I am pretty sure that most of us have their closest friends and believe that their relationship will be hard as rock whatsoever and I thought the same way. However, I realized that a rock-solid relationship can be only maintained with few conditions. One of them is a good communication in relationship. I had a friend named Doug that I knew him for a long time. He was the guy that I trusted the most and we respect each other a lot. Since I have met him for the first time, we did almost everything together that we thought we knew everything about each other.
However, the trust which was believed to be solid between us was so fragile in reality. It shattered down by just a few miscommunications and misunderstandings. It happened summer in 2012. I had been single since the last winter so I was asking my friends to introduced me a girl they know. One day, one of my female friends called me and said that she hosted a small house party and asked me to come over. I arrived there little bit late and most of the people almost got drunk already. So I went straight in to my friend’s room to say sorry.
My friend whose name was Sun was drinking with a guy and her friend named Mia in her room. After I joined that group, we played few simple ice breaker, drank little bit more and had a fun time together. After few more hours, everyone went their home and only four of us left in the house. Sun asked me to drop Mia off at her house since I drank the least, and I said, “Of course, I will get her home safe! ” The night was very long and we started a relationship since that night. I took our relationship seriously so I asked her out to meet my friends.
I brought her to my friends who were the closest people to me right after my family. They congratulated me for escaping from single life and we were having a good time but there were two people in another world. When my all-time best friend named Doug and my girlfriend met each other, they looked flustered that they had already been met each other before. The next day, I asked Mia about Doug and her. She said, “Sun introduced him to me before she introduced you. ” She told me that Doug seemed to be very interested in her but she stopped contacting him after she met me on the other night.
At that moment, Doug sent a text message to her. As soon as I saw it, I decided to stop hanging out with him regardless the contents of the message. Doug and I were friend since high school and I saw him almost everyday for many years. However, I started to avoid him after that incident. I did not tell anything about Mia to Doug because I did not want to make uncomfortable atmosphere when all my high school friends were getting together. But I was pretty sure that Doug might know that I was avoiding him.
Few months later, Doug went out to Korea for two years but I did not go to his farewell party and say good bye to him. At the time, I thought our relationship as a friend would never be the same again. Later, I broke up with Mia and I heard Doug came back to Maryland, But, my anger and disappointment toward Doug was not something I could throw away easily. I was not ready to meet and talk to him. So I decided to keep ignoring him. One day in summer 2014, I had a party with my friends. We drank until six in the morning and I left the party to go home after an hour sleep.
On the way home, I blacked out and waked up in the detention center. After the longest ten hours in my life, officers freed me and told me to call somebody to pick me up. I called my friends but no one could helped me in next few hours. At that moment, I could not be patient enough to wait few more hours to get out from detention center so I agonized between calling a cap or Doug. I called Doug and said, “Hey Doug, how you’ve been doing man? ” He answered, “I’m doing great man. You finally called me haha. So What’s up? ” I was very surprised that he answered my phone called with such a positive mood.
At that time, my emotions were all mixed up. I felt sorry, shame and appreciation at the same time to Doug. As soon as I got out from detention center, Doug and I grabbed some beers and had a long conversation to catch up. I also asked about Mia to Doug and I found out that Mia was trying to play with both me and Doug and Doug tried to stop her. I felt so much better after talking to him and Doug said he felt the same. A year later, Doug is still remaining as my friend. I was just a kid. I was so impulsive and imprudent that I had no idea how to handle misunderstanding between two.
I could just simply asked Doug but I chose to cut a friendship off and almost lost my lifetime friend. I always thought that friendship and relationship between lovers were totally different. Since I thought friends can understand each other without the words, I thought I did not need much communication between friends, especially between male friends. However, I learned that communication is very important even between long-time male friends. Now I am confident that I will not lost any of my friend just because of the small miscommunication.
