Ferocious protective instincts are not always your friends.

Letter Writer: You were trying to be fair at first, but then you slipped, and now you're out of control.

Lots of people in this column are acting like jerks. You are acting like a jerk because you love your boyfriend and he almost died. Your friend is acting like a jerk because he doesn't want to think that he could have almost killed someone he cares about by a wrong decision that took only a moment and wasn't even carried out on a conscious level. You want someone to blame and he's convenient. He wants someone to blame who isn't him.

When you were in your right mind, you acknowledged that your friend didn't intentionally try to murder your boyfriend. Go two steps back. Return to that place and stand there a minute. Stay there no matter how many bills he sends you, no matter how ungentlemanly he is in blaming the equipment.

Now, let's go forward, slowly and gently. You realize, surely, that the last person qualified to judge whether someone is up to doing something he has never done before is the person who has never done it. Cary's being a jerk about that. The guy said he was okay, he was ready to climb, because he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. He wasn't intentionally deceiving anyone; he had never done it before, and he didn't know any better.

When he agreed to go on a trip with you, he didn't realize that he was agreeing to take responsibility for someone else's life. When he was climbing the kiddie wall, he didn't realize that if he made a newbie mistake, his best friend might die and he might have to live with it for the rest of his life.

Maybe he should have realized those things. But he didn't. Chances are, no one mentioned it except as a joke when you signed a routine release form. No one was thinking in those terms.

Now he feels resentful; what was supposed to be a vacation turned into something he's expected to apologize for. Because he grabbed a rope to keep his friend from falling, instinctively, which was exactly the wrong thing to do. Which he had even been told was the wrong thing to do - except that one demonstration of the right thing to do isn't likely to change someone's instincts. Now you're acting like a bitch to him for nearly killing someone, when all he wanted to do was have a good time in Colorado. You may think you have kept your inner bitch off your face and out of your voice when talking to him about the situation, but I bet you haven't.

That's why you have a bill, I suspect. The bill is tacky. I'm not going to argue that. But it says that he's busy resenting you as much as you resent him. (Well, it could also say that he honestly can't afford to let this pass, which is a different matter.)

Cary's normally gentler than this; it looks like his Ferocious Protective Instincts have kicked in too. May I humbly submit that writing long-term friends off over a single incident is not the best way to deal with life's difficulties? Your friend is being a jerk because strong emotions triggered by a life-or-death situation have kicked in, he's wrapping himself in denial, and he's trying to protect his gut. I have a suggestion! Why don't you surrender to your own instincts and emotions triggered by this life and death situation? Toss logic and compassion out the window. Dump him. Better yet, sue him for the copayment on your hospital bill. Curb your dog on his lawn.

Or maybe, just maybe, you could take a step back. Breathe deeply. Try to imagine where he's coming from and why he's acting like this. Remind yourself that you are a kind person and in your heart of hearts you don't really WANT your friend to blame himself for the accident. Your first instinct was to protect him from that, by telling him no one blamed him. Sometimes strong protective instincts are a good thing. But since that time you've narrowed the circle of people you protect. It no longer includes him. Widen it again. Resist the impulse to do as some others have suggested and generalize from his behavior as a climber to his entire character. The characters of actual human beings are not homogeneous.

Someone who can't be trusted with a rope can be an excellent and trustworthy person when it comes to giving advice. Someone who can't ever seem to apologize when an apology is called for may be the only person who can make you laugh when your world is collapsing around your ears. No people are all bad or all good.