Winter time exposes weariness in us all. Assuming, that is, if you live in a place where winter can last 4-6 months.
For a Texan, I think I handle Saskatchewan winters pretty good. Late February is the breaking point for most people. I’m wanting to see something outside that’s not white. And I want to quit wearing flannels and long pants. There’s still a ways to go.
When we immigrated here and our kids were small, I found it peculiar that the schools took a “February Break”. That is, a week off in late February. Not a Spring Break in March, like I was familiar with. My cousin is a local school teacher. He said the late winter break existed because of a high suicide rate in the month of February. It gave people a chance to disengage from the mundane.
I can endure the cold and its extremes. But I miss biking.
I miss its freedom. The scenery. The discoveries like abandoned stone structures, dilapidated farm houses, and old 1-room school houses hidden in the Caragana patch.
And I miss my riding partner Pete. He’s probably the only friend I have outside my family.
Biking routes with Pete are probably the only consistent moments we spend together. We did get our families together for a meal over the holidays. But those gatherings are getting more rare as our kids get older.
I’ve griped about not having friends before. One distant friend from my Houston youth suggested that it’s our age. Like maybe your 50’s is just a friendless era, unlike the wacky over-socialized days of our early 20s. I don’t know if that’s true.
I’m tempted to blame the small town environment I’m in. Fewer people mean that the pool of people with similar interests out there is small or nonexistent. I mean, who else in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, Canada other than Pete likes psychedelic 60s-70s music, gravel biking, and cares for halfway intelligent conversations on anything other than sports?
Pete once introduced me to Matt, an old high school buddy of his who had moved back to the Fort. Matt was an artist and had numerous ideas for ways we could collaborate. He was a chatter box, but I could hang with it. Briefly, we made a consortium of sorts. Matt could rattle off 29 really great ideas in less than a minute. But he couldn’t get started on any of them. I however, could narrow down his 29 ideas into two or three workable plans with timelines and deadlines for markets and such. We made a hell of a team.
But, Matt was freaking nuts. After a year or so, I finally discovered he was a major conspiracy theorist. In addition to all the whack things he believed, he was a partial holocaust denier. That was probably the tipping point. I’ve read over 70 holocaust survivor memoirs, as human injustice is sort of a major interest of mine.
Matt was also the classic self-destructive artist, the type that goes full force with an idea or project, then quits halfway into it. I was done with him.
Recently I was reminded of two other local would-be friends where I purposefully let the relationship die off.
There was an older widow woman who quickly befriended my wife and I years ago. She seemed eager to get to know us. That eager thing…that’s a red flag to me now that I didn’t know then. I’ve learned that locals are excited to get to know a new person so they can persuade you with their views on all local things, thus gain a new ally.
The widow woman asked to come visit us one evening as she wanted to share with us about “an opportunity”. I kind of chuckled later. An opportunity?!? What? Is she going to try and sell us Amway?
She came over and tried to sell us Amway.
Damn! I couldn’t believe it. Amway still exists? I thought that fad died in the 1970s.
Last week I had a text from an unknown local number, asking how Angela and I were. Turned out to be the widow Amway woman. I haven’t talked to her in over 5 years. She was asking about our kids, where they were going and etc. I just answered her questions and gave nothing more.
Then she texted what I interpreted as a reeling-in comment about “the current economy” and how financially difficult it is to fund kid’s university, blah, blah, blah.
Click. Delete. It sounded Amway-ish.
And coincidentally, a few days before Amway widow’s texts, the former lunch date pal (briefly mentioned at the end of my Mansplaining post) called me out of the blue. We haven’t seen each other since last Spring.
I quickly began avoiding him back then. Other than his self-appointed expert talk that ruled our lunch dates, I discovered he was the anonymous character running a social media platform that criticizes the business policies that our town administration creates.
First off, I could care less about this subject. But I most certainly can’t stand anonymous critics. Or critics of any kind. If you’re going to criticize something, come out of hiding and offer a solution. Maybe, run for town council yourself and be the solution. Be positive. Not negative.
But anyway, my mansplaining former lunch buddy began with small talk and pleasantries. Then he took no segue and bluntly asked how I felt about some new town business license practice. I knew about the license as I recently bought one for my wood working art business.
Really? That’s it? No one wants a friendship without some kind of gong-show agenda attached?
Is it me? Am I too picky? Or guarded with my sanity?
I can’t wait to go biking with Pete again.
I’ve already scoured my wall maps and assembled a long list of potential routes for this summer.
Friends (Lack There Of)
I really appreciate this post because it validates something I have long observed as a nonprofit manager. People up north start to go nuts in February. This month is never to be trusted. February is the multi-level marketing of months.