Turning paper cuts into hemorrhages
Buckley was my roomie for decades – we lived on the same floor in college, then after school, he crashed at my parents for a while, and then we moved into my current place in 1997.
He stayed until at least 2007.
That’s him up above with Bryson. We were like in our late 20s in that pic.
Anywho, I met him because we were both interested in computers and he was FAR more skilled at me at them.
So, I was constantly asking him to help me, which – being the good soul he was – he always did.
That is, until, I hit him up one time too many.
Him: Dude, I’ve got homework and exams. I can’t do it.
Me: But I think I have a virus!
Him: Can’t, man. I’m really sorry.
Legit, I had one of the first viruses known to man – a variant of the Stoned virus.
So, not knowing what else to do, I wiped out my harddrive and reinstalled everything from scratch.
The next time I saw Buckley, proudly told him what I did and he looked at me like I was the stupidest person he’d ever met.
Him: You did what?!
Me: I wiped and reinstalled everything.
Him: (smacking his head) Logan…the worst thing that virus coulda done is wipe out your drive, forcing you to reinstall everything. You literally did its work for him.
33 years later, it’s one of my absolute clearest memories from Cornell – and one of my most salient life lessons.
One that I didn’t really fully appreciate until after the Reporter and I broke up.
See, I was convinced she was cheating on me, and I accused her of doing it.
Here’s the thing, though, I just thought she was cheating on me (she may well have been, I was just super suspicious) but, because I was already accusing her of doing so, she went ahead and did it.
After all, if you’re gonna do the time, you might as well do the crime, right?
The common thread between those two stories is that, you can easily make a bad situation much, much worse by overreacting.
I’m telling you this story because I just found out that someone I casually know – neither Buckley nor Bryson – absolutely demolished a solid relationship by taking a tiny little thing and bringing it to Defcon 1.
Like, seriously – cops were almost involved and things were thrown.
It’d be laughable if it weren’t all so sad because, he spent a large part of the relationship terrified that she would leave him, and looked at every disagreement as World War 2.
But, if every disagreement is World War 2, why would any sane person stick around for the next battle?
And guess what?
He’s always been convinced that every single disagreement is a potential relationship ender and has finally managed to convince her as well.
At the very least, they’re both finally on the same page.
Years ago, I told you that life is a series of heartaches or papercuts, you get to decide which.
But a coda I’d add to that is to not turn a papercut into a hemorrhage.
Here’s hoping he’ll learn the lesson I learned back in 1992, and again in 2006.
Location: Not a bartender contest at Tiki Chick
Mood: nostalgic
Music: Long nights and dumb fights (Spotify)
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