“Are you doing ok?” I ask Larry’s stupid face.
“I’m fine,” he says.
Oh, I think he’s lying. So I ask again.
“Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yup.”
“Oh God, Shannon is in a mood,” Mike says. I’m about to mood all over Mike’s stupid face. But he’s not wrong, I am in a mood. Enough is enough; I’ve had it.
I’m tired of coming to our Wednesday breakfasts and looking at four other guys that never talk about how we feel. I’m tired of letting big events go with a shrug and a quick man nod. I’m tired of being a bad friend.
“Shut it, bucko,” I tell Mike.
“You’re tired. You need a nap,” he says. He’s right there, too.
“Yup, I am. But I also need to know if Larry is ok. I need to know if you’re ok. I need to know if Jake, and Mick are ok. And now I’m pissed off because I don’t know that.”
“Yes, you do,” Mick’s stupid face decides to say. Larry’s stupid face is giving a stupid smile. “We meet for breakfast every week and don’t you think that if something was wrong we would say something?”
Ah-ha! Now I’ve got him.
“No, you wouldn’t. I know this because you never do. None of us do. We rarely talk about how we feel. And if we do it’s always just one sentence and then we are awkward for five minutes until someone cracks a dick joke. Then we forget we had the conversation at all.”
The four other guys laugh at me, and at least this is some communication. I’ve known Larry, Mike, Jake and Mick for eleven years. All of us are at-home dads and with the exception of Mick, all of our kids are now in school. We’ve been through all the ups and downs, through the lean times and times of plenty.
I know this because there are subtle differences in behavior when something is bothering one of us. It would be much easier if we just talked about it. But we don’t. Because we are men and men don’t talk about how they feel. Me included.
“You’ve been traveling for four days and didn’t get any sleep. Now you’re just pissed we made you come out this morning rather than just sleep in,” Jakes stupid mouth says. “Eat your breakfast.”
I am exhausted. I was going to skip our weekly breakfast because I could barely keep my eyes opened. I’m wearing sweatpants and a hoodie with no shirt underneath.
Do I have on underwear? Nope. In my zombie state, I didn’t even realize it until I was in the car for twenty minutes and my butt crack got cold.
“Look, all I’m asking if Larry is ok. And if you are, too, Mike. Not so much you, Jake. You can suck it. And you’re right, I was moving like crazy over the last week and you jerk holes made me get up and come out. Well, since I’m out we are going to get some of this shit out in the open. I want to know if you’re ok. And if you’re not, what can I do make it better?”
“Don’t mind him,” Mick tells the waitress that accidentally walked into my diatribe. “He’s cranky.” She stands stiff with wide eyes and I don’t think she has a stupid face at all. She looks very sweet, certainly like someone who would talk about how she is feeling.
I’ve worked myself up for this, and I am cranky. I’m more than cranky. I’m pissed, which is the way things that like this usually work for me. I let something gnaw at me for days and sometimes months until I get tired of it.
Then I attack like everyone in the world is to blame rather than my own shortcomings. In summary, this is what bottling up looks like with your emotions. An overweight, yet handsome, middle-aged man demanding that his best friends come clean and share their feelings with me.
“I talk to you all the time and tell you how I’m feeling,” Mick’s stupid face and his stupid voice says.
“No, you don’t!” I tell him.
“Yes, I do. We’ve had really long conversations over the phone and everything!”
“When?”
“Sometime before. Like when we first started playgroup.”
“Dude, that was eleven years ago. And I can count on one hand the number of times either you or I have said that we weren’t ok. And when we said that, it was one sentence.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Oh, like hell it wasn’t. You told me once, just once, and in only one sentence, that you were a bit worried about when your youngest goes to school and that you needed to feel productive. And that’s it, that’s the only thing you said about that.”
“Yeah,” Mick says.
“And you remember what I said? I said ‘yeah, that’s tough.’ That’s all I said.”
“See, we shared.”
I’m about to punch Mick’s stupid face. Mike decides to jump in.
“Hey, I lean on you guys all the time. It might not seem like it, because you are further away than the others.”
“Yeah,” stupid Jake says, “Same here. Mike calls me all the time.
I want to make the point that asking for a ride or babysitting is not the same as sharing. But I think this is the best we can do. We just don’t, can’t, talk about how we feel and I don’t know if that is good or bad.
The best that we can do is call our friends stupid because it’s easier saying that I love you guys and that makes me feel less weird. I realize the irony of resorting to anger to express myself like some caveman. But in my defense, Mike has a very stupid face. I don’t know if the behavior is taught or some intrinsic instinct, but I suppose it doesn’t matter.
I think the real point here, more than anything else, is to keep looking at Larry and straight up asking “Are you ok?” day after day. He’ll nod, say that he is. Hopefully, I’ll know when he’s not. I genuinely want to be a good friend to him, and to the rest of the guys. I want to be who they deserve. I want to give back what they have given me.
Then I’ll punch them all, and hopefully, they’ll know what I mean.
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