I always used to ask you to meet me at Ardeer station because it was such a pest to get to your house on foot from there on my own. Sometimes you’d give me a lift in your Dad’s beat up Falcon and other times, we’d just walk. It was cool having a mate that lived smackbang between Connex and V/Line territory.

I remember the first time I met you, dear friend. It was at a mutual friend’s birthday party that I was DJing at. Your mum and his mum were from the same village back in Macedonia. You were there with a couple of your old high school chums, drinking beer and smoking Winnie Blues. You were loudly complaining to one of your friends about the fact that there was a girl spinning records and were wondering why our mutual friend couldn’t afford to get someone like Dirty South in to DJ.

Your friends dared you to talk to me, so you wandered up to where I was and introduced yourself. You seemed so confident and sure of yourself whilst puffing away on your cigarette. I didn’t think much of our first meeting because we were never going to cross paths again.

I was, however, wrong about us never crossing paths again. I spotted you downstairs, outside the back entrance to my workplace, hanging around by yourself. I wandered up to you and we got talking again. You’d scored a job as a phonebitch. You seemed rapt about this. You told me that this was the first real job you ever had that didn’t involve lifting sacks of cement or carrying bricks. You hated working for your dad’s construction company. You yearned to talk to everyone and anyone.

It was from that second meeting that we began hanging out more. I remember spending Saturday afternoons visiting op shops in search of random vinyl records for you to learn how to DJ with. I don’t know how you ended up convincing your parents to buy you a full DJ setup (turntables, mixer, CDJs, monitor speakers) but you did and your garage was transformed into a mini home studio.

There was many a good time had in that garage, mixing it up on the decks while your cousin Zlatko (may he also rest in peace) would dance around as if he were at a rave party. Oh and don’t get me started about the time I took you to your first ever rave party. You were so overwhelmed by it all that you spent most of the night up near the DJ booth watching what was going on.

Those were some good times, eh, Sassie? You hated it when I called you that and yeah, I know that you also got very cross with me when I called you Sasha but you were my best mate. You were the bloke that always had time for me and stuck by me, no matter what. When my father passed away back in August 2008, you took me out near Tullamarine Airport and taught me about “planespotting”. We’d spend hours on end watching planes take off and land. We never really said much in the car. What was there to say? We were staring at a bunch of planes, for crying out loud.

I remember convincing you to join Twitter when you bought your iPhone. I told you about all these wonderful people that were on there and that I had huge respect for many of them, even if I never met them. You started listening to podcasts made by a couple of them. You told me that you felt like you really belonged on Twitter. Well, you know what, mate. I totally knew where you were coming from. Twitter is like a second home to me and you are missed by a lot of the tweeps out there. You seemed so happy online too.

Things changed though, didn’t they after your cousin Zlatko took his own life one day before his birthday. I know that you looked up to him and that he reminded you of your older brother who died when you were just a kid back home in Macedonia. You and I talked on the phone for hours every night after that turn of events concerning Zlatko. You told me that you were afraid of where your life was going. I tried to comfort you but I kept failing miserably. You kept telling me to save all the sales coach pep talks for fat unemployed palookas.

I was never in sales coach mode when I talked you, Saso. I was in normal me mode. The one that I very rarely seem to show anymore for fear that I’ll be judged. I let my guard down around you. Shit, man, I let my guard down on Twitter. Nowhere else though.

You were such a beautiful person and you made me forget about how rubbish my life was. We’d hang out and act like a couple of silly teenagers. We sang Amy Winehouse’s tune “Rehab” at karaoke and were applauded (more than likely out of pity). We pitched a tent in your backyard and had slumber party camps until we either got rained on or it got too windy. We’d run riot on WoW in Barrens chat with our Steve Seagal one liners because we thought that Chuck Norris was so overrated.

You were my burek bitch, peddler of rakija, Guitar Hero pwner, GTA IV comedy relief (”but I’m the Niko Bellic, not this fucker on the 360″), DJing partner in crime (DJ Zoloft/dopaminekid/kid3020) and bestest of best friends.

The last time we spoke you told me that you never wanted to see me again and that I was a walking fuckup who deserved a life of loneliness with a fat unemployed palooka. I knew deep down that you never meant it but when you tore up your Ferry Corsten ticket in front of me and kicked me out of your house, without letting me even say goodbye, I knew there was something severely wrong.

How was I to know that the next time we’d cross paths again would be in a hospital with you unconscious, surrounded by a multitude of machines? How could you snap like that? How could you do that, Saso? Weren’t you always going on and on about zen and inner peace?

I know that I said no but I knew that deep down you weren’t ready. You were as shitscared of commitment as I was and for crying out loud, man, you were 23. We were having so much fun together and I never got to properly say goodbye to you.

I miss you so so much, Sassie. I can’t cry for you though, man. I couldn’t cry for my dad. I can’t do it and I know that you probably still think I’m a walking fuckup.

I’m sorry, mate.

I love you and will never ever forget you. Thanks for the advice all that time ago. I’m going to put it to good use.

“Move forward and NEVER look back”.

RIP @dopaminekid.