I went to a wedding this weekend of an old friend. This friend and I spent much of our single days together. Alone. With beer. A lot of beer. Both of us were hopeless romantics, sure that life could be just like a movie in which the perfect woman would just waltz into our lives and turn us upside down. We thought we were wrong. Turns out, we were wrong about being wrong.

We don’t talk very much anymore. We try to get a beer now and then but somehow our pathetic lives transformed into busy lives and we have very little time to get together. Yet, we still consider ourselves good friends. Why? It’s hard to say. All I know is that if he called after not speaking with me for two years and said he needed help with something, I’d be there.

Anyway, the story of how he met his wife is interesting, and thought provoking. They met in kindergarten. Spent grade school together and then . . . nothing. Perhaps they saw one another at a movie or a coffee shop, but nothing else. They moved on with their respective lives, putting the kids from grade school behind them. Much as we all do. Then, one day, their mothers ran into one another. Then they started seeing each other and . . . voila! Love hits them after 20 years.

It occurred to me, because this is the type of person I am, that we spend our lives envisioning everything that happens to us as scenes from films. When looked at in retrospect, we can take those scenes from our lives and categorize them into genre films. Romantic comedies, tragic love stories, action, and on and on.

At the time this friend and I would convene for beer and hot wings, we were in the midst of our depressed singles movie. Our conversations, much like the dialogue of Swingers or even the television show Sex and the City, pondered our abilities to love and be loved. Why, we would moan, does it have to be so hard? We’d reconvene and talk about our attempts that week to not be alone or revisit past failures and try to analyze them, all the while flirting with the waitress. Once we had an odd urge for toast and bacon after our beer, so we went across the street to Denny’s.

These moments, these details are what we see in movies. These are the moments that these movies ring true.

Prior to meeting my wife, I had gone through my teen comedy phase (though I was a supporting character in that one . . . Kind of a Ducky type). It was funny, but hardly a romp that I look back at fondly. The good news out of that one was, when I entered my pondering college film phase, I had made a friend from the teen comedy phase that acted as my partner. The end of my pondering college film was interrupted by a tragic drama, after my mom died. That film was about a young man who finds himself on his own trying to cut ties and make connections. Lost, sad and confused. The tragedy was replaced by the depressed singles comedy where I floated from one infatuation to another, while convening with friends to have deep conversations about the nature of love. Beer was usually involved. Sometimes coffee. Often music.

Then, in the third act of that film I entered the romantic comedy phase, when I met my wife. In a series of touching, funny and romantic gestures, we fell in love. Slowly our romantic comedy evolved into a family comedy, where we work hard to raise our kids and not lose our minds (though the passionate love story film is ongoing). Interspersed were a few working comedies (a la Clerks and Office Space) that will someday go down in history as classics in the genre. Right now I’m in the midst of a Mr. Mom type of film, where I use 220, 221 . . . whatever it takes.

Because GeekFriend is moving back home, which is the best decision he can make, I’ve been reflecting on the time that my wife and I have spent with him. Generally, geography has always come between my closest friends and me (East Coast seems to be popular). So, I had become used to not having friends outside of my wife and kids. I’m generally closed off and do not trust potential friends. Much to my surprise, in the midst of one of those workplace comedies I found myself entering into a buddy movie. I hadn’t intended it to happen, but it did. We were Murtaugh and Riggs. He was a loose cannon and I was getting too old for this shit. We moved through a series of buddy scenarios, including a few situation comedies. And the time was good. I had always imagined that one day he, Boston Friend and I would be a bunch of crusty old men sitting somewhere drinking coffee and complaining about how all these youngsters had no idea what real music was. “Why in my day . . .” we’d say. We’d yell at kids about Elvis Costello, Stereolab, Roger Waters and contemporary classical music (which by then will probably just be “classical” music).

Odds are, this probably will happen from time to time. The three of us are suited for each other. We’re all obsessive geeks who, in some ways, are interchangeable. GeekFriend and Boston Friend had a chance to hang out with each other last summer. Oddly, when the three of us did things together, it felt as if we always did things together. It was an easy, pleasing fit.

Now, I’ll be in the middle of them. One to the east, the other to the west. Hell, I’ll have good travel opportunities.

GeekFriend is now in his coming of age road flick. He’s packing his things and moving cross-country, no job, no place to live. He’ll reflect over his life as he drives and moll over the concept of home, which is where he is going (though he denies it). His journey is one that will help a soul find its way. And he’ll be the better for it. He’s truly wild at heart.

Me? I don’t know what my next film is. Whatever it is, it will be interesting, I’m sure.

But, I can’t think of that just now. Soon enough, my girls will be starring in their own teenage romps and I have to prepare for my role of the stern but loving curmudgeon of a father.

“You kids turn down that noise you call music!”