Blast from the past, or blasted past...either way

I just got a call from a friend of mine in Germany. Not just any friend, the only remaining friend of the darkest periods of my youth. In one of my earliest posts I talked about all of the friends I had that I couldn't save. He was part of the same group, though a fringe part. He was the only one that didn't need saving. Except that now he's all wrong. Where he used to be kind he sounded bitter. Where he used to be thoughtful he seemed self involved, all pulled inward and out of shape. I read his blog; he seemed miserable. His skin doesn't fit him right, I could feel him struggling against himself even in the short conversation we had. Something isn't right there.
I've changed too. He wanted to know if I was still as ruthless as ever. I realized that maybe he thinks that now I'm all wrong. Last that we saw each other very often I was a teenager. To elaborate, I was a seventeen year old militant feminist. When he met me in my first year of high school it was the day that some guy walked up to my boyfriend and told him that he thought I was hot and he was going to steal me. Right in front of me. Without a word I walked up to him and punched him hard in the diaphram, leaving him curled up on the ground. Then I laughed. Not because I cared so much about my boyfriend, but because you only steal objects and I didn't want to be objectified. Another time I was walking to the mall down the busiest street in town. More to the point I was doing this in overalls with smart alecked buttons on them, a faux leopard skin lined bodysuit, four necklaces that were cross cultural courage emblems, ten bangles on my right wrist, five rings on my left hand, and blood red lipstick. A car slows traffic. Some thirty something guy inside starts screaming at me to get in the car. Full if piss and vinegar and teenaged arrogance I turn lazily to see if he has a gun. No gun. So I tell him to go fuck himself-direct qoute. He starts to get out and I hop a fence in under five seconds, giving him the finger on my way over (a miraculous feat of athleticism given the jewelry).
It was in part under the influence of this guy's habitual kindness that I grew up and softened. Now I am disturbed to see that I may have had the opposite effect on him. Either that or life has made him its bitch.