Dramatic Crossroads

I feel like I’m at another friendship crossroads.  It’s timely, I suppose, with the premiere of that new 90210 last night because isn’t that show all about friendships being created and destroyed within the span of hours?  It’s Brian’s idea to take a four-day road trip to Vegas as a sort of post-wedding bachelor party for Paul, who will be back in town for a little while this month.  A couple of other guys joining us, an SUV, piling into one hotel room and drinking and gambling and eating for a good length of time.  As Paul described to me, it’s the sort of road trip we never took together while we most of us were in college.  And now with him officially settled in Hawaii and me going to Asia and the rest of us continually drifting away, it’s a good opportunity for it.  Plus, my birthday would be the last night there and when will I ever have four devoted wingmen in Vegas again?

But, I have my reasons for opting out.  Now is not the time to blow a thousand bucks on playing around.  And it will be at least that much between the vehicle and gas and hotel and eating out and the table and drinks (holy shit, drinks hadn’t even come to mind before) and the inevitable moment where someone asks me for money.  I think the road trip angle is romanticized.  I think one feels that same exhilaration stepping off of the jetway into McCarran airport like, “We’re here!  Vegas, baby, Vegas!!” as the excitement over eight hours in a car (there AND back) except the legs were jammed up for one-eighth of the time.  But when it’s all said and done there’s still Brian.  It’s true that we’ve spoken at the wedding and since, but we haven’t spoken.  There hasn’t been any conversation about why I ignored him for almost five months.  We watched some Olympics, that’s true and we played a few pickup games and some PS2 but nothing that’s not superficial…and there hasn’t been that much superficial. At this point, I can’t pinpoint anything that the guy is doing wrong but I just still look down on him and his ideas and I’m just waiting for him to do something stupid so that I can go off, justify myself and put this thing to bed.

But then, of course, it scares me.  I feel like this trip is the linchpin of my friendships with Paul and Brian, these two friends I’ve known since we were kids.  And the only issue with Paul is that he and I are inextricably linked to Brian…it’s very 90210.  And it’s not like I don’t have other real friends (not like those Facebook punks who have 800 “friends”) but it’s not about numbers…it’s like I’m judging another person’s worth.  I guess I have a tough time doing that…even though I (we) do it ALL THE TIME.

But you know what?  If it were a better friend I would have already reserved the car myself, so fuck it.  Plus, there are other things I need to do during those days.