So I just spent the last couple of hours on the phone with my friend Claire. I spent yesterday evening on the phone with her as well. She's broken up with her girlfriend. Again. They've been doing this everyone 3 to 5 months for the last two and a half years. It's really vicious. It's always exactly the same pattern too. Slowly "Jane" pulls away from Claire, refuses to talk or communicate, and starts spending time with her ex (whom she was with for about 7 years before she and Claire got together). The she says she can't live without the ex in her life (not the Claire ever even tries to keep the ex out of their lives), that she knows the fact that she's spending time with her is hurting Claire, that she doesn't want to hurt Claire, so she breaks up with her, and usually goes back to the ex for a few weeks before basically going "Oh no! I made a horrible mistake! Please take me back Claire!"...and Claire does.

Unfortunately every time this happens Claire usually ends up a complete emotional wreck, takes horrible care of herself, and drops out of school. Thus we went to high school together, and I've been done with college for almost two years, and she's still a good year from finishing. She's literally dropped out of 3 different schools about 6 times in total, and always because of some kind of girlfriend drama (which for the last two and a half years has revolved around Jane).

This time is worse though (well it always seems like the worst one ). See, Jane got pregnant the last time they broke up. She artificially inseminated herself with a friend. So, add about another month and a half after she was pregnant before she and Claire got back together, then add about 5 months of relationship time, and now she's due in about two months. Of course she and Claire have been planning their lives around the baby. Claire was really excited and happy about it all...and now it's all gone. Also, Claire has absolutely no legal rights to the baby, but she does have a whole lotta legal responsibilities because they put a lot of the bills, and notes and stuff in her name because Jane has terrible credit.

Add in the fact that Claire was living in Jane's place, and that Jane had actually said (and this is the part that really really pisses me off) "we shouldn't have other friends because we're trying to make our relationship work". So Claire has nowhere to go and no one to turn to for even emotional support. Except me, but I'm 500 miles away, and one other friend, "John" (whom I'll get to in a bit). Her solution...which is really her only solution to be fair is to move in with him. The trouble is HE lives about 100 miles away from where she currently lives and goes to school. She could always move in with her parents but they're closer to 200 miles away, so that would just be harder. So she's actually planning to try to commute 100 miles every day and finish the next two semesters that way, because she really doesn't want to drop out since she's so close, plus she's pretty much burned her bridges with the other two universities in the area.

This time I was just so pissed off at Jane for doing this to her AGAIN, that I kinda violated my standard just-a-supportive-shoulder-to-cry-on role. I'm trying my damnedest to try to convince her she needs to cut Jane out of her life once and for all. It's like this horrible cycle is never going to end. It's torture for Claire, it's got to be tough on Jane, and I'm sure it's no picnic for the other girl either. They've just got this terrible three-way codependency thing going on. Jane told her she could stay at the house as long as she needed to, but Jane herself is gone (presumably with the ex).

I was just so upset when Claire told me her situation tonight. Basically she's sitting there in this dump, with flies literally buzzing around attacking her. She hasn't eaten in two days, and she's just been chain-smoking (despite having "quit" in November ). She usually drinks heavily when this happens too, but so far I haven't heard her mention doing that. I could cry thinking about my sweet, wonderful, brilliant friend, with so much going for her, sitting over there like that all alone.

So now we come to John. See, Claire, John, and me all went to high school together and we were all good friends. Claire was always closer with each of us than we were with each other however. As a result John and I have completely lost touch over the years. Claire keeps me informed of the general goings on of his life though.

So John was this nice, cute, sweet, very religious intelligent gay boy. I'm talking major flamer here though. Like, this kid wasn't fooling anyone. As a result he was outted way before he was ready. His step-dad didn't take it so well. He didn't exactly get "kicked out", but he pretty much lost all support as soon as he turned 18. All that trauma, plus having a huge amount of religious baggage, led to him getting "used" by an older guy when he was still a minor , then he had a string of casual encounters/bad boyfriends, got hooked on coke, weed, and ecstasy, finally had a semi-long term dysfunctional relationship, then cleaned up (yay) and got on the anti/ex-gay religious bandwagon (BOOOOOO)....then he shampooed, rinsed, and repeated the cycle about 4 times for good measure. Right now he's on the religious kick (has been for about a year now as far as I know), and "praying for those struggling with homosexuality". Of course he's still torturing himself over his own sexuality. I haven't seen him in about 4 years (perhaps more) and honestly I'm pretty glad about that because by all accounts there's not much left of my old friend anymore.

*sigh* and that, plus one more super-religious roommate, is the house Claire is going to have to move into while she gets over this. And honestly I don't know whether to be happy about that or not, her situation sucks so bad. It's pretty much either that or stay with Jane...while Jane gets back with the ex girlfriend. I pretty much want Jane and ex girlfriend out of her life so much that I'm almost relieved she'll be moving away from them...only she's already said she'll never cut Jane out of her life completely, plus she understandably wants to be involved in the baby's life, so in all likelihood whenever Jane gets tired of ex she'll take her back and they can repeat the whole thing again in 5 months. Won't this be a lovely environment for the baby to grow up in?

I'm just so upset for her and I really wish there was something I could do, and in fact if she weren't in school I'd strongly consider driving over there, picking her up, trying to make her delete their numbers, and taking her back to Houston with me till she could get her S*(& straight. It sounds very appealing, but I tend to only go so far as offering advice. I feel like I don't have a right to interfere too much, so I usually just let people make their own mistakes and wreck their lives if they have to, then help glue the pieces back together. Still after all this, after so many times, and after she pretty much acknowledged that it was a never ending cycle that she'd never end, I'm very tempted to break my rule and do anything I can to get her out of that situation.

I've tried my hardest to convince her to go out and make new friends and meet new girls, but she just won't do it. Hell, at this point I can't even get her to eat. It's frickin driving me crazy. Plus, I generally only hear from her when this happens and that always coincides with her telling me whatever bad news is going on in John's life as well. So I always get the bonus of worrying and feeling badly about him as well.

It's just that beyond everything else, beyond the fact that I simply care about them, I just feel a special connection with them. They were my first gay friends. We used to have a lot of laughs together and tons of fun times. We even graduated like 4th, 5th, and 6th in our class together. I just really feel like my own fate is somehow tied to theirs. I Just don't know why my own life turned out so profoundly NOT f**ked up, when they got stuck in these vicious, self-destructive cycles.

I mean I've hit a few rough spots, notably last November, but if anything I'm healthier, happier, and better adjusted than I was in high school (and actually I was extremely happy in high school, and I think for the most part they were too). I'm not going through any horrible religious/sexuality conflict. In fact I absolutely love the church I attend regularly, it's very gay friendly, and if anything I'm as spiritually fulfilled and sexually content as I've ever been. I'm not isolated; I'm blessed with quite a few very wonderful and close friends who were there for me when I hit the hard times. I just don't understand why it all turned out so different. We all had so much in common, it seems like we'd have ended up in a fairly similar place.