Mr. Smoochy Part II

The remainder of my friendship with Mr. Smoochy has turned into something more prosaic.

Last fall Mrs. Smoochy and I had gone jogging near daily in the park until she abruptly quit, ostensibly due to the weather. Now, I love jogging. It's good exercise and it keeps me from slipping into clinical depression. This winter was total hell, what with not jogging and it being my first Christmas without my father. In the spring, I was desperate to start again and invited Mrs. Smoochy to come. She told me on no uncertain terms that she hated jogging and wasn't going to do it any more. So, I turned to Mr. Smoochy and he agreed to go.

At this point Mrs. Smoochy, a normally pleasant and easy-going woman, turned into a psycho hose beast on steroids. First we tried jogging in the morning before work -- no, that wouldn't do for her because mornings were her time to snuggle with her husband. Then we tried a few days jogging after work -- but, alas, that apparently cut into her quality time with her husband. We settled on jogging in the morning right after she had gone to work. She wasn't happy about it, but she couldn't immediately think of any way to object. However, object she did. Over a month long period I got reports from Mr. Smoochy about how she was increasingly moody and nasty to him, culminating in her apparently making a series of statements to him about how she couldn't trust him anymore, how she didn't know when he was telling the truth, how she felt he and I were too intimate of friends, and how she felt left out of her own marriage.

This, over jogging in a public park.

After a long angst-filled conversation, Mr. Smoochy and I decided that even though she was basically asking for his balls on a platter he would give up jogging with me in order to preserve his marriage.

As his friend, I completely support his decision. It's ridiculous to put another woman before your wife. On my own behalf, though, I am deeply angry. I am angry at Mrs. Smoochy for resenting my fleeting pleasure. I am angry that she would put her unfounded insecurities before the needs of her friend. I am angry that she would dare meddle with any of my friendships. And, irrational as it may be, there is also part of me that is hurt I wasn't picked.

I have barely spoken to either of them this month. I have precious little desire to maintain a friendship with Mrs. Smoochy, but giving her a piece of my mind is pretty much the permanent end of any hope of seeing Mr. Smoochy. And of course he himself has me so bollocksed up inside that I can't figure out what the hell I want.

Despite all this he is a dear friend and I miss him terribly. Yet any contact at all is simply another reminder of the friendship we can no longer have. What to do?

For now I shall stay my course and avoid contact until forced to do otherwise. But I will always keep in my heart his special touch, the touch that has moved me like no other.