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Back when all parts of this story took place, I wasn’t quite as adept at figuring out when someone didn’t like me as I am now. Years of practice do that for you. Before 2000, however, I still had trouble believing there were people who really didn’t care for me. (I was nothing if not happily delusional.) When it became apparent on those occasions when I rubbed people the wrong way, it didn’t feel great, especially when I wasn’t expecting it.

It was early spring when Alissa and I walked into the Harvard Square Structure – one of my former stores (though I’d only worked in the Harvard location a few times – my main stores were on Boylston and at Faneuil Hall). On this day I was already retired from my retail years so we entered as customers, and what a lovely change in roles that could be. As we rounded a table of sweaters, I saw my former co-worker John standing there, looking at me with a distinctly unfavorable slant. He’d always been a little edgy with me, so at first I just attributed it to that, but soon it became clear more was at work.

There was something off about him, and while I’m accustomed to the general public having a problem with me for no apparent reason, it’s different when that comes from someone I once considered a friend. He wasn’t just testy, he was aggressively angry, and it was instantly awkward. I tried to turn it round, and I thought I had, asking him how he was doing and requesting his updated contact information now that I was back in Boston. He wrote his number down, handed me the paper, and then went back to being nasty. At this point we were about to leave, and Alissa noticed the strange exchange, and backed slowly toward to the door, uncomfortably part of this odd turn of emotion.

“What was that all about?” Alissa asked, just as taken aback by the insanely tense atmosphere we had exited.

“I have no idea!” I said, wracking my brain to think of any possible slights I could have committed against him, but nothing came to mind. We’d spent an uneventful night together a couple of years before that, but nothing had happened so there was no reason for such viciousness. It was truly puzzling, because I usually know if I’ve done something to cause that kind of annoyance. More puzzling was the number in my hand, and why it was even proffered.

Immediately, I felt offended, and some pride was on the line. Partly as a show for Alissa, and partly as a way to save face to prove that he meant nothing to me, I walked dramatically to the nearest garbage can and tossed his phone number nonchalantly into the metal mesh without looking back. Some people find it easier to hold onto hate than love. I didn’t want that to be me, and so I genuinely let it go. Later, though, years later, I tried to make sense of it.

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I’d met him when he came to work at Faneuil Hall as a relatively new manager. Gawky, bespectacled, and scarecrow-thin, he wore his clothes cinched tightly with a belt, and everything was big and baggy on him. We hadn’t gotten off to the greatest start. Early on we somehow got into a discussion on Madonna (and by somehow I’m guessing I insisted on it) and he had dismissed her with some disingenuous disdain. When certain problematic people find out how much I love Madonna, they will occasionally take jabs at her just to bother me, even if they like her. That’s all it took to leave me suspect of his taste and sensibility.

He was also openly gay, which by that time in my retail career was not in the least uncommon. While he was rather dorky, and I typically adored dorky, he wasn’t of romantic interest to me, which boded well for our working relationship. As for how well we worked together, I never had a problem when someone was ‘above’ me in the office or retail hierarchy. As the manager, he had the authority and say, and I was cool with that. It’s been one of my keys to success in every job I’ve ever held. Respect the chain of command, even if the chain took advantage of that. John didn’t do that, but I always knew if I pushed it he would not hesitate to pull rank.

After work one day we ended up going out with a group and crashing at my place at the end of the night. Both of us were too tipsy to do much more than pass out in the bed. I was between boyfriends so it would have been perfectly acceptable, if slightly messy, had we hooked up, but I wasn’t interested. That was something new for me. If a man with a working penis was in my bed, most often I made use of it. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. As the grogginess wore off and the first light of day crept into the room, I felt him behind me, pressing his body into mine. I thought about it.

Thought about turning toward him and kissing him.

Thought about how that might affect a working relationship.

Thought about how I didn’t want any of it.

He put his arm around me. Maybe it was just a simple act of affection, a friendly sleepover with nothing but platonic over-and-undertones.

I moved away from him and willed myself back to sleep.

It was how I said no back then.

We resumed our work, and a year or two later I moved store locations to be closer to the condo. Though I didn’t see John as often, he was still part of my retail family, and invited to all the parties I threw. That December, at a ‘festive gathering’ apparently, where I was introducing my old work friends to my new boyfriend, John attended, as testy as ever, so I mostly avoided him. He knew others there and was not on his own, and he was good enough to sign my guest book:

December 5, 1998 ~ ‘Alan – I promise you nothing, and in ‘nothing’ I promise you my respect and love. I would never discount anything that didn’t come at too high a price. I’ll never be able to afford you and it has nothing to do with how much I make. Keep being you. Love, John— This was probably more sentimental than I intended – please disregard.’

That would be the last time I saw him until our negative run-in at Harvard Square. During that interim I would move to Chicago with my boyfriend, break up and move back to Boston, and then feel for the shift of the seasons to save me. I never thought of John again after our mysterious falling-out until his name came across a FaceBook feed. I recognized the photo before the name. 

He had died a few years before the FaceBook entry. I barely remembered his name, but then suddenly it all came rushing back, in all its mixed emotional messiness. I hadn’t seen him in so long and had never been that close to him to shed any tears. It haunted me in a different way. In the way it had happened so many years ago and I never knew. The cold callousness of not knowing that. He succumbed to a disease I can’t remember, something I didn’t know about, and it ended up killing him. Before he was even forty years old. That’s what was so haunting about it too. I would never find out what caused the anger toward me. I can’t ask Alissa what she remembers from that time either, as she is gone too. 

The age of losing friends had begun.