Friday, September 22, 2017

I don't want a best friend anymore

I've had "best" friends. I don't have them anymore, and I don't want one ever again.

When I was a young adult- say from 17 to 45- I had a really close friend. We talked every day. We were raising our kids, working our careers, and surviving our husbands. We shared everything. Then I got sick. Didn't work. Spent a couple years mostly in bed, in pain, exhausted. Fibromyalgia. It totally changed my life. Somewhere during about 5 really difficult years, so did that friendship. I didn't have a friend anymore. I don't know what I did, other than getting sick. I just know she has not spoken to me in years, even when I have tried. I still miss her.

In later years, I had a friend. She was high maintenance, but I stuck with her. I introduced her to new activities, new interests. We traveled together, always with me making the plans and arrangements. I helped her start a new business. I helped her start her life over when her husband died. I helped her move nearby as she had no family, and we were happy to be that for her. Once she moved here she quickly found a new man, a creep who made us all very uncomfortable. Then my aunt died. That week, for a combination of reasons, was the most painful and traumatic time of my life. My "friend" was too busy partying and drinking with her live-in boyfriend to have any time for me, or for the funeral. No cards, no flowers, no nothing. In the following weeks, she lied to me, repeatedly. So, I cut her off for a while. My husband, and mutual friends, kept encouraging me to try to work it out. So, I went to visit her, expecting a groveling apology. Instead, she attacked me- because I had, at some time in the past year, referred to her cat as "stupid". She followed that by calling my husband when she knew I was not home, and asking him to meet her, regularly, because she expected him to remain her friend, even if I was "being unreasonable". The final straw was the juvenile activity of sending my husband mail- with no return address and disguised handwriting on the envelopes. I resent like hell that she lives too close, and I cannot always avoid seeing her, and blame myself for that. I do NOT miss her at all. My fondest wish is that she would move away or disappear so that I would never have to see her again.

My last friend, my latest friend to abandon me, had been my friend for life. Everything important in our lives was shared. From first grade until last month, I always considered her the closest friend I ever had, or ever would have. We saw less of her when she moved to the affluent suburbs while we remained in our row house in the city. We differed in how we saw our children- I saw them as moving on to lives of their own, and she saw hers as part of everyday life no matter that they married, had children, etc. I remember one time when I knew there was something fundamentally different. I invited her to an amazing event, something with her academic background she should have thrown herself at. Instead she chose to stay home and babysit a grandchild- the same grandchild she saw every week at Sunday dinner. Every invitation began to be turned down for family reasons. So, I took the hint and stopped inviting her. But we stayed in touch, and I loved her as much as ever. During the last year,she had taken to putting nasty, pompous, critical and self righteous posts on my Threads on Facebook- like many who live and work in their safe suburbs, she has no contact with or concept of inner city life in the 21st century, but maintains a severely left wing liberal attitude about how those of us who do live IN the city and who, like I did, work in the inner city should think. I am pragmatic, I am a realist. She decided she didn't like my politics, and while I have been adamant about NOT allowing politics to have any effect on my relationships, she is among those who has let them color her opinion of people, and color also the way she treats them. In May we decided to have a party in July for a group of friends who were all turning 65 this year. I, of course, invited her. I got back a curt, bordering on rude, response that she was unavailable that date. As it turned out, we were forced to cancel the party due to my mother's death. When my mother died, and for weeks afterward, I heard nothing from my friend. Her family sent condolences but nothing from her. I was crushed- to some extent I still am. No card, no Mass card, no letter, no phone call, no email, no text, nothing. When we rescheduled the party for late August, I decided to make another effort. (When will I learn that these extra efforts, one more try, only hurt me even more?) so, I sent her a note, different from everyone else's, giving her the benefit of the doubt. It said "due to my mother's death, the party has been rescheduled- hope you can come". I got no response. And, she did not come. A few days after the party, at a time when I was really very sick and very depressed, I sent her a note telling her how hurt and devastated I was at being ignored like this, that I couldn't believe she would ignore my mother's death, and that I didn't want to continue to expose myself to the pain. The answer I got back was just as curt, and bordering on rude, as the one from the month before, that she didn't know my mother died, and she would "respect my desire" to end our friendship.
Now, I know I am "deplorable" because I hate and despise the liberal lunatic left, but I never, ever let that interfere in any way with my friendships. However, the nastiness of the things she has posted on my threads in the last year leaves me with the conclusion that she is glad to be rid of someone as "deplorable" as me. So, I get hurt when she posts the nasty, I get hurt when she ignores a death in my family, then I get hurt again because I really wanted her to come to that party, and I finally get hurt, AGAIN, because I told her I was hurt. I will miss her most of all, when I have time to get past the pain.

So, at 65 I am still learning lessons. I have a few good friends here, women I share activities and interests with, whom I like enough to have dinner with regularly, go to shows with, take classes with, etc. I have friends nearby, friends since I was a kid, who are a treasure to me. But, I am DONE with best friends. I don't need them and I don't want them. In every previous case, clearly I valued them more than they valued me, and I invested more emotion and dedication to them than I received back.

It sucks to be still learning the hard lessons at my age.


Teresa