If I was going to try to be objective about the situation, I would say that you should never have entrusted our relationship to Larry 'does nothing but work on cars and plays his guitar and practically lived with his mother' Thorsen. This was not the guy to give you advice about anything, really, but certainly not about how we related to each other.

I've only just figured out, like just today, that he regarded me with thinly-veiled jealousy and contempt. I mean, he would constantly be saying things like 'Well, maybe I didn't have the breaks you had,' or 'well, maybe I don't have the talent you have,' and bringing up my scholarships, and it's like, how obvious could he make it? He resented me because I supposedly had these opportunities and didn't know what to do with them, so they were wasted on me. He was really insecure about his position in life-- again, how obvious does he have to make it? --and he felt like he should have done better, and here I am with the things he'd wished he had. I didn't frustrate him because he was concerned about me, I frustrated him because he wanted what I had. And I think he had this idea that I was one of the popular kids, so that's another break I had that I didn't appreciate, and that also makes me the enemy, because he wasn't that popular. He didn't even have people he hung around with other than you, did he? To him I'm this spoiled rotten kid who doesn't appreciate or deserve what I have, but he's got to tolerate me because he's seeing my mother. If any of this is off the mark, let me know... I think for the most part I've got him figured out.

The idea that he had that I ought to be more independent, that was valid. But it's like, how long did it take him to make that brilliant deduction, five minutes? As far as any specific approach to easing me out of dependency, he's got nothing. Just let me sink or swim, that was probably his advice. And I'm the jerk because I can't pull any practical approach to independence out of my own ass. And the idea that his own lackluster path through life gave him the 'reference points' to advise me on not becoming a loser was also valid, but his mistake was in thinking that he was no longer a loser, or that he'd grown up, or that he was objective.

So that's my take on Larry. You probably haven't thought about him in years, but to me it's like it only just happened. By the way, you know that song he would play all the time? 'Hey Joe.' It's about a guy who murders his girlfriend for cheating on him. You think maybe Larry was trying to tell you something?