There are some people who reveal an ugly side of themselves, often at the worst time for you. You cannot unsee the ugliness of contempt once it reveals itself to you. It’s human nature to make excuses for that person, if we love them, but once an ugly pattern emerges, with the insistence that only you are to blame for any bad feelings, wishful hoping will not change the person you are making excuses for or your relationship with them.

Just because you love dogs, and dream of having an affectionate lapdog, that love doesn’t turn the fish struggling in your lap into a dog.  The fish will always die, no matter how many beautiful, friendly fish you try this with.

I had a childhood friend I haven’t seen for many years at this point. He called periodically and we spoke calmly about things in our lives. The reason we don’t see each other anymore is that in spite of provoking me to anger every time we met, for years, he refused to acknowledge this, instead insisting that I have a problem with my temper.

We all have a problem when we lose our temper, but that is another story. We do not all provoke our closest friends every time we get together with them. We also don’t all reflexively fight to deny that we are doing anything bad to anybody, ever.

I urged him several times over the years, if you see me start to get upset, hear my voice tighten, see my muscles tense and my face redden, pump the brakes and let’s change the subject for a while. He doesn’t know how to do this. It’s not his problem. It is mine, as he always reminded me. So, in the end I finally did what I needed to do not to be provoked by someone who can’t help himself. I stopped pretending this handsome fish was a cuddly lapdog.

He is, sadly, unable to view his actions, and the actions of others, with the same clarity. To him we were still friends, somehow, because I took his calls and we talked on the phone once in a while. I always like talking to people, it is one of my favorite things to do.

I like comparing notes on what we’ve learned over our aging lives. He listened as I recited hard lessons I’ve had to learn. This made him feel close to me, that I was always honest with him, and talked in a relaxed, nonjudgmental way. I didn’t mind talking to him, but that’s a much different thing than us being friends.

Friends comfort each other during painful times. Friends ask good questions when they don’t understand something. Friends extend the benefit of the doubt when the other one is off kilter, gently find out what’s wrong, how they can help. Friends accept responsibility when they hurt their friend. Friends make sure that ill-feelings do not fester in their dear ones. Friends are responsive, and honest, when a friend expresses unhappiness with the way things are.

Not all friendships can always be saved, though some can. No friendship can be saved if one friend is always blamed for any conflict, unless the blamed person is a masochist.

If I tell you a sad story of death, with a terrible lesson I reluctantly had to learn, and you reply that it was a beautiful story of life, with an inspiring lesson that is the opposite of the lesson I described, what can I possibly say, without being dishonest, that will make us friends again?