This spring and summer seem to be thematically centered around dramatic changes. Graduations, weddings, moving to new cities, and signing yearbooks for the first time in 4 years. So, naturally, I found myself in that disgusting nostalgic spiral of musing about old friendships and their relation to the new developments in all our lives. When last I reached a similar turning point (high school graduation) I was hypnotized by speculation, as I faced the unknown experience of moving away from the children I had known all my life.
This time around I find myself looking back rather than forwards, pondering how so many major changes can occur without disturbing long-standing relationships; moving apart, new lovers, marriages, even children. But also how every now and again there will be one minor change that manages to disrupt a lifetime of experiences. How an ornery wedge can insert itself into a single tiny crack in a friendship and begin to pry. I am speaking, of course, of the Interloper.
The Interloper is someone new in your friend's life, but should not be confused with the common and harmless New Friend. Where a New Friend will become a part of the pattern, the Interloper seeks to unravel that pattern as much as possible.
The Interloper thinks s/he knows the first thing about you, probably because your old friend has talked about you frequently. Rather than taking that as a hint of your bond, the Interloper choses an antagonistic stance to force a choice upon your unlucky old buddy. The Interloper has an understandably truncated view of your past experiences, but, unlike the New Friend, the Interloper discards those events as unimportant because s/he was not present at the time. The Interloper believes firmly that s/he knows your old friend best, especially if the Interloper is a new romantic interest. Years of common history mean little because your friend is obviously a totally different person now that the Interloper is around.
The proprietary attidude of the Interloper reveals the truth of the situation, however. Old friends must be seperated, because their connection reveals how recent and tenuous the position of the Interloper truly is. While one's initial reaction to the Interloper is usually irritation, or even anger, it is not long before pity takes over, for is there anything quite so pitiable as someone who cannot trust their own relationships? How can one be really threatened by someone who must exclude the past to be able to live in the present?
But the most important feature of the Interloper is that they never succeed. The only way they can drive you and your old friend apart is if the old friend wanted that separation to begin with; if not, then the Interloper will be a temporary blockage that will eventually be swept into the currents of one's gutter memories, a brief hiccup in the pulse of your friendship. Annoying metaphors aside, this means that the Interloper doesn't stand a damn chance.
My old friends are few, but what they lack in number they more than make up for in caliber. I've been blessed to know several people who will fight with me, laugh with (and often at) me, and fondly remember doing both even after all these years. So let me buy a round of cyber shots for the house, and let's all have a toast: to old friends, and the Interlopers who don't stand a damn chance.
