Progressive Boink

[Rusty Cooledge]

The new article is great. Go read it and then read my feedback!

When I saw the title of the post I got excited. I was pretty sure I'd be able to relate to the post given that I make about a bi-annual trip down to the cities to see my best friend from college. And in a couple respects, I did. Sitting around at a sparsely decorated apartment, no food in the cabinets, watching TV shows and stand up on TV. Convoluted inside joke with a long forgotten origin, don't get me started. Especially looking forward to new chain restaurants as an exciting thing to do. Just last time the near-highlight of Wrestlemania Sunday was discovering the Panda Express near his place had finally opened.

Other than that, the tone and perspective were different from what I experience in some vital ways, yet still felt familiar. I feel like in a few short years if my new job pans out and if a certain friend continues on his path that this whole visit will be eerily similar to the one described in the article. I'm still relatively close to my BEST friends from high school who moved but there are a couple who it would be at least a little awkward with at times trying to pick up where we left off.

So I'm laughing at the article until I realize, "holy shit the narrator is successful and his friend is poor as fuck" and I just started getting sadder and sadder and oh man the board game thing broke my heart as I ran over in my head my personal equivalent which is probably walking in on my friend watching our old home movies or watching Monday Night Raw with closed captioning on or something. You can just tell the character was really banking on the escape from his current life to the nostalgia of the past, something I personally find almost too close for comfort for several reasons.

But still everything about the article is good and I like it. And then that bastard Jon rips my heart out at the end. I literally felt my heart stop. For a fictional character I'd known for like 6 minutes. He's just portrayed so pitifully, and honestly, in a way that scares me into thinking this is how one of my old friendships could turn out.

Damn you Jon.

[A Link To The Matt]

Good god man, that ending. Its just, Like Rusty said, for reading about a guy for five minutes, the sheer happiness on his face knowing he'll be able to get through another week with gas and food because his bud left him some dough, and then...


Fuck man, that was crushing.

Well done.

[webber]

this is a sad story jon gj

When I saw the title of the post I got excited. I was pretty sure I'd be able to relate to the post given that I make about a bi-annual trip down to the cities to see my best friend from college. And in a couple respects, I did. Sitting around at a sparsely decorated apartment, no food in the cabinets, watching TV shows and stand up on TV. Convoluted inside joke with a long forgotten origin, don't get me started. Especially looking forward to new chain restaurants as an exciting thing to do. Just last time the near-highlight of Wrestlemania Sunday was discovering the Panda Express near his place had finally opened.

Other than that, the tone and perspective were different from what I experience in some vital ways, yet still felt familiar.

it is you. you are the friend

[Alan]

this was fucking awesome jon. really heartbreaking. at first I was kind of laughing at how pathetic the friend was. But then I completely related to him because I've been in similar situations in terms of money. It went from 'haha that friend is such a weirdo' to 'fuck.'

I LOVED it. Thank you.

[StuTheShoe]

God, Jon, my heart! Look what you're doing to me! That hurts, man. So painful, but so good.

[Just!n]

for anyone conflicted, the despondent reaction to not playing the generic war game is the best part of this whole fucking article.

[David]

I can not believe this article. Just holy shit. I was definitely expecting something like inside jokes and realizing two people no longer have anything in common but holy shit.

Not playing Stratego or whatever was definitely the best part. I kind of expected the narrator to half heartedly play it but not playing it was even worse.

[Andy]

Oh man, I haven't read the other comments yet, but this article was great. It's one of the more morose things I think you guys have ever written. This follows in line with Justin's Worst Sleepover Ever, but because it's not written from the perspective of a kid still in school and a semi-buddy, but an adult having grown almost completely apart from an old close friend, it hits the sad button a lot more than the humor button. Speaking of which, Justin write more of that shitttt.

I dont think I've had but smaller versions of this feeling, because I've never stayed with an old friend anywhere, but I have gone to dinner with them, and seen them around at functions and get togethers. It can be weird but we always have an out in that situation. I think the worst case of this for me was probably about 25% the weirdness that this article contains.

[Andy]

Ah, the Five Guys thing was hilarious, because I have thought that before about new restaurants I've never heard of when they open up here, and then I feel so fucking foolish later.

Yeah, the last line is amazing and my favorite part btw.

[Bismark]

Holy crap, Jon. Nice job.

[Randy]

Yeah that was really good. I know exactly how that kind of thing feels, because every couple of years I roll down to the old college town where a friend of mine lives, and even though he probably brings in more money than I do, I obligate myself to pay for as much as possible. It just seems like he could use it a lot more than I could. And even though we get along better than in the story, there's a lot there that rings true.

[Z. S. Ghost]

Fuck man, that was crushing.

And how. Great article.

[Jon]

Thanks, y'all. I should give some props to Justin, since I'd been bouncing ideas off him over the past couple of weeks. He was lobbying for me to have the friend die in his sleep on Sunday morning. I went in another direction, obviously, but shit made me laugh out loud. So fucking hilariously dark.