Hey everyone... First, I apologize about the cryptic message earlier.. I wanted to type more, but I was on my phone, which was running perilously low on batteries... And I just got home.

So just as I was about to leave work, a group of my friends called and told me they wanted to take me out tonight to hang for a bit, as they knew I had a rough weekend.

I learned a while ago in my sitch to try to keep my thoughts, feelings and details of my sitch mostly to myself, these boards and my IC...

But everyone knew W was in town this past weekend... and she wasn't now, so they assumed I needed a night out.

So I went along... the whole GAL thing kinda took over... And it was nice for an hour or two... Until they started grilling me for more details of the sitch...

Long story short, I kept it as vague as I could... letting them know that I was still trying hard to work on myself and see what would happen with the M...

And it was just a barrage of "What are you doing? You're a great looking guy, funny, smart, you make a good living... why are you acting like a fool here? Can't you see she's never going to be into you... can't you see she's acting like a *****?"

Despite my normally calm demeanor, I couldn't handle my "friends" putting down my W or the fight i'm going through... So I exchanged a few harsh words, asked them as kindly as I could to stop badmouthing my W and to leave their comments to ME and tried to steer the conversation away...

Eventually, they got the message and just shut up about the sitch... Everyone decided to head to a bar (from the restaurant we were at) and I figured "why not... the night should get better now that all that stuff is behind us".

And for the most part it was... but there were the occasional "Really? I mean come on AT... You're better than that" type comments...

I guess it's just tough to hear that kind of stuff from people who I call friends. I realize they're looking out for what they feel are my best interests... they don't want to see me hurting and all that... but man it's been a tough night having to hear it.

I'm back home now... with my puppy by my side, who'll never judge the decisions I'm making... and posting on a site full of people who support my direction and decision... So things are certainly looking up already.

I know they meant well... But my reasons for keeping my sitch to myself have been well validated tonight... I guess the worst part about it is that none of these "friends" actually knew my W... in fact, most of them hadn't met her but once or twice... So deep down I KNEW they were just looking out for me... but I couldn't help but keep thinking to myself "True friends would support me here..."

Time to get to bed. Wake up in about 6 hours and hit the gym... work this out of my system...