A couple of close friends are writers, and I know exactly what TCB is going through with respect to not knowing if or when his friend has read the thing, or is going to read the thing sometime this century and get back to him.
In trying to help one of my friends get a reader one time several years ago, I handed a printout to someone who was very enthusiastic about reading it ..... and that's the last we ever heard or saw of it. We already valued her opinion, no question about that. What we didn't know was that she wasn't someone who can commit to doing something like this in a timely manner, or that she (we now know) tended to take on a lot of things she couldn't possibly follow through on, or that she was about to make a sudden decision to move and that the manuscript would never even surface again.
As BK said, the need for a firm understanding on when the thing will get read, and the even higher need for open communication and follow-through, is something your typical first time well-meaning friend just isn't going to be aware of without these things being plainly discussed up front. I learned this lesson on behalf of my own writer friend, and I totally understand the frustration and feeling of awkwardness TCB is going through in this instance. It's a tough call, giving something like that to someone for the first time.
