A visit from an old friend opens my eyes to how much I have grown

It was kind of a surprise, kind of not. This old Kiwi friend of mine has been hinting at the notion that he would stop by Da Nang for a visit for years now and he finally went and made it happen.

At first, just like you would expect, I was excited that he was here and it was wonderful to see him again. This guy was someone I met when I lived in Thailand and we had a bit of a crossover as far as our jobs were concerned because we both owned tourism oriented businesses and were considered reasonably successful at it.

This was back when I was in my 20's and early 30's and I was a party animal back then. I owned a bar and was one of the best customers of that bar. It was very normal for me to get very drunk almost every day of the week. This is also a time in my life when I smoked and was generally very unhealthy but the youth that still existed in me made it possible for most of these effects to not show.

However, as time passes the abuse we do to our bodies starts to be more noticeable and because of this I changed my ways so as to not feel like crap all the time and perhaps even extend my lifespan by a bit.

This friend of mine made none of those changes and it shows.

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At our first meeting he chose the location and it was a beach bar smack in the middle of the ripoff tourist areas. I didn't protest because I wanted him to have a good time. I did, however, point out that the drinks were 3 times the price at this place and after a few rounds I showed him where the locals hang out and he of course liked that better because neither of us are terribly wealthy.

As the day went on we just kept drinking and drinking and I started to fade. You see, I don't really do this anymore. I do drink frequently but I rarely drink a lot. I almost never drink too much. We went into "a lot" territory and extended well into the "too much" portion of the evening.

I eventually had to throw in the proverbial towel and went home. I got some ultra unhealthy food on my way home and passed out. The next day I felt absolutely awful and this was expected. What was not expected was that my friend was ready to do it again the next day as well. This was when I had to let him down and said that I am not going to do that again. I realize that he came a long ways to see me but I still have a normal life over here, one that is filled with kind of looking after my health and not being hammered and loud all the time.

I met up with him for dinner and a few drinks but I informed him at the start of it that this was going to be the extent of my involvement in partying. I instead introduced him to some of my local friends and they got along right away because he is a really cool dude and has the "gift of the gab."

I will say this though. Time has not been kind to him. He has these coughing fits where it sounds like he has pneumonia or something terrible like that because of 40 years of smoking. He also smokes a lot and this is something that just kind of irritates me in a general sense. Smokers, and I was one of you, annoy me with how getting a ciggy is always of the utmost importance. Certain things really annoy me such as when we order a taxi to go somewhere and the smoker smokes while the car arrives... when it does arrive they power down the cig to get as much of it in their lungs as possible, then 5-10 minutes later when the cab arrives at wherever we are going, the VERY FIRST THING they are focused on is having another cigarette. I'm like "dude you literally just had one a few minutes ago!"

Maybe I am just fussy now or something but I abandoned him several times because it is hot as balls outside and I am not going to stand there in the sun while he feeds his tumors.

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his teeth are in terrible shape, he can't walk more than say a block or two without getting winded, and the only things that he wanted to do when he was here was to go somewhere and sit and drink. I involved him in my VR group and my bowling group but once again his primary focus was getting somewhere to smoke and drink as quickly as possible. It really annoyed me that I had a speech of sorts dedicated to welcoming him to town during my post-bowling team talk and he wasn't even in the room when I did it because he wandered outside to go smoke.

As the days went by I found myself getting increasingly annoyed with him and his youthful addictions and last night was his last night in town. As I walked home from the bar that he no doubt spent many more hours at, all I could think of was how it was kind of tragic that I actually felt a sense of relief that he was leaving the following day.

I intentionally didn't meet him for lunch today before he left because I know that it would turn into drinks, which would turn into more drinks, and then something wildly stupid like him missing his flight and staying for more days would happen.

So what is the problem here? Do I need to establish better boundaries when people visit? Is it unreasonable of me to expect that people nearing 50 years old should not behave like wild college frat boys?

I just can't hang like that anymore and I don't want to either. There were several instances while he was here that I felt like a creepy older guy at the club lurking in the corner and honestly, that is kind of what we were.

I hope he does come back again one day, but I think that before that happens, or if it does happen, that I am going to be very clear with him that I am not interested in going out and getting trashed all day, every day.

I guess I just grew up and some of my friends didn't