He was a school friend of mine (I use the word "friend" reluctantly), but only in the last years of our time together there. He's the kind of person who seems arrogant and standoffish at first, but after a while you see that, as well as being those things, he is very wise. He astounded me with his ability to see through the haze of the irrelevant and the inconsequential. He made me feel small and weak, but also as though I was being nurtured by his vast wisdom. I know that he has helped me along my way, and I know he knows it.
He is also a complete bastard.
If you've ever watched the TV show "Scrubs", our relationship can best be described as a JD-Cox relationship (I J.D., he Dr. Cox). That's the simplest way I can describe it. He would always treat me as though he couldn't stand me, but would help me in the end, even though I didn't know it. He would ridicule all but the greatest of my ideas. He made an observation once that ended up becoming somewhat of a running joke within the school; that I was so spineless that my University girlfriend would be a burly biker woman, I would be her plaything.

Me: Why are you always such an asshole to me?
Him: I'm trying to make you a better person, tough love and all that.
He used that insufferably sarcastic, semi-condescending tone he always uses to answer the most important questions I ask.
Me: Come on, seriously.
Him: What? Why can't you ever dare to consider the fact that I might like you?
Me: Because if I did, you'd turn around and say "HA! That was a complete lie and you fell for it!" like you always do.
Him: no I wouldn't.
Me: Yes you would.
Him: You refuse to believe that I like you because you want to be victimised.
Me: Why would I want that?

As he said what is in bold above, my only possible reaction was to deny it. What else could I say? "Yes, you're absolutely right, I want to feel sorry for myself"? No, of course I couldn't, but he was right. Even now, months later, I sit here astounded at how he cut to the very core of me like that. How could he have known? I could just have easily had some ingrained fear of abandonment, fear of emotional attachment or just well-hidden misanthropy. Any one of those could have caused my reluctance to accept his friendship, but somehow he knew otherwise. Look at all that I've written so far, you can see how even now I revel in my own pity! I know it's pathetic, but I feel great when I feel depressed, when I feel like I want to cry but can't summon the energy; that's when I feel as though I can see eveything so clearly, like a fog has dissipated from inside my head. It truly is disgusting, but it's true.

"Oh dear, I have a pathological need to be miserable, to wallow in self-pity, aren't I just a sad state of affairs!", I should shout from a rooftop.

He is the kind of friend that you could go your whole life without ever having; one that can deliver that kind of precise emotional truth about yourself, that can see into your mind so easily. Even though he exhibits every one of the symptoms listed here, I can't get enough of his company. He's like some kind of drug. I still can't tell whether he really liked/likes me or not, because he's such a damn good liar.