5
Life Long Friends - Not So Much
Hello again blogosphere.
I've taken the past couple of days trying to reflect on my life, where its going, where its been, and most importantly where I would like for it to go. So while pondering all of this one thing kept on popping up in my mind: Friends.
Isn't it funny how friends just come and go? Don't girls have that expression like ho's before bros? And every time a friend of ours breaks up with a boyfriend we always tell her something cheesy like "Boyfriends come and go but friends are forever". Sorry but thats total bullshit.
Oh wait, don't get me wrong. I'm not the type of girl who forgets who her friends when she gets a boyfriend. I try to balance friends, boyfriends, work, and alone time. I don't change who I am because I am dating a guy (rather, before when I was dating guys, not I'm married and dating would be very very wrong).
I hate when people find a new boyfriend or girlfriend and it consumes every single aspect of their lives. Their new boyfriend is all they can think of, all they can talk about, you get the picture right? When I think of this one friend comes to mind. Let's call her Sarah.
For as long as I can remember being friends with Sarah which is about 8 years the minute Sarah would start dating someone her friends became second and even third fiddle. It's all fine and dandy the first couple of months but then it just gets to a point where its not to be tolerated.
A few years ago Sarah started to date a guy named Nick. Well, if we are being honest, she wasn't dating him. She was crushing on him hardcore and they would hang out after practice (he was the coach) and they'd make out in random places. Never dated. She thought it would lead to dating but thats a different story. When Nick wasn't using her as a booty call (well maybe a facecall since no sex was involved?) she would call up her friends and want to hang out. Since at the time most of us were in school or not employed we had no problem and would meet up with her. Well all Sarah would do is talk about Nick and where they went and in what odd place they made out the night before. The first few times we would sit there and smile and be like "Oh thats great, so do you think you guys will start dating" and things of that sort.
After a few weeks it was like, "Oh so you guys went to La Cafe near my house and you didn't call? When will we meet this mystery man?" It started to get annoying. She would go out with him and his friends and never call hers. If Facebook was around back then there would have been millions of pictures of her and him and his friends up. So we started to distance ourselves from her because, well to put it simply, we are no ones chop suey. I'm second to none and I don't want to feel like that.
Well lo and behold a few months later it turned out that Nick was also randomly making out with other girls from the team (to put this into perspective the girls were around 18-20 and the coach was 22 nothing like a huge perverted age gap). She calls us all crushed and wanting to go out to La Cafe in order to talk about it. We all go there and we talk. We console her and tell her that we are sure that he was just a dick anyway (not like we ever met him to actually know!) And then the conversation came up.
"Sarah why didn't you ever invite us out with you and Nick, especially since you were only a couple of blocks from my house". Sarah gave us (us being two sisters) this look like she was embarassed. She went on to tell us how she wanted to get to know him alone and that is all fair. But then we asked, "Well why would you go out with his friends but never your friends, especially if you wanted to get to know him alone." This time we got a sheepish look and she finally blurted out. "Because you guys are prettier than I am". We were floored.
We always thought Sarah was a good looking girl. She had gorgeous green eyes, fair skin that taned well, and nice curly hair. She was average height, had an average build, and always smiled. She was a looker in my eyes. I on the other hand was always under weight, tall, had brown hair that I would change colors almost monthly therefore had dry hair, and plain brown eyes. (Don't take it the wrong way, I am far from plain or ugly. I'd gotten my fair share of compliments from people and I know how to turn heads). My sister was always in a class of her own. She was born being drop dead beautiful. Long curly hair, hazel eyes, and a bubbly personality that could drive even cheerleaders insane!
You see, Sarah wasn't the token fat girl or the token ugly girl. We were all equals. Going out any given night we all had equal opportunity for getting hit on. (The same goes for other friends who I will eventually blog about). You can understand why this came as such a huge shock to me. Not only do the three of us have completely different taste in men but she was insecure. She thought that either one of us would try to steal her man or that her man would want one of us. It's unheard of. We'd never break that code!
Eventually this whole thing passed. We obviously had to tell Sarah that we'd never go after one of her love interests and that if she did introduce us to him but he tried to get with us we'd put totally put the brakes on that one AND let her know that her guy was a dickface.
Now fastforward a few years later. Sarah is once again a normal part of the group. Our very close circle of friends has expanded from just the three of us to now 5 or 6 of us. (Yes, we are very selective as to who we invite into our lives). Sarah meets a guy at school and starts dating him. (Even though he already had a girlfriend which is a huge no - no in my book). We always hear about him but we never see him.
Eventually she brings him over to one of our homes and we meet him. We all instantly don't like him. He's rude, condescending, and just has this arrogant aura around him. When my sister in law, who would take in a leper, doesn't like him thats saying something. That is saying A LOT! Well Sarah starts distancing herself from us all over again (how she came over during the holidays is beyond me). She is never around, never calls, never wants to hang out.
Then it hits her like a ton of bricks. She never sees her friends at all. We then start to get text messages like So I've cleared my schedule for the next 5 hours, lets meet at La Cafe. And she'd get responses like Sorry I already have dinner plans with the in laws. Sorry I'm working late tonight. Oh sorry, its grocery night. Hubs and I are running errands.
At this point Sarah is upset because she is already on her way to La Cafe and she expected us all to drop what we were doing because she finally decided to make herself available to everyone else. I'm sorry WHAT?! YOU have free time so you think that we will all rearrange our lives to fit YOUR schedule? It's just not happening in THIS lifetime.
As I've said before, I don't come second to people. I don't expect to always be number one in everyone's lives but don't make me feel like I'm less important to you. Everytime a relationship fails Sarah will come back to us crying and we can't even give her advice or try to help her figure out what went wrong. We were shut out of her life for so long.
Sarah called me this morning to try to catch up. DO NOT CALL ME AT 7:56AM. I'm awake but barely functional. I am chronically late to everything dear readers, even my wedding. I didn't answer. I then get a text message about how she'd like to talk, how she feels as if she's been cut out of the group of friends. I reply from the comfort of my desk a few hours later, "You haven't been cut out of the friends, you removed yourself."
A while after I settled myself in to work I called her and explained the situation to her. She felt bad. I pointed out that this is a cycle with her. She asked why she is never invited to my house for random parties or get togethers. I explain that I don't invite anyone, they invite themselves and before marriage and after marriage, you don't need an invite into my home. My home is a place where everyone can feel comfortable and are more than welcome at anytime.
The air has been cleared but I don't think the friendship can be saved. Funny how people you think are life long friends turn into just a friend to a fleeting memory of someone who was once a great friend.
I've taken the past couple of days trying to reflect on my life, where its going, where its been, and most importantly where I would like for it to go. So while pondering all of this one thing kept on popping up in my mind: Friends.
Isn't it funny how friends just come and go? Don't girls have that expression like ho's before bros? And every time a friend of ours breaks up with a boyfriend we always tell her something cheesy like "Boyfriends come and go but friends are forever". Sorry but thats total bullshit.
Oh wait, don't get me wrong. I'm not the type of girl who forgets who her friends when she gets a boyfriend. I try to balance friends, boyfriends, work, and alone time. I don't change who I am because I am dating a guy (rather, before when I was dating guys, not I'm married and dating would be very very wrong).
I hate when people find a new boyfriend or girlfriend and it consumes every single aspect of their lives. Their new boyfriend is all they can think of, all they can talk about, you get the picture right? When I think of this one friend comes to mind. Let's call her Sarah.
For as long as I can remember being friends with Sarah which is about 8 years the minute Sarah would start dating someone her friends became second and even third fiddle. It's all fine and dandy the first couple of months but then it just gets to a point where its not to be tolerated.
A few years ago Sarah started to date a guy named Nick. Well, if we are being honest, she wasn't dating him. She was crushing on him hardcore and they would hang out after practice (he was the coach) and they'd make out in random places. Never dated. She thought it would lead to dating but thats a different story. When Nick wasn't using her as a booty call (well maybe a facecall since no sex was involved?) she would call up her friends and want to hang out. Since at the time most of us were in school or not employed we had no problem and would meet up with her. Well all Sarah would do is talk about Nick and where they went and in what odd place they made out the night before. The first few times we would sit there and smile and be like "Oh thats great, so do you think you guys will start dating" and things of that sort.
After a few weeks it was like, "Oh so you guys went to La Cafe near my house and you didn't call? When will we meet this mystery man?" It started to get annoying. She would go out with him and his friends and never call hers. If Facebook was around back then there would have been millions of pictures of her and him and his friends up. So we started to distance ourselves from her because, well to put it simply, we are no ones chop suey. I'm second to none and I don't want to feel like that.
Well lo and behold a few months later it turned out that Nick was also randomly making out with other girls from the team (to put this into perspective the girls were around 18-20 and the coach was 22 nothing like a huge perverted age gap). She calls us all crushed and wanting to go out to La Cafe in order to talk about it. We all go there and we talk. We console her and tell her that we are sure that he was just a dick anyway (not like we ever met him to actually know!) And then the conversation came up.
"Sarah why didn't you ever invite us out with you and Nick, especially since you were only a couple of blocks from my house". Sarah gave us (us being two sisters) this look like she was embarassed. She went on to tell us how she wanted to get to know him alone and that is all fair. But then we asked, "Well why would you go out with his friends but never your friends, especially if you wanted to get to know him alone." This time we got a sheepish look and she finally blurted out. "Because you guys are prettier than I am". We were floored.
We always thought Sarah was a good looking girl. She had gorgeous green eyes, fair skin that taned well, and nice curly hair. She was average height, had an average build, and always smiled. She was a looker in my eyes. I on the other hand was always under weight, tall, had brown hair that I would change colors almost monthly therefore had dry hair, and plain brown eyes. (Don't take it the wrong way, I am far from plain or ugly. I'd gotten my fair share of compliments from people and I know how to turn heads). My sister was always in a class of her own. She was born being drop dead beautiful. Long curly hair, hazel eyes, and a bubbly personality that could drive even cheerleaders insane!
You see, Sarah wasn't the token fat girl or the token ugly girl. We were all equals. Going out any given night we all had equal opportunity for getting hit on. (The same goes for other friends who I will eventually blog about). You can understand why this came as such a huge shock to me. Not only do the three of us have completely different taste in men but she was insecure. She thought that either one of us would try to steal her man or that her man would want one of us. It's unheard of. We'd never break that code!
Eventually this whole thing passed. We obviously had to tell Sarah that we'd never go after one of her love interests and that if she did introduce us to him but he tried to get with us we'd put totally put the brakes on that one AND let her know that her guy was a dickface.
Now fastforward a few years later. Sarah is once again a normal part of the group. Our very close circle of friends has expanded from just the three of us to now 5 or 6 of us. (Yes, we are very selective as to who we invite into our lives). Sarah meets a guy at school and starts dating him. (Even though he already had a girlfriend which is a huge no - no in my book). We always hear about him but we never see him.
Eventually she brings him over to one of our homes and we meet him. We all instantly don't like him. He's rude, condescending, and just has this arrogant aura around him. When my sister in law, who would take in a leper, doesn't like him thats saying something. That is saying A LOT! Well Sarah starts distancing herself from us all over again (how she came over during the holidays is beyond me). She is never around, never calls, never wants to hang out.
Then it hits her like a ton of bricks. She never sees her friends at all. We then start to get text messages like So I've cleared my schedule for the next 5 hours, lets meet at La Cafe. And she'd get responses like Sorry I already have dinner plans with the in laws. Sorry I'm working late tonight. Oh sorry, its grocery night. Hubs and I are running errands.
At this point Sarah is upset because she is already on her way to La Cafe and she expected us all to drop what we were doing because she finally decided to make herself available to everyone else. I'm sorry WHAT?! YOU have free time so you think that we will all rearrange our lives to fit YOUR schedule? It's just not happening in THIS lifetime.
As I've said before, I don't come second to people. I don't expect to always be number one in everyone's lives but don't make me feel like I'm less important to you. Everytime a relationship fails Sarah will come back to us crying and we can't even give her advice or try to help her figure out what went wrong. We were shut out of her life for so long.
Sarah called me this morning to try to catch up. DO NOT CALL ME AT 7:56AM. I'm awake but barely functional. I am chronically late to everything dear readers, even my wedding. I didn't answer. I then get a text message about how she'd like to talk, how she feels as if she's been cut out of the group of friends. I reply from the comfort of my desk a few hours later, "You haven't been cut out of the friends, you removed yourself."
A while after I settled myself in to work I called her and explained the situation to her. She felt bad. I pointed out that this is a cycle with her. She asked why she is never invited to my house for random parties or get togethers. I explain that I don't invite anyone, they invite themselves and before marriage and after marriage, you don't need an invite into my home. My home is a place where everyone can feel comfortable and are more than welcome at anytime.
The air has been cleared but I don't think the friendship can be saved. Funny how people you think are life long friends turn into just a friend to a fleeting memory of someone who was once a great friend.
