Cosmic Friendship

Wall of Pentz
Originally uploaded by Richard Gugins

This is our one wall not devoted to books. It features the art of Eugene Pentz’s Cosmic Friendship series. Alas, we could not afford the original paintings but they are all signed and numbered prints. The two small and two medium sized prints were purchased directly from Mr. Pentz at his studio in Invermere BC. The large central picture was a mail order. The stereo (lower right) is a Pioneer SA-6500 purchased in 1976. It still works just fine after 32 years of continuous use, proving once more that you can never go wrong paying for quality.

I remember the reaction my niece and nephew had on first seeing our living room. Cathy looked around and said, “look at all the art.” Robert, on taking in the same scene exclaimed, “look at all the books.” We would have more art if we could spare the walls to hang it on. We do what we can with curios interspersed with the books and our wall of Pentz as it were. His art struck a chord with both of us when we were on our honeymoon in Fairmont BC. We bought our first print that year and another the following year when we returned to the scene of the crime. We are still coming back to this valley today with our last visit just last June. Eugene is no longer in Invermere. He has relocated out to Gold River, BC on the west side of Vancouver Island. In addition to his painting, he is a world class wood carver.

Friendships, cosmic or not, happen for a variety of reasons. Common interests, proximity, attraction all play a role but I find in the case of men and women it’s most often one party or the other enjoying the company of the other but not finding them sexually attractive. The old “let’s just be friends” line, all too familiar to most men is a signal to move on. For the most part the other person does not actually want to be friends. They are simply using this as a gentle way to dump you. This is by no means universal. In one rather exceptional case I did manage to come out of it with a life long friend. She has stood by me and I have stood by her for over thirty years. No, she is not my wife although she did stand beside me at our wedding as my “best man. No, we never slept together though not for lack of interest on my part; she is a rather attractive woman. Somehow in her case this never really bothered me where with others it had driven me crazy.

You see what most women who use the ‘just friends’ routine to avoid having to sleep with someone don't understand is that most guys can accept that part, the not sleeping with the woman. And that would be fine if the other party were about to take a vow of chastity. Sadly that doesn’t happen. So said friend has to sit on the sidelines unable to touch the object of his desire and watch others boldly go where he cannot. Frustration builds, stupid things get said and done and the so-called friendship evaporates into the cosmos. This happens for the most part because the friendship wasn’t real in the first place. Instead, it was merely a convenience, a way of keeping the other person in their life without letting them get too close. Friendships based on a lie like this cannot and do not last.

Here it’s not so much the woman lies to the man (and to be fair I’m sure it works both ways but I only have personal experience with the one) but more to the point, the man lies to himself, convincing himself that if he’s patient and noble enough she’ll come around. Trust me, they never do. Once you’ve been slotted into the “friend” category, go look elsewhere for she most certainly will. Stop deluding yourself and move on. If she really does want to be ‘just friends,’ she will have no trouble understanding your need to have a life apart from her. If not, she was never your friend in the first place.