I have a best friend who I have known for the better part of 20 years (I always cringe when I can say I’ve known someone for 20 years. Yikes, it scares the bejeezus out of me.)
Anywhos….I guess I probably should have realized that the relationship would be tumultuous eons ago. Like that fateful day we were at my then boyfriends house going swimming and I put on my bathing suit and she said “Oh, I didn’t realize your thighs were that big!” I was mortified because not only did she say that in front of my then boyfriend, but I was pretty thin back then. Not quite as skinny as she was, but I was still all good with who I was. Till that comment anyway.
Through the years there have been little things here and there. Just the usual stuff that friends bicker about. But I guess lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about why exactly I am friends with her.
I have traveled to several states for her (wedding shower, wedding, baby shower, etc.) Since I left NY, she has come to visit me exactly one time. Over 10 years ago. For a long weekend. And that’s it.
And it’s not only the traveling part that gets me. It’s what she does when I see her. When I went to her wedding someone who was supposed to do a reading was really late and they didn’t think he was going to make it. She, at the last minute, asked me to stand in. Which I was happy to do. But why didn’t she think to ask me in the first place? I’d known her longer than this person. The person showed up at the very last minute, so I didn’t get the opportunity.
At the baby shower she proceeded to complain the entire time about how she didn’t get what she wanted, she had made a check list and was pissed off that she didn’t get everything on the check list. It was brutal, the incessant complaining. No appreciation for the boat load of people that traveled there to share her day. I contemplated leaving that night. In the snow. Just to get away.
Her in-laws live not too far from where I do. A few hours at best. They’ve been down for holidays and stuff. Did I ever get a call saying , hey why don’t you meet me halfway so we can spend a day together and catch up. It’s been years. Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. And I’m talking it’s less than 4 hours away. I would have gone.
We stopped talking for a while. By a while I mean about 2 years. Not because I got pissed off from all the times she has blown me off, called me fat, never came to visit, etc.
We stopped talking over an election.
We had been going back and forth over email, kidding I thought. Guess I was wrong. That’ll teach me to joke about politics or Bush. Finally, the last email I sent said that if I had to listen to one more of Bush’s speeches, I was moving to Canada.
I think that sentence singlehandedly started WWIII.
Oh the scathing email I got in return that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. I was a bitch, I was selfish, I was negative, etc. All over an election. I didn’t understand. Did she really care that much about Bush? No, that was impossible. Had I really been that much of a bitch over the years? That was kinda possible, but I didn’t think I was enough of a bitch to endure the crappy email that she wrote me. We all have our bitchiness moments.
We started talking again about 3 years ago. We facebook mostly, talk on the phone occasionally. She started asking me when I was going to come visit. I think about it, but I can’t make myself book. She got kind of an attitude when she heard I was traveling to go visit another friend and I had to remind her about she couldn’t take a day to meet halfway when she went to visit her in-laws.
She said touché.
I struggle though. I have a hard time opening up with her. I have a hard time talking to her if I’m bummed about something, I don’t want to be called negative again. I can’t open up and be myself.
And it sucks.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This touched me because I have issues with friends, and I do not know you personally so forgive me, but I like your blog and when I read this, I wanted to share.
Someone told me once, if you have to struggle so much to be someone’s friend, maybe they aren’t really a friend. Especially if you are the one doing all of the struggling. Friendships are two sided, which means it is give and take for both people. And friendship requires trust. I am really starting to understand this more and more as I get older and have lost a few very good friends.
If the foundation is not there – it just will end up falling eventually.
If you can’t trust her, she isn’t a friend. Why break yourself up over someone you don’t trust, someone you know you can’t call when you really need a friend?
I had a friend recently stop talking to me, because she felt I wasn’t calling her enough, she felt “I wasn’t there for her” in so many words. But to be honest, I did not see my phone ringing either, and let me tell you, this friendship was rocky to begin with as well, and I kept trying to work at it, and apologized even when I knew I wasn’t wrong. In the end she felt I wasn’t a good friend to her and frankly, I said good riddins this time because I feel I have friends I know who won’t take it personal if I don’t call them all the time, that maybe she should have thought I was also having a hard time and she could have reached out to me too?
oh yeah, I also had a friend who lived in Florida and I visited her once, and she never visited me, another time I was gonna go visit her and my mom and she never returned my calls or emails. I cut her off after that crap.
I find true friends to be few and far between, call me bitter but it seems to be the truth. Some people are meant to be left in the past. Make new friends, sometimes we have to weed out the poisonous ones to find the genuinely lovely and sincere ones.
It does suck though. I must admit, I do not have one friend I used to have in grade school, HS or College. I find it hard to be open and honest with almost everyone, but hey, I have some issues. ha!
there is this poem I found once
Sometimes people come into your life
and you know right away that they were meant to be there,
they serve some sort of purpose,
teach you a lesson
or help figure out who you are
and who you want to become.
You never know who these people may be:
your neighbor, child, long lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger
who, when you lock eyes with them,
you know at that very moment that they will affect your life
in some profound way.
And sometimes things happen to you
and at the time they seem painful and unfair,
but in reflection you realize
that without overcoming those obstacles
you would have never realized
your potential strength, will power, or heart.
Everything happens for a reason.
Nothing happens by chance
or by means of good or bad luck.
Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity
all occur to test the limits of your soul.
Without these small tests,
whether they be events, illnesses or relationships,
life would be like a smoothly paved straight flat road to nowhere,
safe and comfortable,
but dull and utterly pointless.
The people you meet who affect your life
and the successes and downfalls you experience
create who you are,
and even the bad experiences can be learned from,
In fact, they are probably the poignant and important ones.
If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart,
forgive them,
for they have helped you learn about trust
and the importance of being cautious to
whom you open your heart…
If someone loves you,
love them back unconditionally,
not only because they love you,
but because they are teaching you to love
and opening your heart and eyes to things
you would have never seen or felt without them.
Make every day count.
Appreciate every moment
and take from it everything that you possibly can,
for you may never be able to experience it again…
Talk to people you have never talked to before,
and actually listen,
let yourself fall in love,
break free and set your sights high…
Hold your head up
because you have every right too.
Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself…
for if you don’t believe in yourself,
no one else will believe in you either.
You can make of your life anything you wish.
Create your own life
and then go out and live in it!
“Live Each Day As If It Were Your Last…
Tomorrow is Not Promised”
Hope you work this out.
Jen
Thanks so much Jen! I appreciate your comment and what you say is true. Some people are just meant to be left in the past.
I’m a fixer by nature, so this kind of stuff bugs the crap out of me. There are some people who I am friends with that I don’t see often at all. And when we do get together or talk, everything seems to fall into place like we never skipped a beat. With this particular friend, it’s just difficult. I should follow my own advice every once in awhile. I tell my sister the same thing all the time about a “poisonous” friend she once had.
The poem was beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing!
so why is it so hard to let them go? right? I am also a fixer. ugh.
I love when I see a friend after a long time of not seeing each other, and they are just happy to see me and it all does fall into place…
It’s easy to get in a cold war with friends. It warms up, then gets cold again, then thaws some etc.
Secretia (Secret Story Time)
Ask yourself what you are truly getting out of the relationship and then put into the relationship equal parts of what you are getting out. I think she has some fences to mend, not you!
I gotta say it sounds like this person is toxic. I know you have history, but there comes a point when that’s simply not enough…
And I think you hit that point about a decade ago.