I ran into an old friend today. Ok, it was an ex-friend. The kind of friend that you have so long that
you don’t really have anything invested in the friendship except that you’ve
been friends for so long, and you’re constantly questioning why you’re friends
with this person, but to stop being friends, well, feels like a failure.
I have no idea what caused the final split. It wasn’t like an ex-boyfriend, where there
is a definitive, solid reason (or, in some cases, manifesto) for why you
shouldn’t be together anymore, but more like coming away from conversations
with feelings of confusion, disconnectedness, and, my absolute favourite
activity: judging. The friendship had fallen apart, years
before, with her quietly, yet clearly unfriending me (this was before Facebook,
so it was particularly jarring), but we reconnected and seemed to patch things
up, without ever talking about why we had come apart in the first place. The more recent – and final – time was a
little over three years ago. Up to that
point, we talked, emailed daily, and saw each other once in a while, but anyone
who knows me knows that I can give a lot, as long as you’re not asking for
time. I can be supportive, funny,
judgy-against-your-enemies, commiserating… I can bake, lend you stuff, but I
can’t give you coffee dates or shopping afternoons or wine dates or dinner. Time doing that makes me feel guilty for not
being with my husband, my children, my house, going to the gym, knitting
mittens or stockings…you name it, which makes a night out stressful. (See also, Failing at Everything.) I
like to think that what I have to give is, well, the written word and/or
occasional skype date… when I have time.
Ok, so maybe reading that over shows me that I’m a terrible
friend. But maybe that’s just the kind
of friend I want for myself. I love
getting letters, emails and texts. I don’t
delete emails from my friends – I keep them and read them over, and laugh at
what you’ve said, at my response, at your response. I write and rewrite my letters and
responses. I choose my words carefully. That is the time I have, and that is the
friend I am.
So, three years ago, this ex-friend and I were having a mild
conflict during an email discussion, and I tried to de-escalate. “I’ll talk to you Monday,” I think I wrote.
I waited that Monday…Tuesday… thinking that if I meant something
to her, or at least our friendship meant something, that she would eventually
reach out. She never did. I still think of her all the time, and she
shows up in my dreams, and it’s fine, until I wake up. I’m always wondering how she’s doing, how her
son is. I’m not on Facebook, so I really
have no window into her life. It still
hurts.
So today, when I saw her at the gym, I was stunned and
shaken. I walked up and said, SO
awkwardly, “Hey.” Her nonchalant “hey”
makes me think that she had seen me first, but didn’t want to talk to me. I walked away (awkwardly). Later, in the changeroom, I was still
shaking. I overheard her and her friend
talking about me – no, not talking about me, but referring to me – and when I
turned around to say, “Please talk to me – tell me to my face what you want to
say,” she was gone. When she got out of
the showers, I waited till she was not naked (I’m cool like that), and walked
up again, asked about how her son was doing, and she asked about my kids. It felt weird and awful, like trying to talk
to someone who has no use for you but is trying to end the conversation
quickly. I left, nauseous and shaky and
awkward.
I’m sad that she’s out of my life, without actually missing her. I’m sad for the experiences we shared
together, and not knowing what went wrong, without wanting her back in my
life. It’s a strange place to be, but I
feel that, after a week or so of obsessing over this, I might just be able to
let her go.
In the meantime, is anyone out there looking for a lousy
friend? I’m (sometimes) available.
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