"Happy Birthday," wrote Spencer. The words, slipshod and shallow after so much silence, still profane my Facebook wall like graffiti. "Happy Birthday." No modifying clause, no follow-up question, no emoticon, no endearing nickname, no inside joke and of course, no exclamation point. It was a short message that went a long way in representing a painful symbol of a collapsing relationship.
I've known Spencer for 14 years, since we first bonded over our shared enthusiasm for Crayola's "Magic Mint" crayons and ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" in kindergarten. In middle school we played on the same tennis team and sat at the same lunch table. In high school we devoured Seinfeld and began a snow shoveling business. And once, last year, we were grounded after his father discovered a frozen bottle of vodka in the garage incriminating evidence of our quixotic attempt to replace the alcohol we had pilfered with water.
Of course, I want to save these memories and maintain our bond. Yet so much is already gone. What's more poetic: conservation or decay?
It didn't begin like this. When college began in September we spoke frequently, reminiscing about high school and discussing plans to work together the following summer. Yet slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a week between conversations became two, then four, then six, until our stream of correspondence trickled to a pathetic drip. Phone calls became occasional exchanges on iChat. Minutes would pass between each volley of instant messages. Stories about parties and new friends and clubs and sports became laundry lists of experiences, told but not truly shared. Questions about school were never reciprocated and eventually abandoned in favor of silence. And then "Happy Birthday" appeared on my wall. It was the miserable coup de grace in a floundering friendship starved of dialogue.
The sad fact is that time and distance have a way of denting relationships that we once thought would never end. Life becomes very busy after high school and even busier after college, I'm sure. Without conscious effort, quotidian affairs take precedence over old friendships and become excuses as to why we don't keep in touch. Too often I'd promise myself to contact Spencer, only to decide later that I should get a head start on a paper or watch a movie down the hall.
Technology is surely not our cure-all panacea. The Internet as my experience with Spencer has shown makes it easier to talk, but harder to communicate. In the end the tested maxim rings true: communication only works for those who work at it. Though it can be tempting to put up walls as the saying goes, not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down sooner or later we realize that we are only hiding from ourselves.
Ultimately, I think good friends are like those long skinny four-by-one pieces in Tetris. They don't come along too often, you can't get enough of them and they're around to bail you out of jams. They're the building blocks of life, too important to let pass by. They are the only ones who can answer that million-dollar question: "So how exactly did you convince me to see Baby Geniuses Two?"
It took me a while, but a few days ago I called Spencer. I cleared my throat, took a deep breath and asked if he wanted to grab lunch over vacation. "Sure," he said. "I can't wait to hear about your birthday."
