what is "a friend indeed"

a descent picture of us with not so descent aperture point


a not so descent picture, which is a bit gay-ish hahaha, but whatta heck, of us



i just had a brief encounter with, well, pretty much my bestest friend this afternoon. he is slightly bulkier, looking cleaner like most husbands, but still the old guy I remember being there for me for an extended period of time.

though he might not ever consider this, i gladly consider him the best friend, even if the meaning of the term itself is overrated.

the history between us is long and tedious. to tell the truth i can't even remember some of them in the days i decided cranking his boarding house for, probably more than half a year, or could be a year or year and a half, in Bintaro back in the hey days, when we were all broke, jobless, a bit stupid, but happy. i don't know about him, but yeah, it was a key moment in my life and i'm glad i had it. i guess i'm glad he was in it along the way.

fyi, he paid all the bills

he was shocked looking at my hair, and though awkward for him, i managed to hug him. and brief encounter followed to the basement for lunch where we tried our best to keep up with each other's life, he with his married life, me with my work life (haha).

and like hitler chocking up on helium after drinking too much coffee, i screeched about whatever i can think of, while he gracefully hinted about babies, the nature of life within the tender imprisonment of marriage and well, tax, not to mention how the latest case on gayus demotivates most tax workers.

actually talking again after more than half a year, or could be a year or year and a half, reminded me of why.

because married life, like most people knows it, is demanding, where he didn't have that much time anymore to just wander around doing stupid shits with his friend, or to make things less complicated, me, and working has been occupying especially me, and all that other crap reasons whose counter argument is that if we really miss each other we could always arrange a meet up, though the last time we did i got lost.

but the why is more on why i once considered the guy the bestest friend, though most of our friends at the old Bintaro boarding house considered us 'soulmate', hopefully in a non, or less-gay sense of things.

and based on that also, i figure i ought to have the authority -and audacity- to actually spell out what i think is a friend, or in his case, a best friend, as i have lived a long life to begin with, and all other crap reasons.

to do this in an appropriate manner, i will try to come up with points on the qualities of why one can be considered as a best friend. a bit stupid, as this has been done millions of times and every time one does it, i always feel that such decision to do so is lame and cheesy, but hell, i'm in a good mood.

- with a best friend you can actually talk. be it filled with broad sense, or nonsense at all.

he might understand or he might not, but he always come up with remarks that make me feel like i'm worth listening. you don't find that situation too often unless of course i'm asking questions :).

and the part where i feel like i'm worth listening is way much more complicated than simply being boring -which is a stupid defensive remark if i may say, as some people do find me boring. jumping off from one subject to another in quentin tarantino style, while discussing multiple topics at once, leaving one when it has lost its exciting qualities onto another that is fresh to only go back to the abandoned topic without trying to link them at the end as conclusion is not an easy way or normal method to converse stuff. but it has been apparent to me that he's digesting it well, hence making it feel totally normal, though this is a mere assumption i made based on his lack of complaints.

i know i'm a good listener, but my mind is often wandering off to some things that makes my brain temporary closed down its electricity portal from the ears, hence the huh, what, and multiple eh that randomly pop out in every beginning of conversations. but like i said, he's taking it well.

-with your best friend you can stop talking without being afraid that you're wasting his/her time.

and this has happened too many times back in the past, though some of these moments have apparently been erased from my fragile memories. and such situation where other people can feel okay about it don't happen that much either. like when you make calls, which is the only moment when "time is money" takes form in its truest sense.

being silent has apparently become a redeeming quality that he had, and most of us had actually, and there are times when you just don't feel like talking, or simply prefer listening to music over headphones, without the fear of thinking that you might ignoring the other person. i did that a lot, and he ditto apparently.

-your best friend never ask too much of you, expecting too much of you or demanding too much of you

with that being said, the only time he ever asked anything from me was back when he said he wanted to get married.

he asked me to be his best man.

which i immediately said yes, but flank on the d-day because i did things that i shouldn't have done or at least delayed to about three or five hours after that in which due to propriety's sake shouldn't be mentioned or hinted even a bit in this post. i came late, the wedding is already over, and no one is giving him the ring.

in later days he told me that because there's no other best man available for back up, he kept the ring in his pocket.

he was probably mad, or at least disappointed. but he didn't show them.

"it was great, i was nervous, you should see the number of people coming dude, damn i thought i'd passed out. and where were you?"

"i got lost," which we all know was a lie

and i guess that's the moment where he truly felt happy and content, or at least relieve, that the biggest challenge in a man's life is passed without meaningful obstacle, or at least that's what i'd like to think so :p.

come to think of it, we all think it's okay with each other's bad habits over time, like being late. i can still remember vividly where in his bed, at about eight o'clock in the morning, in our, or his, old boarding house, he received a call from his boss inquiring him about his whereabouts as he was late for an important meeting.

"I'm on the way, I'm on the way," he said and continued sleeping for another ten minutes before finally getting up.

I swear to god till this day that he wouldn't have gone to that stupid so called important meeting if i didn't hassle him about going as fast as he could.

in this case, i wasn't being a best friend as i mentioned earlier i guess.

but even back in high school, where i'll be late for most of the days, he would come some minutes after me.

- your best friend appreciate your work, where as a best friend, you appreciate what he does too

the simplest example, as both of us were the lead cartoonists, illustrators, wallpaper designers and whatever involving the use of different types of pens, cardboards, paints, scissors, and other painting tools to lead a group of merryful bunch in almost every major event requiring big, small, colorful, less colorful, meaningful, less meaningful, boring and less boring decorations in highschool, and highschool being the only span of time reasonable enough to mention as we end up going to different universities and take up different jobs after highschool, i can fairly say that nobody appreciate, admire, take careful observations with the intend of learning and understanding, continue to remember most of his works with the aim of comprehending his style, more than me.

and back in the first grade of highschool, i can still remember him being the only guy who thought that my sketching of a girl's hair viewed from the back was, well, basically worth looking at for the next half an hour.

i fell asleep in the next two hours or so and he kept the page.

-your best friend doesn't tell you what to do, he supports you with whatever thing you chose to do.

in a way, he refused to be responsible for your wrong decisions, but he don't mind to also feel the impact, or take partial responsibility of your well being after all the things harvested their impacts. that's what he always do, and learning from him, that's what i always try to do in my life with my worthy friends.

I think the boarding house case, where i stayed at his boarding house, thinking it as mine also, for an extended period of time in his own expenses, being an impact of a wrong decision i made, was a clear example.

well, luckily i don't do drugs, don't steal stuff and not causing any trouble, that if i did, i wouldn't even want to befriend myself.


(*)


there are a lot of other qualities, obviously, but i will add them later. i've got deadlines and i'm not looking to be dead just yet.

and if we don't get to see each other again in a long time after this, i'm sure i can catch him again next year while paying my tax. he wouldn't mind.

and oh, the last thing is

-you feel grateful having your best friend, and from their odd little ways, you know they're grateful too

from my experience, i can only assume :)

cheers