How many friends have you had during your life? But how many of those were what you would call ‘Best Friends?’
Friends come and go. Some enter and exit our lives quickly, while others stick around for a long time.
Over the 60 years of my life, I’ve had many friends. Three of them stick out more for various reasons. But why? You may be shocked when you find out.
Tasmin – Friend or foe?
I don’t cry much, and it’s hard for me to do so, but the breakup of this friendship had me in floods of tears for the wrong reasons.
The day Tasmin joined my team at work, we clicked. We’d have been years ahead of the awful TV show ‘Marriage at First Sight’ if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was a gay man and she a straight woman.
We enjoyed working together, but most of all, we enjoyed our nights out. Tasmin loved the gay bars; she always felt safe in them, but I didn’t know our friendship was taking us down a dangerous path.
October 1987
As soon as I picked up the departmental telephone, Tasmin’s face told me that the call was something I’d never have expected, and she knew it was coming.
“Leave my wife alone, or you’ll end up in hospital,” were the first words I heard.
“Pardon me! Have you got the wrong number?” I asked.
“Is that Hugh?”
“Yes.”
“Then no, I haven’t dialled the wrong number…”
I was so shocked that I couldn’t respond. I won’t repeat the rest of the words from the other end of the phone line before it goes dead.
Although I’d never spoken to or met Tasmin’s husband, I had a horrible feeling he had just made the threatening call. Tasmin must have mentioned to him I was gay, so why on earth would he believe I was carrying on with his wife? Crossed wires?
I watched as Tasmin walked away. That feeling that she seemed to know the call was coming stayed with me for the rest of the day, unlike Tasmin, who had just walked out of my life for good.
The following morning, my boss called me to his office and told me that the company Tasmin worked for had moved her to another work location. She’d requested to be transferred immediately.
“Had I done anything wrong?” I asked my boss?
“Why? What do you think you’ve done?” he asked.
“Break up her marriage?’ I asked while shrugging my shoulders.
My boss’s look told me he was shocked by what I’d just told him.
“You’ve been sleeping with Tasmin?” he asked.
“What do you think?” I responded.
I never saw Tasmin again and, for weeks, wondered why her husband had threatened me instead of the person she was having an affair with.
Tasmin had told me about the affair not long after we met. At first, it was all about the excitement, but that changed the evening she introduced me to him. Like Tasmin, Tom was married. The wedding ring was a giveaway.
“This is Hugh, my best friend,” she’d told him. “It’s not him I love, it’s you.” Those words seemed to propel me to dizzy heights before bringing me down to earth with a bump. I’d had a few ‘best friends’ when I was growing up, but this was the first time somebody had told somebody else I was their ‘best friend’ in front of me. It was the first I’d heard the love word, though.
“Promise me you won’t tell anyone about Tom,” Tasmin asked. I kept my word and didn’t tell anyone. After all, we were best friends, and I had shared secrets with her that I believed she’d never shared with anyone else.
Many months after Tasmin exited my life, I felt not only scared that her husband was still pursuing me, but I also thought I’d lost my way in life. I felt lonely without her in my life. Our paths would never cross again, although I saw Tom a few years later with another woman on his arm. Wife or new girlfriend? I had no idea, and I didn’t want to find out. Fortunately, he passed me by without recognising me.
Neville – A friend for life?
Neville was the best friend any gay man could have, at least that’s what I thought when I first met him over a mug of tea and a slice of cake in the staff canteen. I hadn’t long moved to London, so he took me under his wing and decided he wanted to look after me.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be safe with me,” he said in his sexy ‘Gordie’ accent.
“Safe?” I asked.
“Yes, safe. Safe from all the homosexuals who work here and want to get you into bed.”
I was shocked by that statement, but it wasn’t long before we laughed while attracting other people’s attention.
And, yes, I was safe with Neville, but probably too safe.
As our friendship developed, Neville and I went just about everywhere together. If Neville was there, I wasn’t far behind. Rumours started, and it wasn’t long before people began gossiping that we were sleeping together. And they were right, but not sleeping together in the way they were thinking.
I loved Neville, but more in a brother-like way rather than a partner, or so I thought.
Our nights out together were always memorable. Although we were attracted to the same men, this never caused any problems.
We laughed, joked, danced, took London by storm and got the most out of what the city offered us. As I mentioned, although we often stayed with each other after a night out, there was never any talk or desire to do anything else but fall asleep together in bed.
But something else threatened the foundations as our friendship deepened—and it wasn’t another man!
We seldom went out without one another, but what I thought made Neville more special to me than anyone else was the jealousy I felt whenever, on the rare occasion, he’d go out with somebody else rather than me.
That may sound strange, given that no love existed between us. We were just terrific friends, but the thought of Neville doing something without my knowledge was probably what I later believed to be blind love.
I started getting jealous of Neville’s other friends. I wanted him to myself. I kept asking questions, such as why they were trying to take my best friend away from me, and I couldn’t work out why I felt so jealous of him going out on nights out with other people.
Finally, I found myself distancing myself from Neville. I’d go out of my way to avoid him while trying to make him think I was going out with other people. I wanted to make him think I had other friends to see if he’d be jealous.
As the months went on, my life went downhill quickly. Everything suffered because of the situation I’d got myself in over Neville. I would sink even lower if I didn’t tell him the problem.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” I told him as we sat alone in my flat. It had been long since we’d both been alone with each other without anyone else in the same room.
It took a lot of courage to then tell him how I felt.
“I think I need help.” were my final words.
When I saw the first tears trickle down his face, I only wanted to hug him. I was more concerned that he’d storm out of my flat, so I was shocked when I saw the tears.
“Oh, my god! Come here and give me a big hug.” I did not expect these words.
We stayed up talking all night that night. Just before daylight, we drifted to sleep in each other’s arms.
The following day, everything seemed to be back to normal between us. Talking had helped.
We picked up our friendship and promised to look after each other, and what developed was more of a brotherly love between us.
Seven years later, I sat at the back of a cold, dark church as I said my final goodbye to Neville. Convinced I’d broken my promise of always looking after him and being there for him, I’d decided the back of the church, away from his family and other friends, was the best place for me. I was heartbroken and couldn’t understand why he’d been taken out of our lives so early.
Although Neville’s life ended too soon, as the months after his death went by, time taught me that I was doing it all wrong. I should be celebrating what life had given me in having such an extraordinary best friend like Neville, not being depressed. I had much to be thankful for in knowing what being and having a best friend was all about. Thirty years later, in the present day, Neville still brings me many happy memories. Others may have forgotten him, but I never will.
Janet – The shortest friendship of them all?
Janet and I got on so well that she even introduced me to her parents when they unexpectedly called into the office where we both worked.
What was strange about the introduction was that Janet didn’t introduce any other staff to her parents. That evening, while having drinks in the pub near the office, we joked about it.
Although I’d taken Janet to my flat a few times, it never dawned on me that she felt threatened being alone with me. After all, she knew full well that I was gay. However, what I didn’t know was that it was me that was in more danger, not Janet.
Janet liked everything I did. She liked anything I wore, the pictures on the walls of my flat, even the bedding on my bed. She’d even compliment my choice of towels and crockery. Sometimes, she was the only one that laughed at my jokes. I sometimes felt like some kind of god to her.
“Why don’t you introduce me to your parents?” she announced unexpectedly one day.
“Because they both live in Wales and, anyway, I don’t have any contact with my father anymore since he found out I was gay.”
“I can still meet your mother.”
“I’ll introduce you next time she comes to London,” I responded. “Is there any reason why you want to meet her?”
Janet never did meet my mother, which I was thankful about. Janet knelt and proposed to me the night before my mother arrived in London.
At first, I thought it was a practical joke, so I looked around for the hidden TV cameras while laughing out loud. But when the atmosphere turned tense after I finished laughing it off while wiping away the tears from my face, I knew Janet wasn’t joking.
Three months later, I moved to a new area in London and got a new job.
Back in the 1990s, nobody would have believed it if a gay man said he was being stalked by a woman.
Like Tasmin, my path never crossed Janet’s again. But I was thankful for that.
Notes from the author.
‘Thank you for being a friend’ is the theme of the 1980s classic TV sitcom ‘The Golden Girls.’ If you’ve never seen that show, it’s friendship at its best.
‘Friends are an essential part of life. Without them, life may not seem essential.’ – author unknown.
I’ve had many other friends, but I wanted to share Tasmin, Neville, and Janet’s friendships with you today to show how different friendships can be.
While we can’t choose our family, we can choose our friends. As with anything else, caution should be taken whenever somebody new comes into our lives and shows more than a healthy interest. The signs are there. It’s just a matter of wanting to see them.
I often think back to friends who were a part of my life and wonder what happened to them. Sometimes, we get to the part of their story where we exited, so we don’t find out. And even though most of my past friends will never read this post, I want to thank them all for the friendship they offered me, even when that friendship simply taught me important lessons about people and life itself.
Next month: – Nightslife. Nightlife is a vital part of a young gay man’s life, but it doesn’t always go to plan.
If you enjoyed this entry, you may also enjoy reading, ‘True Stories: Gay Memories – The Day My Life Changed.’
Last month, In this series, the subject was Family. Click the link below to read it.
True Stories: Confessions Of A Gay Man – Family
Coming out to my family is one of the most difficult things I have done in my life.
I faced varied reactions that led to estrangement from some but eventual reconciliation with others.
In this post, I highlight some of the ups and downs of family acceptance of somebody being gay.
Please feel free to ask me any questions by leaving me a comment.
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