"We are not children here, we are scientists! I assure you there is nothing to fear!"

I was listening to a podcast about how people *need* relationships. Not just the romantic kind, but platonic ones too. Real, genuine friendships are kind of what all of humanity works to build. If you watch Vice's video series on Heimo, you'll see a man who goes into the Arctic for months at a time, alone, and hunts and traps until he's done earning for the season. His longest excursion was 8 months. When he came back he said he could never do it that long again, it was too much time without human contact. Healthy contact is as important as healthy food. You can't survive on just kale chips and kettle bell workouts.

Sometimes I make thoughtless, bad decisions regarding relationships and what goes on in them. Sometimes it's something simple like forgetting someone's hat. Sometimes it's forgetting an important event. Sometimes it's forgetting to give a proper hug. Sometimes it's poor thinking:

Freshman year in college, I started dating a girl who was really nice. This was after Halloween and as a result of Halloween. We were separated by the entire campus and didn't really see each other. I was busy with classes, friends, fraternity stuff. I was all the way out in Taliaferro, with my 8 dudes who turned that floor into a scene from Thunderdome mixed with Super Troopers. Seriously, if we died, the police would think a cult started killing its members. 8 dudes can ruin a dorm, a rental car, a frat house, a government, just everything. She was in the Botetourt complex. I liked her, but wasn't crazy about her. Sometimes I think I may have just looked for a nice girl to spend time with. I think the niceness and the distance kept it going way longer than it should have.

The problem was that it wasn't going to go anywhere and I knew it. But I was being nice. The problem with being too nice is that eventually it can become manipulative, misleading, and dishonest and the relationship can wind up being mean because the other person isn't happy. Jumping into a relationship like that wasn't the best idea. It was when I was the most independently codependent in my life. I needed someone just to get socks at Target with. It just wasn't fair to her.

Finally, before spring break I realized I needed to end it. I decided to take her on a walk and end it down at Lake Matoaka. It'd be quiet, calm, and peaceful. You know, a nice way to do it. The thing is, there's no good way to schedule in your life, "hurt Francesca." Just putting that in my Outlook Calendar, or nowadays in my iPhone, is nerve-wracking. My stomach twisted in knots. That day I understood why people fake their death. Also, Francesca's not the girl's name.

We walked 2 miles down to the lakeside theater, sat on the run-down proscenium seating, and I started the conversation

"I'm sorry, I don't want to hurt you, but I want to be friends."

Then it was a back and forth a while about how it wasn't fair to either of us. Should we try? I didn't think so. Why? Because one person can't maintain a relationship. It was sad, but it was done. The part I didn't think about was that back-half. The 2 mile walk back to campus, through the woods, across campus, people were staring at me, the guy being yelled at by the girl, "I don't want you looking at me you asshole!"

I got back to my dorm and one of my friends asked me what happened because I looked disheveled. I explained the situation and I remember him telling me:

"you know that joke, a pedophile and a kid walk out into the woods and the kids says, 'boy is it scary out here,' and the pedophile says, 'you're telling me, I have to walk out here alone?' You kind of emotionally killed her in the woods."

I cringed when I heard that. It took years of small steps for us to be friends again. We are, but I still cringe when I think of that day. In all honesty, I know why all of my relationships ended, whether it was me or them. I've tried to learn from them all, even if it's a little thing like taking off my shoes in their group house. I feel bad because over the past few years lot of my friendships also dissolved or were shelved or just suffered. This is the harder one, because these will be the lasting relationships. It took a lot of effort to keep the ones I still have alive, but I'm rebuilding as many of them as possible.

It's kinda weird to call someone up and say, "hey, I know I kinda disappeared there, but I miss you. Wanna get some food soon, that cool!?" Actually, it isn't too weird. People can be more forgiving than they should be. I mean, I didn't take anyone's kidneys, but I left a lot of people out in the cold while I revisited the past. I get the same responses about my "disappearance:"

• You didn't have to go, man. 
• What happened to you? 
• Where were you? 
• Are you OK? 

I don't know if you know, but I love to gab. It's led to real conversations, which I'm glad I get to have. I've been doing newer things for the first time in a while. Those adventures lead to friends and those friends lead to stories. I missed creating those stories. I used to have several new ones every week. When I disappeared, things slowed down and became more routine. Routine is great for things like flossing or exercise, but it kills me. I've basically been living a little differently every day than I did. I won't be taking cross country trips because I don't want the odometer to symbolically document me running away. What I plan on are things I can do in my life now:

• Spending a weekend in Montreal to see my favorite people
• Going to comedy shows
• More deep tissue massages. Seriously, it's no joke
• Getting better at bike repairs
• Going to Haiti for my/my grandfather's birthday. 
• Spending a weekend in Miami to see my favorite family
• Getting more stage time
• Going to Puerto Rico to see two friends who love each other make a lifelong commitment
• Taking more classes. I need to write down my 5 year plan and stick to this
• Spend time with people I haven't seen since the late 2000s.
• Have a few more happy hours
• See more concerts. I'll probably go solo-deep, but I'll have a blast

I didn't realize how much I missed out on until I looked down and noticed that part of my friendship-limb was atrophied. You see, relationships are like your own Frankenstein: we only get top see inside them after they're dead. And I don't just mean romantic relationships: I mean the platonic kind, too. Despite the fact we tend to think of the platonic relationship as though it were a big, friendly dog, it, too, is really a Frankenstein. A close friend is not a cheap substitute for a lover. As any ten year old kid can tell you, friendship is in and of itself mysterious, rare, elusive, and multi-faceted. Friendship is its own kind of romance. It can be lovely. It can be wonderful. It can be destroyed.