My Beef With My Friend Is Over

In the back of my mind I knew my frenemy and I were hating each other protected by the insulation of e-mails.  So I knew that any misunderstandings and hard feelings could be dispelled if one of us just picked up the damn phone.

Well, I finally shot off my e-mail to him Sunday morning before I went to work, almost a full week after he replied to me.  During the Sunday night football, I get a call from him.  Honestly, I was almost ready to send it to voicemail.  But I was ready to be done with this fight, and so I picked up.

Did we have a heart-to-heart?  Kinda?  Maybe it was the best my "friend" was willing to go.  Maybe it was because he's a man and I'm ... uh, a man with emotional needs.  But we talked about a lot of things.  And this is why it's important to actually hear the voice of the person you're fighting with: The tone you imagine when reading his words may not be there when you speak with him.

We hashed things out.  The thing I got from was that he didn't mean to attack me.  He also said that he wants more communication from me.  My point was that I wanted to move on from this argument but I had to warn him that I may continue doing the same things I have been doing, which he hasn't liked at all ... but I'll try being a little more communicative and engaged.  And then we started talking about other things.

I'm torn.  The disgusting asshole part of me still would have like more of a contrite explanation from my friend.  What he said was answering all my points still seemed like badgering, and I don't totally like the explanation for this fantasy football e-mail that started this whole damn mess in the first place.  However, I think -- hope? -- that at one point during our 45-minute conversation he said something to the effect of, "If I made you feel that way, I'm sorry."  That is an apology.  Also, by deflecting to other things I think he's trying to bring things between us to the good times before all this, when we had fun talking about sports.  Finally, he did call me.  If he wanted to be a real dick and hold things against me, he wouldn't have done that.  You know who does call up someone and talk man-to-man?  A friend.

OK.  I want to move on.  This is over, thank God.