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Like a Bee Sting, and It Still Itches
I just read TB's post about losing a friend. But not just losing a friend; it was much sadder than that. The friend shut her out, disappeared, then shunned any effort to reconcile or start over. And I wanted to grab TB and sit down in a overstuffed chair with a big Spanish coffee and go over the whole thing with a nit-comb. Because the same thing happened to me!!! I've told the story too many times, so I'll just say this: Maria and I were friends. Our children played together, we spent mucho time at each other's homes, and we had clicked from the very beginning. Then suddenly she was cold, never called me back, and turned away if she saw me in public (this actually happened twice). My first thought was "what the hell did I do/say?" Then my second thought was "Bitch!" but that didn't last very long, because it didn't really seem appropriate. So my current thought is just plain "huh???"
Now I'm trying not to fall into a rut of picking her apart and finding reasons why we could never have worked out, because that's just trashy and seventh-gradey. I've been dumped a couple times, but it didn't feel like this, because she probably knew me better as a person. With the guys, I was young and insecure and idiotic. Hell, I would've dumped me too. But Maria knew me as a grown-up with a sort-of defined personality and coherent thoughts. I mean, she dumped Me. Not Mignon at 19 with her fucked-up homeless wardrobe and binge-drinking tendencies. But Me with two children, a mortgage, a novel in the works, healthy self-image. Huh. It stung. It stings.
Now I'm trying not to fall into a rut of picking her apart and finding reasons why we could never have worked out, because that's just trashy and seventh-gradey. I've been dumped a couple times, but it didn't feel like this, because she probably knew me better as a person. With the guys, I was young and insecure and idiotic. Hell, I would've dumped me too. But Maria knew me as a grown-up with a sort-of defined personality and coherent thoughts. I mean, she dumped Me. Not Mignon at 19 with her fucked-up homeless wardrobe and binge-drinking tendencies. But Me with two children, a mortgage, a novel in the works, healthy self-image. Huh. It stung. It stings.
posted by Mignon at 9:23 AM
Thanks for understanding.
I didn't realize how many other people have had this happen to them -- it makes me feel a little better. I made a friend my internship year who just seemed perfect. We were the same age (older than every one else), had had similarly groovy/wacky upbringings, were into the arts and running, were both on psych meds. We even looked alike. We talked almost every day, and I spent much of my free time hanging out with her and her husband, and the friendship just made me so happy. Then suddenly she just dropped me, and I had no idea why. I obsessed over possible reasons -- had I said something mean about one of her friends? Did she think I was flirting with her husband? Was her husband flirting with me? Was she mad because I didn't want to go out with her husband's best friend? Yet I couldn't get up the courage to flat out ask her, which also seems to be theme among these other stories. So I don't feel quite so lame.
It does make me think about the friendships I've allowed to languish. I'm going to try to be better about those, because I don't want anyone thinking this about me.
I had a friend (not a particularly close one) jettison me about five years ago. She wasn't shy about it, either—she explained that I was remarkably unsupportive and out of touch, and that she needed a break. It's OK, though—when she visited my house a year or two before that, she left loose dirt on the guest bed (presumably from the sole of her shoes?). She'd have dumped me earlier if she'd known I had begun referring to her as "loose-dirt Jill," wouldn't she? (Yeah, I can be a bitch. Sue me. Or bite me.)