A very unpleasant conversation with a friend about a mutual friend took place yesterday. I'd appreciate some help getting my thoughts straight. I feel rattled.
I was having lunch with a gang of old friends yesterday. A mutual friend was mentioned, let's call him Alan. Alan and I were close friends for years since our late teens. We hooked up sometimes during single periods and at one point or another both of us separately broached the topic of giving it a go for real but it was never mutual or the timing was off. I am very fond of him but in recent years haven't seen him in person for various reasons.
In the intervening years my friends at the lunch knew him through different channels. One of them told a shocking story about him. I was utterly horrified and pressed for details. She seems to have the information fourth hand. It's about Alan allegedly having sex with one of her friend's friends when she was too drunk to consent and possibly unconscious (I say possibly as the woman herself is unclear on whether she had blacked out).
To note : I know of this woman and her circle. They are heavy drug users and lead chaotic lives. I've heard a lot of similar stories circling over the years about some of the other men. I've been talking to Alan a good bit online recently and he has stopped drinking completely and hasn't taken drugs in well over a decade. I briefly wondered if this was why.
I was digesting this news and asked who the source was. My friend was unimpressed at my response and asked why I didn't believe it. I said it was hard to absorb, I had never had any indication he could be capable of that. He has always been absolutely lovely to me. We would frequently go out for dinner alone or stay in each others houses.
At that point my friend looked shocked and said he had pretty much done the same to me in our early twenties. I had no idea what she was talking about then I remembered and started to laugh.
Background from twenty odd years ago - I had phoned Alan one day sobbing that I'd been dumped and was heart broken. He said he would be straight out. We went to the local bar and lined up a load of shots on the bar. The usual melodrama of that tine. Neither of us remember finishing them and predictably we woke up in bed together. We were also very embarrassed as we tried to piece together the rest of the evening and kept receiving snippets of info from random people who we had run into.
She said he was preying on me as I was vulnerable. I argued that if anything I took advantage of him and I knew exactly where that night was going to end up. We'd slept together previously. He actually liked me for real as it turned out and had asked me out properly the following week but I turned him down as was pining for my ex. We went back to being friends afterwards and had a couple of flings over the next ten years.
A debate ensued about how we lie to ourselves as we can never accept that we have been a victim. I know this happens but I really don't think I am.
Yabu : he was a predator even then and you are deluded
Yanbu : he may well be a rapist now but that doesn't change what happened in the past - two mates behaving like idiots and no harm done