Friend Break Ups? Poker can handle that.

Friend break ups are weird. I'm not talking drifting away from friends you haven't seen in a while. I'm talking abrupt break-up, where you deliberately end a friendship because it isn't working out. Friend breakups are even weirder than romantic ones, since you at least know in the back of your mind that unless you've gotten really lucky, your relationship with your boyfriend/girlfriend is probably not going to work out for you anyhow in the long run, and a break up is likely to happen. You don't have that expectation when you make a new friend, and since you don't have to see them all the time, you generally forgive them for their faults and just let the good times roll. But sometimes, things just don't work out.

My only friend breakup happened in college. I was really good friends with this one guy. We founded a club together, lived together for a semester, ran in the same circle of friends, and dated two girls who were pretty much best friends themselves. Of course, I got to see the ugly side of him, being so close for four years. His big personality flaw is his enormous ego. Basically, if he doesn't think that you are on par or above him in terms of intelligence, people skills, women skills, and physical capability to beat someone up, then he looks down on you. A tall order, considering he's pretty darn good at all of them. That's probably why I was his closest friend; I was the only one who met all of his criteria for being someone "worthy" of his respect. He was fun, and I got a little sense of satisfaction for being in that category. It's everything you could ask for in a friendship during your college years, when you enjoy doing the wild and reckless things college men do just for the hell of it.

Once we got out of college, though, he had a nasty break up with his girlfriend. If you get a mental image of a burning bridge, blazing away to nothing, that's pretty close to what happened. And I was caught in the middle, being close friends with both, needing to decide which way to jump before falling into the abyss below.

With all of his cockiness, I realized that my college friend really didn't care too much about other people. Also, my girlfriend (now fiancé) went to high school with his ex, and so she was clearly on her side.

So my choices were:

Choice A): College buddy. Fun to hang out with. Very self-centred and narcissistic. Moody. Physically aggressive, vulgar, and treats most people like crap. Chubby, kinda bipolar and reckless, Mr. Full-of-himself-to-the-point-of-alienating-everyone?

And choice B): I avoid pissing off my girlfriend. I get me some sweet, sweet loving at night, look forward to a peaceful future with my soulmate, and get to keep a good, loyal, and very attractive friend (his ex) that would eventually help me pick out my fiancé's wedding ring.

Hrm. Seems tough, doesn't it. And so my college buddy and I parted ways.

So how does poker figure into this? How does that exhilarating game of chance and skill overcome the mighty friend break up?

Well, ever since I got engaged in October, he's been contacting me again. Sending me texts to hang out, a facebook congratulations message, email, you name it. I'd get one every 2-3 weeks.

"You wanna go to happy hour? Soccer? Party? My place?"

Hmmmm, that's some suspicious timing there, buddy. Seems like someone just wants an invite to my huge, awesome wedding. It's out of character for him to beg so much to hang out with someone, even someone as awesome as I am. Hell, he even swallowed his pride and sent his ex an email asking if she could pass a message on to me.

But then I get this invite:

"You wanna play poker on Friday night?"

You $^%#$#%^, haven't I told you off eno... wait, poker?

I love poker. I get to take money from people who are ignorant of how much skill goes into the game and arrogant enough to wager money on it. Ignorance and arrogance. Self-centredness... that's being ignorant of other people's needs, right?And arrogance, being a narcissistic, overbearing prick kinda qualifies. And he wants to play poker with me?

Hell yeah. I'm so there. Of course, I still don't trust him. I'm skeptical that he's anything but a smooth-talking sack of shit, but I've got a test for that. You see, he's not getting an invite to my wedding, no matter what. My fiancé gave that the big ol' hell no. She isn't happy about me going to hang out with him, but it's too late for her to pull back from me now. I liked it, and I put a ring on it (hah, I actually got to say that). But when it comes to the wedding, bridezilla gets what she wants. 5 feet nothing and under 100 lbs. can be scary, sometimes. We'll see how he takes that news, but I'm going to wait until after the poker game tonight.

You see? I believe in giving people second chances. It isn't a lie. So long as you invite me to a poker game.