In which The Gay Recluse ponders the Hills and the empty rooms of his past.

So tonight we watched the most recent episode of the Hills. The first part was about Audrina.

She had to help promote some horrible band for her job.

She invited Lauren, who — now that they are on better terms — showed up with Lo and Stephanie. What was great about this episode is that there were no idiot guys in the whole thing. Spencer was completely absent, which was a big relief.

Anyway, the concert with Lauren and the gang was kinda fun — even though the band was a total shitshow — and even though everyone kept asking Audrina where her boyfriend Justin was.

And she looked vacant and sad because he had told her that he would come — just to help her out — and then he totally blew her off. She kept texting him and he wouldn’t answer!

But whatevs, the important stuff happened later, when Holly (Heidi’s sister, or we think that’s her name) had lunch with Lauren.

And they talked about how the three of them used to be best friends.

And how that’s not really possible anymore, because Heidi and Lauren have been enemies ever since Heidi started dating Spencer.

It made us think of the wars we fought, and how some of our old friends used to have lunch with our enemies and then act like it was no big deal, like nothing had changed between us.

And how we hated them for it, because after everything we had done together, we thought they were on our side. (When clearly they weren’t.)

Part of growing up for us has been learning that you often have to pick sides and deal with the consequences.

It would be wrong to say that we never think about some of the friends we lost.

But it would also be wrong to say that we miss them.

What we really miss are the memories, the joy of which will always be tainted by what happened later.