuing?

There’s always some competition between friends; it’s human nature. But I had realized with each Best Buddy that competition was a key part of the so-called friendship.

High School Best Buddy would practice, practice, practice his tennis game. Then he would invite me over for a “friendly” set. I wasn’t into winning a contest. I just wanted to enjoy a sport for its own sake, fun and exercise. I didn’t make jokes about his ability: I wasn’t into ball-busting. Without trying I ended up winning. High School Best Buddy got mad, throwing his racket off into the distance.

College Best Buddy was into a different kind of game playing. Mind games. He would make up stories about me to ruin my dates. He would poison the well by pissing in it. One time a date was nervous during the entire evening. She acted like I was a psychopath, waiting for the right opportunity to attack and kill her.

But that wasn’t College Best Buddy’s only dirty play. He told me that a girl I knew thought I was an asshole, even though she never made any such statement. He was a pathological lying prick, a manipulator jealous of everyone around him.

The email inquiries from the Best Buddies arrived at different times but both used the same approach. Each one wrote that he wasn’t sure that I was the same person he knew many years ago. A normal person would dash a quick email and just ask if I’m the same guy he “palled around” with in school without going into great details.

But each of these Best Buddy pissants had to tell me about his successful life. College BB noted that he was getting married while pursuing a great artistic career. High School BB mentioned that he was a family man, has three kids, a good job. All the details I avoid learning by not attending any school reunions.

So I didn’t reply. I’m not ashamed that, materially or socially speaking, I don’t have that much compared to either one. Psychologically, I’m way ahead.

I don’t talk with ghosts.

The past is dead.