I didn't tell her that. (712 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 0.86 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Seralena (View user info) at 2004-09-28 20:50:34 EDT
I lost my best friend to a guy masquerading as a tough guy trying to be sensitive. Even more painful, I helped him.
She'll always claim that it was my fault. Even when we tried to talk it over, it always got twisted around to my mistakes. While I'll admit that I wasn't perfect, and that I had erred, I refuse to believe that she was perfect. Mostly, she was hypocritical, and I can't stand hypocrisy.
When I first met her, I was single, and didn't really have a best friend. She had a boyfriend she'd been with for a year and a half already, and it seemed like half the school knew her. I was amazed that she took such a liking to me, and was ready to worship her for the attention she showed me. What I never noticed then was how much time she spent with her boyfriend; after all, she was going out with him long before she met me.
I was an adoring, clingy friend, and she loved me for it. She loved being in the center of attention, and I jealously clung to anyone I thought liked me. Some of my other friends were already growing distant because of this trait, but she thrived on it. She introduced me to her boyfriend, expecting us to be friends, and I liked him simply because she told me to, without seeing any qualities I actually liked in him.
When she thought she was pregnant, I held her in the bathroom while she waited for the pregnancy test to show.
When they broke up, I held her as she cried on my shoulder, and while feeling bad for her, I felt an unreasonable happiness in knowing that I had just become more important to her.
I met my boyfriend, Greg. I liked him right off the bat; all my friends knew it, and encouraged it. My best friend had never seen me with a guy before; she only knew the stories of my past relationships. Slowly, she became less important to me as I got to know this man better. When we started going out, I ran up to my best friend, and she hugged me tight and seemed so happy for me.
Soon after that, she took a pointed dislike to Greg. Whenever I asked her why, she would simply tell me, "This way, when you guys break up, I can say, 'I never liked him!'" I thought it was a callous thing to do and say, especially because I expected the relationship to last. I told her as much, and told her I had made such an effort to be friends with her ex boyfriend. She laughed it off, and told me it didn't matter. It did to me, but I didn't tell her that.
She began having random dalliances with guys she knew in classes. She let a guy feel her up in the girls' bathroom at one point. This behavior seemed very risky to me, and I was getting worried about her. Although I was happy she was single, since I got more time with her, I began hoping she would get into another serious relationship soon. I didn't tell her that.
A casual acquaintance, D, asked me if she was single one day. When I told him yes, he seemed hopeful. I was happy someone seemed to actually care about her, and began talking to D more about it, finally agreeing to try to set them up. She seemed happy enough with the idea, and amazingly, they hit it off very well. They started going out before long.
One day, my boyfriend had a party at his house. They came, of course, as well as his best friend and some other acquaintances. At one point, Greg and I escaped upstairs to spend a little time together, as we hadn't had any time alone in weeks. They organized the entire group to spring in on us. Greg heard them ahead of time, and was standing by the door, but I was embarrassed anyway. Still, I realized it was a joke, and laughed along with them, despite the compromising position they could have caught me in.
The summer passed, in the same fashion. It was comfortable, really. By the time school started, however, my best friend had stopped coming to me with worries, and when she was depressed, would shrug me off and tell everything to D. That hurt like hell, but I didn't tell her that.
It kept going that way. Every time we tried to plan a group outing, they would be busy together at D's apartment. Yet she kept telling me that I was spending too much time with my boyfriend, and that I wasn't spending enough time with her. Every time I tried, she was already busy. She used me as an excuse so her mother wouldn't worry about her. The rare cases where she wasn't with D, her mother told her that she was spending too much time with me, and she couldn't go out. I cried to my boyfriend. He told me to talk to them, or drop them as friends, but I could do neither. I just continued on.
It became too much for me. One day, I was annoyed at them for disappearing when I tried to organize a group activity. Greg, his best friend, his best friend's girlfriend, and I went to D's apartment, intending to bother them, and to get them to actually come out with us for once. Greg and his friend ran up to D's apartment door and knocked on it. D came out of the door, yelling at them. I later got an email from my friend about how she had cried for hours over it, and asking how I could be so cruel as to do that to her. They both IMed me online at the same time, sharing accusations, telling me how I spent too much time with Greg, and I couldn't defend myself. I kept thinking of the party over the summer, but I never brought it up. I apologized, and figured it was a joke gone wrong.
The next day I saw them, they both became reproachful again. This time because I "didn't even have the decency to apologize to [them] face to face." I thought this was overboard. I had apologized multiple times already. But I apologized. Still, I got some angry reaction from D. So I stopped talking to him for weeks, like Greg told me to. We finally began talking again, because my best friend told me he missed me. Still, in each argument, he kept taking the side of her. I stopped thinking that he was ever really my friend; he just used me to get to my best friend. He wasn't as sensitive as he seemed; he just used that so I would let him near my best friend.
With these thoughts in mind, I continued through the school year, confiding less in my best friend and more in my boyfriend. When they abandoned us in a group outing that was important to a mutual friend however, I lashed out at D. We had an argument that lasted for an hour and a half, and led to my leaving in tears. I called my Greg, and cried it all out on the phone to him. He confronted D about it, telling him how much it mattered to me, and D just said that I was wrong. I was being hormonal, irrational. D told my best friend about the argument, and she told us that she wouldn't speak to us again until we were getting along. I was shocked that she could verbally abuse my boyfriend, both to me and to his face, but that I was required to be on good terms with hers, no matter what. I still valued her friendship. I apologized. Again.
I stopped letting myself care as much at that point. Over the summer, I rarely talked to her, because it was too painful remembering what we used to have, and what she willingly gave up to this guy who had used me. On my birthday, I received a dirty email from D about how she was crying about her best friend abandoning her, and how depressed she was that I hadn't visited her house in two months. She had visited mine maybe four times in the years we'd known each other. As far as I can tell, it was just too much effort for her to put forth.
I sent back a bitter reply, and mentioned how when I was crying over something, I was still wrong, and asked why I should care if someone else was crying, since it obviously wasn't important. I was answered with a depressed reply about how life sucked in general for him, and how many things had gone wrong.
This point in my life was very hard for me. I had had a biopsy done on the day he'd emailed me, and was anxiously waiting the results. If severe, I would have to be treated for cervical cancer. I had posted this on my website, since I couldn't contact all my friends then, but he and my best friend had never bothered reading it, so they didn't know. I told him that, and he stopped complaining, and apologized sincerely for what was probably the first time in our friendship. My best friend took it as an affront that I hadn't called her the second I'd found this out.
I was supposed to meet with her to discuss what had gone wrong. She was half an hour late. She lived 200 feet away on campus at that point. When we talked, she never once apologized or admitted that she had been in any way at fault. It all became my fault, and I was the one who was wrong. In everything. If I had more friends, I was replacing her. Since I was no longer clinging to her, I no longer cared about her. I finally saw how self-centered and selfish she was. After we talked, I asked her to come back to my room with me, so we could hang out. She was busy. I knew at that point our friendship was over: the moment when she was too busy and self-important to try and fix things. But I didn't tell her that.
User Reviews
Submitted by Istaros (user info) at 2004-11-15 19:44:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this deserves a better rating, i think
Submitted by BambiAmbi (user info) at 2004-11-12 02:10:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I know the feeling. I don't really like chatting on the phone for too long (i'm usually busy with chores, GTAVC, or a good Stephen King book), and my friends know this. But for some reason, one of them took it personally and it was her boyfriend's angry email ('you're making my future wife upset so you'd better quit it') that let me know how she was feeling. We haven't talked in months...but what was my point...oh yeah, losing friends sucks.
Submitted by 10c7c (user info) at 2004-10-29 00:34:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Quagmire (user info) at 2004-10-23 12:43:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Is this funny?
Submitted by HelloMello (user info) at 2004-09-29 21:05:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
And these are the days of our lives
Submitted by Phalarus at 2004-09-28 22:52:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
the hard truth is rarely pretty, so that has to be taken into account when reading it.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2004-09-28 22:30:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
It's Uber 90210.
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2004-09-28 21:13:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
It would help if you stopped keeping it all inside. Your friend doesn't know because you've never had the spine to tell her like it is. If she's being a whiny, self-centered cunt, tell her so. If you can't do that, then you aren't truly a friend.
Sometimes, the truth really does set you free.
Submitted by tlovess (user info) at 2004-09-28 21:13:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I am a bit confused with all the hims and hers. But I get the point. This girl and your old guy friend are not worth the time of day. There is so much more out there to be happy about.