You wanted to.
Grab a brush and put a little makeup
You wanted to.
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup
You wanted to.
Why’d you leave the keys upon the table
You wanted to.
System of a Down, Chop Suey
My friend J, he’s not so much like the lyrics of a System of a Down song as he is the sound. Brash and abrupt and yet somehow, so compelling.
J probably has Asperger’s Syndrome. A very mild case, to be sure, but still. It all fits.
Since I am drawn to the crazy like a moth to the flame, we’ve been friends since we were about 8. Which is to say, since he moved to Michigan. We’ve been friends since the first day we met.
J was weird as a kid. For the first few years that he lived here, his catch phrase was “Fuzzy Cheese!” If I need to make him shut up, I can usually pull that little gem out.
He’s a pretty steady character (which I like, because my few and far between friends will all tell you I’m an Ent).
He’s not the one that I go to when I need comfort.
J is my mean friend.
He will look at me and tell me that yes, I do look fat in those pants and have ever since I started gaining weight.
J firmly believes that if someone is mean to me, I will grow a backbone and say a lot of things that I need to say.
I will never admit it in a million years, but being his friend has made me a lot stronger. His version of mean is a lot different from the one I grew up with. Instead of making me afraid of facing it, I learned to deal with it. I can take a lot more criticism now, thanks to him.
It’s not a bed of roses (or even molding dairy product), but it’s a solid relationship.
