Uh-oh. Mark can feel the problems boiling already, the retort that's just on the tip of his tongue, and the desire to grab Eduardo by the shoulders and shake him a little to knock sense into the guy. Maybe, maybe Mark is at an extreme end of the spectrum, calculating to a fault, and Eduardo will never have to deal with that type of person again at such a close distance. But Mark doubts it. While Mark can't claim that this entire ordeal has been him trying to teach his best friend a lesson— because it hasn't, and the irritation and outright anger he felt at those ridiculous hearings is enough proof of that— there is still a lesson embedded in here and it's one that Mark is now much more able to drive home, away from facebook as he is and no longer quite so enamored with Sean Parker. The fact is that Eduardo signed up for this. He's signed up for a life that requires for him to be on his toes at any given point in time because that's what money does to people, and why Bill Gates' fortune has never been what Mark first thinks of in association with that man. Mark refuses to walk down that line, wants to be more about the inception of ideas than a cash flow, but Eduardo is a businessman, and the first rule of business is to never mix it with the personal. This shouldn't be about friendship. Shares of a company can't measure that.
"No," he finally goes ahead and says, the grapefruit falling smack into his left hand and staying there, fingers curled around the peel, while he looks Eduardo in the eyes. "No, you are my friend. And have been for years. If you get to say what this means to you, then the full picture has to include my perspective as well, and from where I'm standing, you are my friend and everything else is... a separate matter."
It's true enough. Even while he was planning to send a harsh message across to Eduardo, it was never with the intention of severing the friendship. There was jealousy. There was a chance to prove to the world that Mark deserved more. There was a puzzle. He was tired of feeling like nothing he did was good enough for people as people, and that the only thing he properly knew was strategy. Ultimately, it turned into a game.
And apparently, Eduardo doesn't like that. Mark turns sharply away and heads a couple of steps toward the door, before waiting for Eduardo. "If I expected you to come have a beer like we did for those two years back then, I wouldn't have even asked if you were interested; it would have been an assumption. You know that. I know that. So yes, something is wrong, something is very wrong, but that doesn't mean that everything has to be."
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Date: 2011-05-15 07:36 am (UTC)"No," he finally goes ahead and says, the grapefruit falling smack into his left hand and staying there, fingers curled around the peel, while he looks Eduardo in the eyes. "No, you are my friend. And have been for years. If you get to say what this means to you, then the full picture has to include my perspective as well, and from where I'm standing, you are my friend and everything else is... a separate matter."
It's true enough. Even while he was planning to send a harsh message across to Eduardo, it was never with the intention of severing the friendship. There was jealousy. There was a chance to prove to the world that Mark deserved more. There was a puzzle. He was tired of feeling like nothing he did was good enough for people as people, and that the only thing he properly knew was strategy. Ultimately, it turned into a game.
And apparently, Eduardo doesn't like that. Mark turns sharply away and heads a couple of steps toward the door, before waiting for Eduardo. "If I expected you to come have a beer like we did for those two years back then, I wouldn't have even asked if you were interested; it would have been an assumption. You know that. I know that. So yes, something is wrong, something is very wrong, but that doesn't mean that everything has to be."