Oh, Glen

What I really should do is write a blog about every single person that I've worked with this summer, because I've never met such a group of quirky oddballs. But I probably won't get around to that, so for now I will just write a blog about the most important one, and then I'll eviscerate the rest in fiction. :)

On my 3rd day of work, they had me train a new employee on the podium (tearing people's tickets and directing them to their theaters). His name was Glen Garets.

I'm sure my eyebrows raised the first time I laid eyes on him. He is 5'5" and somewhere close to 100 lbs.

After telling him the basics of tearing someone's tickets for about 2 minutes, we started chatting about the really important stuff. I don't remember how it came up, but within about 3 minutes, he made some reference to Fight Club, and I got so excited. "I love that movie!!" I said. Glen's jaw dropped. "It's my favorite." He pointed to his name badge, which said: "Glen, Fight Club" because all of our badges have our favorite movies on them. And immediately we started talking about anarchy and how amazing Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are (Brad is Glen's favorite actor, Edward is mine).

A few days later we were cleaning together and Glen said something about how awesome Eminem is. "Shut up. I totally love him." "No, you don't." "Ja, I really do." "Are you being sarcastic?" "No, I really do love Eminem." And the friendship was cemented.

Glen is a hedonist, and I am a transcendentalist. You'd think we'd disagree about everything. But I think what makes us such good friends is the fact that we can put labels like that on each other and both know what we're talking about. We drop psycho-babble and philosophical jargon into every conversation. We discuss literature, poetry, music, and movies on an intellectual level that I usually only find among other English majors. It is totally thrilling.

Glen thinks that he is God's gift to women, and I think that I am God's gift to men. So that works out nicely too, because we can constantly stroke each other's egos (which are insatiable) which only makes us care about each other even more.

We obviously lead extremely different lifestyles (as a hedonist, Glen seeks pleasure of every kind just for the sake of having pleasure. As a transcendentalist, I seek out every opportunity that will broaden my experience and help me become a better, more noble person) but we absolutely respect each other's decisions. Granted, there are the occasions where we'll try to convert each other to our own lifestyle, but we don't care if it actually happens.

We are able to pull this off because a priority in both of our lifestyles is getting to know people for who they really are and caring about them regardless. With both of us putting forth this kind of effort, Glen and I quickly became very close.

It is a miraculous and special thing to have a friend that will support you, and help you make the best decisions for yourself, especially if he doesn't necessarily agree with those decisions. Glen and I give each other advice about everything, and it's wonderful because we can be so objective (because of our clashing lifestyles) but we also care about each other so much that all our advice is directed into helping the other person be true to themself and become better.

This is a rare and precious dynamic that I am deeply grateful for. I can definitely say that Glen is one of the best things that has happened to me this summer.