One of my best friends is really upset with me. Let’s call him “Kritikos”, the Greek word for critical. I am also quite upset with him. Other than a 2-word “Merry Christmas” text, we haven’t spoken in almost a month. This is strange considering that we talked to each other every week for almost 20 years. About 10 years ago, we had a falling out and didn’t speak for over a year.
I don’t know if we can recover this time.
Kritikos was one of the first friends outside of work that I made when I moved to Toronto. We had been there for each other through everything: triumphs, breakups, deaths, and stupid decisions. We were never afraid to call each other out on the questionable decisions the other had made.
We bonded over comedy. Both of us have great senses of humour. I can’t begin to count the number of times that we made each other laugh until we peed ourselves. Over the phone, one of us would crack a joke, the other would laugh, and then we’d begin one-upping each other by getting more and more outrageous. We did this practically every time we spoke, and we’d be dying of laughter every time.
Kritikos was my safe place. I felt that no matter what, he would be supportive of me.
Or so I thought.
It all seemed to change when I started doing stand-up. I thought that he would be excited and happy for me, since he knew it was something I wanted to do since I was 15 years old. I would share the audio of the sets I did in class with him. At first, Kritikos’ comments were encouraging and constructive. I shared the video of my first ever set with him. On the phone he said, “I liked the original way you did such-and-such a joke better than what you did on stage.” Ok…I explained that I had changed it spur-of-the-moment on stage and that it got a great reaction from the crowd. Little did I know that I had pissed him off with that comment.
After that, in retrospect, Kritikos became more critical. He even seemed, in my opinion, condescending to what I was doing. Gone was the constructive criticism…it was just straight out criticism. After another set, I sent him a video and asked for his feedback. His response was “You don’t want my feedback. I gave you feedback about one of your jokes and you dismissed it.” WTF?
It all came to a head about a month ago. I got some business cards. I was so proud of them and texted a photo of one to him. He was all “What is this? Why do you have these? You don’t have enough material to warrant business cards”. It came out that he didn’t like what I was doing. He told me that he cringed whenever he heard my sets. He didn’t like it when I swore (I think I swore maybe 5 times in my early sets and he’s heard me swear millions of times in our conversations so wtf is that about) and basically told me that I wasn’t funny. It really hurt me. Kritikos, of all people, didn’t think I had what it took to be a success at this. I told him that he was wrong. He said, “See?!?! I tell you something and you don’t listen to me.” I told him that I’m not obligated to follow his “advice” about anything. He felt that because he is a musician and performs on stage, he knows what he’s talking about. I told him that playing a guitar and doing stand-up are two very different things. He replied with, “So how many times have you been on stage?” Again, I said it’s not the same thing and something else along the lines of “write some material, get on stage, perform it, and then we’ll talk”. That didn’t go over well either. “I’m trying to help you” he said. It really wasn’t helpful, just hurtful. He had never been mean to me before. This was a whole new side to him that I had never seen before. I didn’t like it at all. He said, “You want me to lie to you?” I said, yes if he insisted on being a giant asshole about it.
I can write a bit that I find hilarious, but I won’t know if it works until I try it out in front of an audience. If it doesn’t work, I’ll tweak it and try it out again a few more times. I’ve never thrown out a bit. I keep it because maybe one day I’ll be able to make it work. Until that time, I keep writing. The only way to know if something works is to test it with an audience. A 6-minute set takes HOURS to compose, compile, edit, practice, tweak, practice again, edit some more, then eventually perform. He doesn’t get that and wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to explain. According to him, I’m too new to know what I’m doing. He’s never done it, yet he thinks he knows better than I do?? So ridiculous! In his mind, if I do what he says, every bit and every set will be a success. I, and every other comic on the planet, wish it were that easy!
Later that week after the fight, I went on to do one of my best sets to date. I got a shout-out in the Ottawa Comedy Community Facebook page from the producer of the show that said, “Book Simone Holder for your shows. Only 5 sets in the game and murdered it at the Eatery last night”. That was high praise! It took everything in my power not to screenshot it and send it to Kritikos with a note that said, “Fuck you and your useless opinions.” I wanted to but I didn’t.
I told my therapist what happened about a week later. Without hesitation she said, “He’s jealous because you’re doing something that he can’t do. He’s angry that you don’t need his help to be a success”. That had never even crossed my mind. A similar situation had happened in 2006 with another person when I decided to go back to school. This person would make hostile and snide remarks about me and school whenever they could. Eventually, they stopped talking to me altogether. Did I quit school because of it? No, of course not. I carried on and earned my degree four years later, but our friendship was over.
What hurts is that Kritikos doesn’t believe in me. At the very least, as my friend, he should believe in me and he doesn’t.
That is why I don’t think we can recover from this.