Grin and bear it

L and I were the best of friends. We talked about everything. Religion; politics; world affairs; relationships; food; sports... you name it and we had fairly polar opinions that we wanted to thrash out. At 3 in the morning. Over the best black coffee we could find.

This was back in my first year.

L and I met early, during freshers' week, when he came home with a girl in my halls to chat. I ran into them in the communal areas and talked for an hour or so and he seemed a nice enough guy. Later that week, we ran into one another on a club night out. We got bored, and walked back together to the place where we were both living, talking as we went. On a spur of the moment thing he invited me in for coffee and thus what would become the firmest friendship of my first year was born.

The two of us were inseparable; talked to each other about everything; put each other to bed when drunk; visited each other in the Christmas holiday, and he then got quite arsey when I didn't have time to come again at Easter. And then came the summer term.

And he wouldn't speak a word to me.

We still saw each other around uni, but he would barely acknowledge my presence. It wasn't just too much work, or not having time to see me. He just cut me dead. And I still don't know the reason why.

A lot of other people I knew were unsympathetic: which was... understandable. For large parts of those first two terms he'd casually taken the piss out of me, which I'd always just seen as something we did, and it was my fault for being over sensitive (which, as I'm sure you've realised I am). Sometimes if other people invited him out he'd cancel with me. But then we saw each other all the time - it was hardly a big deal. Except in retrospect, everything they'd said about him not valueing me as a friend seemed so blatantly obvious that I couldn't believe I'd put up with it for so long.

As time went on we learnt to be civil. He actually started talking to me, and not just being plain rude, and I stopped acting like I cared. When he left at the end of last year for his year abroad I went for the handshake and he went for the hug. It was painfully awkward and neither of us knew what to say. By that point he'd invited me out for a drink three times saying he had his reasons and needed to explain. The only time we made it out he avoided the subject.

This year I've grown. We'd been so close to begin with that I didn't have many other friends. When he left I felt at a loss. Everybody else already had their cliques and their flatmates. I had nobody. But this year I've found all these new people; started a new life.

And then he walked back into it.

Two weeks ago I ran into him on campus, just back to talk to some people in the department. It was short and it was polite, and we made out like we'd go for a drink without either of us believing it. And then he was gone, and I didn't think about it much. A little regret that I hadn't been able to show him how far I've progressed without him. That's strange... like something a lover would say. But I don't think the heartbreak was that different. "Guy-love" as JD and Turk call it in Scrubs.

Tonight I'm out for a meal with some of the mutual friends we used to hang out with. I was just reading an email about it when I saw his name. He's still here. He's coming out. I'm going to have to make nice for several hours. The prospect terrifies me somewhat.