Very recently, I made a friend on the train. This friendship lasted a good while, about five days, until my ex-new friend discovered something about me which he absolutely could not tolerate. My feelings and beliefs surrounding Kurt Cobain's suicide.
 |
| Courtesy of Flominator |
The break-up transpired over a series of emails. Our conversation about Kurt Cobain, which ended with my ex-new friend telling me that he didn't think it was going to work out, alluded to my 20 Dates project as "sexual tourism", (a term so poignant, I hope to use it again and again, for many years to come). He told me that I would make a good soldier, called me "hard and stainless", and scolded me for having not rolled down my window for a homeless person in Chicago. My best guess is that my ex-new friend has never been to Chicago.
I had an inkling this might happen. I had even mentioned to my ex-new friend during the trip that the train is a special environment. Like a vacuum in which anything that is created will most likely die when exposed to the air outside of its carefully sealed, stable environment, the train affords almost no exposure to the outside world. I am a near-expert on vacuum-like environments due to my vast experience working in higher education.
Back to, as my ex-new friend would call him, "Kurt". It was my ex-new friend's contention that Kurt should have just gotten away for a while; boarded a plane and escaped all his troubles. He proposed that outside pressures were eating Kurt's soul; that while he was scornful and angry, he probably also cried a lot. Of course, as those of us who have suffered with serious depression know, it is not the outside forces which are ultimately responsible for the inner turmoil. There is no plane in existence with the ability to take you away from yourself.
My argument, that Kurt was authentically miserable, not a poser pretending to be miserable, which pointed to self-destructive and tragic behavior, was not welcome by my ex-new friend. I argued the contradiction of loving a man for the hateful, tortured soul that he is then hating what that torture ends up doing to him. All of this, my observations and opinions of Kurt Cobain, led to my ex-best friend severing all ties.
The irony of the situation was incredibly amusing. My apparent lack of sympathy fomented a less-than-sympathetic attitude in my ex-new friend. While I allowed him his perspective of Kurt Cobain, apparently, there was no room in his world for someone with my point of view. That my perspective was so offensive that we could not even be email friends was a bit of a surprise. The fact that the disagreement was regarding the suicide of the King of Grunge, well, that bordered on hysterical.
I did enjoy our short-lived friendship while it lasted. My ex-new friend was a very kind, sensitive soul. I learned a lot from him, mostly about chess, on my trip from Austin to Phoenix, and a lot more in the email thread that followed.
It is very easy to maintain a friendship inside the vacuum, but outside of the vacuum, things tend to decay and die in unpredictable and sometimes violent ways. Kurt Cobain probably knew this better than anyone.
