In college, I had a friend named Stephen R. I actually had a lot of friends named Stephen, but he was honestly my favorite one. We met one afternoon in Kent Dining Hall at the University of Delaware at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year. I was eating lunch, and this tall, lanky blond kid who was pale as fuck asked if he could eat lunch with me. We ate lunch, then we hung out in his room. Stephen had this small single at the top of Sussex/Squire Hall. We got high, then spent the day walking aimlessly around Newark, Delaware's Main Street, before we ate burgers in the Korner Diner, this greasy spoon that was a wonderful cross-section of humanity before it closed down in 2008. I laughed my ass off as we ate shitty burgers, and 21-year old me didn't know it then, but I had started what would become one of the most meaningful friendships I would ever have in my life.

 

We spent that fall '07 semester building a friendship, just hanging out, getting high or drunk, and the typical shenanigans of 21-year old college students. Steve and I couldn't have been any more different- he was this laidback, genius but apathetic stoner from northern New Jersey who liked just hanging in his dorm and talking, while I was this perky, nerdy Delaware kid who worshiped at the altar of a good rager. We'd always have dinner together, and often lunch as well. I lived in Smyth, which was just a short walk over from his dorm, which made it easy for us to hang out all the time. One night, at a party, on Cleveland Avenue, I wound up coming out to him. I kept bugging him and this other guy to kiss, because I had become immensely fascinated with watching straight guys kiss in YouTube videos, and wanted to see it in real life. That's (no brainer) when Steve asked if I was gay, I said yeah, and he told me, "Alright then. That's cool." As we walked back home from the party, two guys walked up to us, and asked if the girl that was with them was fuckable. I said, "I wouldn't know, because I only fuck guys." The looks on their faces was hilarious, and Steve and I just laughed as we continued walking back to our dorms on South Green. Steve was the first straight guy friend I ever had that I was totally open with, and he'd have this habit of telling people that I was gay so I wouldn't have to, because as Stephen basically put it, "People won't have a problem with you being gay if you don't have one, man. It's not a big deal so don't treat it that way." That was the thing about Steve- he was entirely comfortable in his own skin, while I was this jumpy kid who felt like he had to flit from role to role in order to get people to like me. I learned to relax and become comfortable with myself because of him.

 

When I got hospitalized for depression around my 22nd birthday, Steve was the only one who cared enough to try and call me in there. I'd never had that before- someone that I knew would always have my back no matter what. This was reiterated to me a few months later, when we had our first, and pretty much only fight- at 21/22 I had this habit of liking to call people drunk, otherwise known as "drunk dialing". I thought it was hilarious. But Steve didn't think so, especially when I did it at 2 or 3 a.m., and he called me back and said, "Don't call me anymore." I was pretty hurt, and I felt like I had screwed up a really good friendship, like I always did. Imagine my surprise when Steve called me up a day or two later, and we apologized to each other and the friendship continued.

 

Don't get me wrong- Stephen wasn't perfect. Far from it. He could be a pretty arrogant son of a bitch at times. It often annoyed me how Steve wasn't into going to the big ragers at UD because he preferred smaller, more intimate crowds, which exasperated my wannabe "party king" self. Steve also had this really annoying habit of dictating what we did when we hung out. If Steve didn't want to do something or go somewhere, he flat out wouldn't do it. For example, I wanted to watch Waiting for a movie night, and Steve basically said "Fuck that" and we saw Alpha Dog instead. Steve could be brutally honest with you if you annoyed him, and if he didn't like you, he did very little to hide it. Steve was also very disdainful of school, and often talked about how he couldn't wait to get out, start his career, and make money. His general apathy about college could get me pretty annoyed, especially because I was of the "This is college, let's live college life to the fullest!" mindset, and hanging out with him watching TV in his Dorm while drinking didn't seem like it. But I also knew that I had a friend who would stand by me, and his brutal honesty had a way of keeping me on my toes and learning how to regulate my social behavior with people.

 

In 2009, I came back to University of Delaware to finish out my last 3 semesters, and that's when I met Steve's group of residents- Ian, James, Justin, Anthony, and Tony. Ian was this chill as shit redhead stoner from Vermont- basically, Steve's brother from another mother. James was this pint-sized, bulked up conservative guy who was basically born to become a frat boy. (I was apparently the first gay friend he ever had.) Justin was the Jew from Rhode Island- this guy who was totally innocent at the start of college who had been corrupted by Steve with the copious amounts of weed they smoked. Anthony was this Long Island musician, while Tony was this quirky hipster type with a keen interest in working with university admissions as a student guide. We all became friends because of Steve. I had never had a tight group of friends like that before- I have always been more of a floater who hovers close by but never actually gets in. I remember watching St. Elmo's Fire when I was in 12th grade, and thinking, "Wow, I want a tight group of friends like that!" But that was a movie, and my over-eagerness to have a tight group of friends freshmen year actually had the opposite effect of turning off a lot of people. But my senior year of college, I did, and it just happened. It didn't look like what I had pictured- I had thought of big trips, big moments, high drama, big parties, and lots of maudlin, sentimental moments, like on Beverly Hills 90210 or something. It wasn't like that at all- mainly just college boys sitting around a dorm, drinking, and talking about our lives. Well, okay, there were some big ragers in there such as the '09 Skidfest Soapbox Puke Incident, too..And there was also swine flu, but luckily no major catastrophes.

 

In the summer of '09, Steve and I were both taking summer session. He had this big-ass dorm on Ray Street to himself, and we spent that summer basically getting drunk in his dorm after class while watching re-runs of That 70's Show. We actually celebrated his 23rd birthday that summer...it was a fun summer. It was great not having to pass out on his floor since there was an extra bed, and I met more summer buddies through him. On weekend nights, we'd smoke pot and drink by this tree next to a basketball court by the dorm. By day, I'd drive home early in the morning with the beginning of a hangover. It was the perfect way to spend a college summer.

 

Senior year came and went. I continued my friendships with Steve, as well as the Dickenson Hall Crew. I remember Halloween '09...I had dressed as a cop to hang out with them in Ian's North Green sophomore year dorm, and Steve joked, "Dude, you look like a gay stripper." He often liked to point out whenever he thought I was wearing something ridiculous, like my 1980's vintage Members Only Jacket. LOL. Because it was senior year, I kept trying to do "senior year bucket list" things, and Steve resisted me at every turn. Tried as I might, I could not get Steve to tailgate college football with me, because you were just not going to get that guy out of bed before 2 p.m. on a Saturday. (I was able to do that with Ian and James, though.) Our friendship that year basically continued over Happy Hour talks at Deer Park Tavern, at La Tonaltecca, at Buffalo Wild Wings, and of course, his R.A. dorm at Dickinson Hall B. Towards the end of senior year, Steve and I were at Skidfest 2010, this legendary University of Delaware music festival held for 20 years. (This would turn out to be the last one, as nearby Barnes and Noble basically put pressure on the city to deny the event any kind of permit.) I snapped this photo of Steve while we were hanging out on the porch of Skid Row:

 

 

It was the only photo I ever took of him- Steve wasn't the sentimental type, and I didn't have a cell phone camera until mid-senior year. But I remember when I took it, I really loved the photo- for a crappy cell phone camera, I thought it captured exactly how I saw Steve. He was a guy who was thoughtful- not the happiest dude around, or someone you'd always see with a smile on his face, but someone you knew had a lot of insight to share. Smart as a whip, and keenly observant of every one and everything.

 

True to form, Steve didn't stick around for graduation. We didn't have a "proper" good-bye, just a chat at Buffalo Wild Wings before hanging out a little bit at his dorm. There would be no "Look, we made it!" smiling graduation pictures with us, like I got with my high school friends or my grad school friends. That did actually piss me off, because damn it, I thought that you needed a sappy good-bye to the tune of

when you graduated from college. I did get to see Steve in person one more time- around August of 2010, he came back to visit Tony, Ant, and Justin at their house on Cleveland Avenue. We all ate dinner at La Tonaltecca, Steve's favorite Mexican restaurant, and just talked about the next upcoming year. They were going to be juniors, while we were going off to grad school. I told them about how I was going to have a roommate from Alabama and how I was worried he'd be some conservative bible freak, and then Steve joked and said, "You could be wrong, though. Maybe you'll meet your husband instead." (I didn't, and my roommate was nice but REALLY unattractive and apparently a pathological liar, but I digress.) Then we went back to their house, watched Super Stone Me, and that was about it, really. No big blow out, but just a pleasant evening with a group of people that I had become really good friends with, largely because of my friend Stephen.

 

After graduation, we managed to keep in touch...the longest we'd go without any kind of contact would maybe 2-3 months or so. Our lives had gone in other directions, and I wasn't the same guy that I was in college. I always knew though that if I really wanted to talk to him, I could call him and he'd be there to listen. I mean, Stephen listened to me rant during my Habitat for Humanity Spring Break 2011 trip for an hour about an asshole parent chaperone while I was at some Rhodeway Inn in the middle of Georgia at 12 a.m. Our final talk was on Facebook November 20th...Steve was telling me about how he had just one paper left to finish his counseling degree, and I joked that he should specialize in rich guido teen cokeheads so he'd make bank. I knew that Steve was going to make one hell of a counselor, and I knew Steve was going to help a lot of people.

 

From August of 2007 to November of 2013, I had a friend named Stephen Rose. He was my stoner buddy from New Jersey,. He liked drinking Rolling Rock and making joints out of his Black and Mild cigars. Steve liked driving around the Elkton, Maryland countryside while smoking with his friends in the car. He liked listening to classical music and hip-hop, and had a prominent poster of Snoop Dog in his dorm room. Steve preferred having CD's over MP3 players, because he liked to "feel" his music. He never failed to tell me how annoying he thought my nearly-pathological nostalgia streak was. He hated big crowds, fake preppy people, and wasn't keen on school despite his insanely high intelligence level.

 

Steve was a guy who basically knew everything there was to know about me from the ages of 21 to 24. There is no one else in this world I can say that about.This friendship didn't resemble the melodramatic, epic friendships I'd see on T.V....no huge drama or big moments. No maudlin moments. No sappy good-byes. No jumping around in water fountains to the tune of

. But it was real, it meant a lot to me, and I've been forever shaped by having known him.

 

So, Steve, wherever you are, I hope you've got a Yuengling set aside for me at the bar when I'm ready to join you. In the meantime, just know that I couldn't be more grateful for the time I did get with you, even though it wasn't the decades that I imagined it being.

 

R.I.P.

Stephen Rose

July 8, 1986 - November 29, 2013