Breaking Deals

IN MY MIND she and I could be great friends, since we had been forty years ago. We got together, did lunch, and started catching up. She had four marriages to report, and I, a teaching career and a bunch of cats. When she told me that she had been a Trump supporter for the first three years of his administration but kicked him to the curb late in his term, I regarded that as a good indicator, while vaguely wondering what Trump could possiblly have done to alienate a supporter after three years, other than unacceptably reducing his racist hateful rhetoric, or by suddenly making too much sense, such as admitting that no, George Washington did not, after all, capture all airports in the colonies during the War of American Independence. I was afraid to ask, so I didn't. It was still working pretty well when suddenly she informed me, in no uncertain terms, that Michelle Obama is a man, Barack Obama was born in Africa, and the piece de resistance: Jared Kushner is the anti-Christ. Taken aback, but undeterred, I decided that crap like this would not be a deal breaker, that I would still be happy to try to rebuild a long lost friendship, but that I would "push back" as we say these days, rather than letting the nonsense slide. I to this day have no idea what she expected me to do. My best guess is that her preference would have been unqualified agreement. She might have accepted quiet implicit tolerance, or open minded questioning, accompanied by expressions of amazement. Three choices I was not willing to provide. The four I considered were: 1) you're an idiot. 2) you're crazy, or 3) you're a racist. 4) All the above. That, of course, was the deal breaker; one does not rebuild a long lost friendship by calling the long lost newly discovered friend a "racist idiot", even if she clearly reveals herself to be one. My only consolation: I take great comfort in the fact that that she, and not I, ended the renewed friendship before it really began. I out-tolerated her! She isn't my only recent loss of renewed friendship. A good friend revealed himself to be a good friend after our reunion by making all manner of repairs to my house at no cost. But when he used the "N" word to explain why he isn't a college athletics fan, and when he referred to "queers" with abject disgust, I knew one thing: I won't end this friendship, nor will I inspire him to by telling him what I think of his bigotry, but...well...I won't call him, he can call me...or not. My general conclusion is that when close friendships end in early adulthood due to divergent life paths, then reconnect in senior citizenship, don't expect too much. It may work, it may not. For certain, it won't be the same, and any attmept to make it so will result indisappointment. Betweeen the ages of twenty and sixty people change, even if not fundamentally. I never would have expected the lady to evolve into a loony tunes, or the gentelman into a bigot; but, as they say, stuff happens.