My Hawaiian Brother

(I'm writing this at 3AM, so it's not very good. But I wanted to write it out before I forgot.)

This is a really random post, but I felt like I should write it anyway.

I tried to find out what the word for "brother" was in Hawaiian, but I couldn't figure out which phrase would be appropriate. I was looking for this word, because I was thinking about my good friend Kaleo. He was a great friend. We met in Hawaii in 2009. We started hanging out after I began dating one of his friends, Marco. Our group of friends at this moment were constantly together, so we saw a lot of each other. For the time that I was dating Marco, he and I didn't talk much. I mean, we talked, but I was wrapped up in the relationship so I didn't pay much attention to him. To me, he was always Marco's friend.

When my relationship with Marco began to fail, Kaleo was the only one who had the guts to point it out to me. He helped me out more than he probably knew. This might not sound like a big deal to anyone, but it was to me for two reasons. First, like I said we weren't particularly close at the time, so I was surprised by his consideration for me. At that point in my life, I hadn't had a lot of people look out for me (only two or three, and you know who you are, and thank you for being there :)

The second reason was that he treated me like an actual person, and not like some girl he was trying to hook up with. I had never had that experience with a guy I was not related to. Every guy I met who was nice to me was only that way because he wanted something else from me. I am not exaggerating. I had never had a guy friend who was simply that; a friend. It was so refreshing.

During the next few months, we hung out a lot. We would eat together in the cafeteria, walk around to hang out with our other friends together, all the normal friend stuff. I felt like he was my brother, my sort of protector while I was out there. We even fought like brother and sister, and over stupid stuff too (LOL).

Unfortunately, due to some drama within our "inner circle of friends", we grew apart. We haven't talked much since I left Hawaii.

I don't know if Kaleo ever knew how much I appreciated his friendship. He showed me that there was a whole group of men who actually had the emotional confidence to be "just friends" with a woman. In fact, if it wasn't for him, I don't think I would have had the bravery to go back to church to be around strange men all by myself.

If there are any men reading this, especially single men, I am going to ask you to be more like Kaleo. Don't be friends with a girl just because you want to date her (or whatever). Be friends with her! You never know how you could influence her.

Love you Kaleo!