Somebody
July 15th, 2008
Well, somebody other than me, that is, for today anyway. I loved -R-’s blogshare idea the last few times she did it, and read some of the best posts I’d ever seen on the Internet as a result. The basic idea is that we all post anonymously on each other’s blogs — again, ANONYMOUSLY — sometimes to share something we can’t on our own, sometimes just for fun. Last time, one of the participants, swear to God, included a hilarious tale of a woman who visited the Hedonism resort and held TWO PENISES AT THE SAME TIME. While I can’t promise you that you’ll read about the joys of multiple wieners, I do bring you a lovely guest post by an anonymous visitor. Enjoy!
Oh! And if you want to read the rest of the participants, -R-’s got the whole list here.
*************
For women I think it is inherent that we will have drama with our friends at some point in our lives. It just seems like a natural part of growing up. Throughout the stages of our lives, we go through different sets of friends. Some stay around for the long haul, some stay for a bit and serve a certain purpose and some leave our lives faster than they came in.
Right now I’m having some friend drama. This Blog Share post came around at the PERFECT time because I cannot write about this on my own site because she reads. Well, she doesn’t now because I blocked her IP address. (More on that later.)
Anyway, this is a friend I’ve had since high school. We actually met in the eighth grade, but we weren’t really friends. She sat behind me in English and I made fun of her because she was new and because the boy I liked in eighth grade made fun of her. (Isn’t adolescence such a fun time?)
In high school, we both joined the marching band and started having a lot of similar classes and we became friends. Her house was the house our tight-knit group of friends spent a lot of weekend nights being silly, watching movies and doing typical high school nerdy stuff. (I was a total square and didn’t drink or party until college.)
We lost touch in college. I moved away. I was the only one from the group to move away. And then I stayed away for 10 years. I built a new life 3,000 miles away and rarely came home to visit. When I moved back home in 2005, I was a different person than the 17-year old kid I was when I graduated high school.
We picked up right where we left off 10 years earlier when I moved back. I didn’t know anyone else really, so it may have been a friendship out of convenience more than anything at first. But it was nice being in touch with her again and it made the trials of moving 3,000 miles back home a little less daunting.
But lately, things have been bad. They hit a head last week when we got into an argument over email. (I know, never a good idea.) The problem was that her anger stemmed from a seemingly innocent comment that I made about the book The Secret. Turns out though, I touched a nerve and she had basically been mad at me for months about things I had said to her in the past. On top of it, she told me she had been questioning our friendship since February. IT IS JULY! Maybe mention this to me IN FEBRUARY!
The problem is that she turned this on me and made me feel like a bad friend. And that is what upsets me the most. I am a good friend. And I am not a bad person. I am who I am and I’m not going to apologize for it. It’s taken me 30 years to like who I am and I am not going to change that or regress back into high school.
I’m not sure what to do. I feel like a true friend wouldn’t do this to you. I also feel like if there were issues there, she’s got to discuss them with me. She’s a licensed therapist, she should KNOW THIS. I am not a mind reader and just because I don’t hear from you, that doesn’t mean I know that you’re mad at me for something. Especially when you are still reading my blog and commenting. (That’s why I blocked her. If I’m such a bad friend and you want nothing to do with me, then why are you still reading? I don’t think you get the right to be in that part of my life then.) (Yes, I know this is childish.)
The fact is I haven’t talked to her in awhile. I don’t feel like life is all that different without her in it, nor do I really miss the friendship. If that had been the case, I think I would be more upset about recent events. I know I will end up making up with her because we share mutual friends and I AM a good person and a good friend.
But I’m not really sure it is worth it. And that I won’t be going through this same crap with her in few months down the road.
*Depeche Mode. And I picked it, the writer didn’t.
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
22 Comments Add your own
1. citystreams | July 15th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
It seems to me that there must be a few details missing here. You burned a friend, of over 15 years, because of The Secret? Really?
I thought you were going to say she’d slept with your husband or something. What did I miss?
2. heidikins | July 15th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
The cycle of relationships is consistently fascinating to me. I have had similar blow-ups with simliar results, and finally I gave myself a rule that I insist on living by (and suggest this rule to just about everyone, because I’m narcissistic like that).
If am upset or offended by something someone has said or done, I hae exactly 7 days to bring it up and initiate a plan to resolve the problem. If I don’t bring it up to that person within a week, then I ABSOLUTELY MUST drop it completely. If it is not important enough to resolve in 7 days it isn’t important enough to hang on to.
It may not be a perfect plan, but it has worked out really well for me so far. I try and let the people closest to me (i.e. the people who are capable of hurting me) know that this is how I handle things, and I encourage them to immediately bring up any offense I have caused so it won’t fester and turn gangerous and ugly.
Good luck with this! Great post.
xox
3. Sadie | July 16th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Life is too short to devote your time or energy to relationships that just don’t work for you. There should be no guilt or shame in realizing that you get nothing positive out of a relationship (friend or romantic) and moving on. I know it can be hard when you have history, but that is not reason alone to be friends. It sounds like neither of you were really happy in the friendship anyway.
4. -R- | July 16th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Oh, annoying! I definitely understand friend drama. Don’t have advice; Ikd just like to agree with you that friend drama sucks.
5. andrea | July 16th, 2008 at 5:42 am
i really enjoyed your post and feel your pain. my degrees are in psychology and one of the biggest things i learned was that even therapists need someone to talk to, and it sounds like your friend-no-more needs someone to talk to. it sounds like she has been harboring this jealousy/anger since you first met and possibly if you were able to examine all her relationships with her family and other friends, you’d find similar patterns. she can’t expect you (or other people) to read her mind on what was bugging her. do what feels right for you. since you mentioned your life doesn’t feel all that different, perhaps you already have done that. and if you run into her (which it sounds like you inevitably might), you can still be cordial and nice without being best friends. sometimes people just grow apart.
6. Aprylsantics | July 16th, 2008 at 6:39 am
Isn’t The Secret all about positive energy and vibrations attracting good things to us? I’m not sure, really. I’ve never watched the video or read the book, but it seems to me that stewing about something since February wouldn’t be congruous with those principles.
7. Shelly | July 16th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I LOVE heidikins’ rule! I will be instituting that immediately. Yes, your friend should have discussed things with you back in Feb. or let it go.
8. Jen | July 16th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Friend drama! This struck a chord with me and you are not alone in having these issues. I came to a stunning realization a while back; your friends should be your friends. Brilliant, isn’t it? If they cause more grief and damage control than bring positive things into your life, I think this is good reason to part ways.
9. michele | July 16th, 2008 at 8:06 am
girls can suck at times. why are girls so petty? i know that we all are, but it is still annoying and terrible. i feel you on the going to have to patch things up in some manner so that you can continue to be in similar circles without more drama. i completely agree that friendships are very cyclical.
i like heidikins rule as well. sounds like some sound reasoning.
10. Stefanie | July 16th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Heidikins’s rule is an excellent one. We should probably all institute something like that.
As for your current friend drama, that sucks. I have lost friends in the past over seemingly stupid little things, and I guess I just tell myself that it’s not REALLY about those stupid little things, that if the person is really that upset over that little thing, there are obviously a lot of other little (or big) things bothering her as well, and if she didn’t have the decency to bring any of those things to my attention earlier, then we probably weren’t as good of friends as I thought we were.
I can’t believe this friend is a therapist, though. I feel bad for her patients; I can’t imagine her advice is that great if the way she deals with her own friendships is that flawed.
11. nancypearlwannabe | July 16th, 2008 at 8:27 am
At this point in my life, friend drama seems even more terrible than boy drama. Sorry you have to go through it, but I think Heidikins is on the right track!
12. Beth | July 16th, 2008 at 9:04 am
God. I hate situations like this. And something I find interesting about female friend relationships (including my own), is that we cannot recognize that a fight is just a fight. If there’s one blow-up, the friendship is over, and that doesn’t make sense. In other relationships, we’re allowed to fight and then apologize and agree to disagree, but in friendships, this is often not the case, and I can’t figure out why.
Weird.
13. Allie | July 16th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Oh, I do think everyone goes through this in one way or another. It sucks so bad. But you’re right — a real friend wouldn’t treat you that way.
14. Lara | July 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Oh my gosh! Are you me? (Except 2 years younger and also going through this six months later?)??? Seriously, I had such a similar experience very recently, and a girl that I thought was one of my top 2 friends hasn’t spoken with me since January, when I didn’t realize she was ignoring me because she was mad at me for not visiting her new baby enough.
ARGH! If you’re mad, TELL ME SO! And don’t f-ing accuse me of being a bad friend!!!
I am so sorry that you are going through this. BIG HUGS from an internet stranger.
15. Pants | July 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Funny you should mention this…I once had an argument with a friend over The Secret! It stemmed from an old news story that criticized The Secret for contributing to victim blaming. Eh.
I am sorry that you are going through this experience with your friend. I have come to realize that I don’t have to be everyone’s friend. Especially if they are emotionally handicapped and suffer from the inability to express their feelings (especially if their profession is to help others do so!). Life is too short to expend energy into friendships that are not worth the energy. Life is busy, this may seem harsh, but who wants to put precious time and effort into relationships when they can be fostering genuine friendships with others?
16. Rhea | July 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I’ve had similar problems with the convenience of lifelong friendships. Lately I have decided that friendship means forgiveness. Sometimes a lot of it. Other times the ship needs to sink.
And I like heidikins procedure too.
17. Noelle | July 16th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I’ve recently broken up with a friend, and I don’t know why. It’s so much sadder than any other breakup I know.
18. Katie | July 16th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Okay. I’m a therapist, and we are the screwiest lot of people you’ll ever meet.
Please understand that because we’re trained to deconstruct other people’s lives and help them navigate the rubble doesn’t mean we always know exactly what to do, or even have the courage to do what needs to be done in our own lives. We try, but we’re not perfect.
If she’s been questioning your friendship since February, but is just now mentioning it, it is probably because she began having that nagging sense of things gone wrong, but thought it was just her, and thought it would go away. She likely thought it was a phase or PMS or whatever…a million things. She didn’t say anything before now for the same reason people wait too long to go to the doctor – they think it’ll blow over. This hasn’t.
I 100% get you when you say it’s taken you 30 years to dig yourself. Wellbeing is worth a million dollars. Don’t give it up for anyone.
The fact is, you’re both probably really nice, good people. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been friends with one another for so long.
She continues to read your blog because she still cares about you, regardless of how insulting she has been regarding your friendship skills, she still cares.
This sounds like a case of a friendship running its course. The end of a friendship is awkward.
How do you get a friendship to comfortably fade into the sunset? I’ve never been able to manage it. There’s always been hurt feelings.
Good luck!
19. courtney | July 16th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Sorry you’re going through this. Friend drama is the worst.
Are you sure all this is JUST because you made a comment about The Secret? Does she really take the book that seriously? Or is it a front for something bigger going on? If you really want to repair the friendship, my advice to you is to find out. Good luck!
20. Leane | July 16th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Sometimes we’re friends with people who are “comfortable” from our past..but in reality–they aren’t the “People” we would pick now at our current age..that’s hard..but i do agree..life is too short –and if she isn’t a grownup in the way that you’re a grownup..maybe it’s run it’s course.
21. Leane | July 16th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
P.S. You missed seeing Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page while you were up here!! (Or over here?) anyway he was arrested for having coke..and he was visiting some girls in Manlius at the time.
22. houndrat | July 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Argh. Why is it that men never have these issues with friendship? Especially when it comes to involving the book, “The Secret?”
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