9 posts tagged “friends”

I was working on my very last paper for my MAT last night on my porch and had the place lit up like a carnival.  It was maybe 10:30, but since I can't steal my neighbour's internet from the porch (I can only do that from my bed), I took my laptop into my bedroom.  My music was on kind of loud and I kept drifting off but I woke up to someone knocking on my door.  I kinda jumped out of bed with that startled feeling in your chest when you've just been awakened suddenly - the one where you feel the adrenaline rush and your heart races - and went to get it, but no one was there.  Maybe I dreamed it.

But when I looked out the porch (which overlooks the sidewalk to my building), I saw what looked like the retreating back of a friend who I (rather deliberately) haven't spoken to in over a year.  Even though we live in the same apartment complex, I hardly ever see her....

Regardless of whether it was her or not, it got me thinking about the note we ended on....  If it had been her on the other side of the door, and I had known it, would I have opened the door? 

I don't know.

If she were an object she would be a traffic cone,
Laying about, always warning people
Of the danger around
While never getting up to actually direct traffic;
only mocking,
bright and cheerful,
 from the rear view window.
There might not even be anything that needs to be announced
except the darned traffic cone in the middle of the lane,
warning of itself,
knocked there by a careless passerby.

In discussing the terminology difference between a "skank" and a "whore", Greg explained the following:

"A whore is someone you don't want to introduce to your parents.  A skank is someone you don't even want to introduce to your friends."

I couldn't have put it better myself. 

What's the best thing about today?

How so many better sites come up when you Google "backstabbing skank" than when you Google "broken friendship"!!!

A few weeks ago, we were in the passing period between 4th and 5th periods, and my students came in saying that a classmate was talking with the teacher next door and sobbing her eyes out.  The bell had just rung, so I let my kids talk for a few minutes and went out into the walkway to see if my student was still there and okay.  She was mopping up her face, and I wiped her mascara smear off, asking why the tears?  The other teacher, who I love because she's so out there, answered for her, "She found out some of her friends were backstabbing her and being mean little bitches.  I told her that it never stops.  My friends are still backstabbing me!"  It made my student giggle, and feel a bit better (high school is rough for those sorts of things), and gave me some food for thought of my own.

I realised when my little group dissipated (and my friend that had come back because she needed someone to deliver psychotherapy decided that I needed a little more punishment) that we all knew each other just a little too well.  The backstabbing that commenced was astonishing.  And this is all people in their mid-twenties and older.  The things that were said when someone wasn't there...phew!  Not saying that I didn't participate on occasion, but man, did I learn a few lessons there.  When someone talks about others behind their backs, it makes you wonder what they say about you when you're not around.  Well, when everyone's mad at someone, you hear all the juicy things that everyone's said about you by that person, and all the things they did.  And let the melee ensue.  Let's not forget all the assertions of "Well, we never thought that about you," and "I would never do anything like that!!!"  It's all bullshit, and I'm riding a fine line between trying to let it all roll off my back and carry on with an open heart and mind, and shutting down completely because all of this "sharing" crap leads to pain later on when someone uses it against you.

It has occurred to me in the past that we never really leave that "high school mentality".  There was a great MTV cartoon on when I was in high school called Daria, and there is a memorable line that goes:

Jane: "This is just like a high school."

Daria: "You know, I get the feeling we’ll be saying that all our lives." ("Depth Takes a Holiday)

For a brief moment, anyway.  I have so many things going on right now I might bust, but it's so much fun!  I signed up for martial arts again (I quit about 10 years ago when my dad opened his own school), I'm attending church regularly, teaching is getting better, and my grad classes - well, hey.  Not everything can be perfect :-)

I'm having issues again on a more personal level dealing with a friend of mine, and I hope we can resolve it.  But she's unpredictable and giving me the cold shoulder at the moment for what she considers a betrayal and I consider something I had to do for myself.  I'm hoping if I give it more time the situation will blow over, but I am beginning to get impatient for resolution.  It's only been a week, but as we've been through this before, I really don't know HOW I want it resolved.  It's something that might need some deeper reflection on my part.

On another note, Mom and Dad are on their way back from my uncle's house in Virginia, where they and my other aunt and uncle along with my grandparents were clearing things out and setting aside requests for possessions from all the rest of the family.  Sounds like it was a bit stressful, but Mom was able to get one of my uncle's harmonicas as well as a cane for me (both are things I associate with him very strongly).  It's still hard to believe he's gone. 

Off to karate for me.  Have a good MLK Jr. Day, and don't forget all the great work he did and began to do for this country!!!

So in a slap of fate, I saw "wife" TWICE today at school, after her e-mail to me yesterday, when she's managed to avoid me for over a month.  I laughed, because she wouldn't look at me.  She pretended t be absorbed in conversation, even when I said "hello" at the second time.  I was ignored.  Granted, the first time, I was so intent on my own path that I almost ran her over before I saw her, but I figured that since we work together, some civility might be in order; I guess I was wrong. 

In her long e-mail to my old friend, she said that both of us were immature and we should just "leave the grown-ups alone" and run along (not her exact wording, but close enough to quote part of it).  She can't even say hello to someone she knows in the hallway.  So, I started thinking...what if the whole "immaturity argument" that so many people pull out of the bag when they're feeling self-righteous (and I'm guilty, too), is nothing but a smoke screen?  It's the argument people use when they haven't got a real one.  Everyone is immature in one way or another because I don't think there is a concensus on what "mature" is in the first place!

In every group of people, teenagers and adults alike, there is an element of drama and maliciousness.  I don't think that's immaturity...it's more human nature.  Or at least our societal nature.  We talk about people.  It's not all good, especially when they are not there.  In addition, there seems to be this fallacy that you're either "in" or you're "out".  You either like a person completely, or you don't like them all.  I'm finding that I feel a certain amount of ambivalence about almost everyone.  There's parts I like, and some I don't...I just decide if the parts that I like make the parts that I don't WORTH IT.  That doesn't mean that person has to change (although hey, go for it), only that I've accepted that they're not perfect.

Not everyone will agree, but hey.  I'm having a good time being immature.

Providence, it seems, has her fingernails latched in all things.  Not two hours after I write, and not even a full day after the "ousting" of another group member, I get an e-mail from "wife" saying that things that I said came back around full circle (I could say the same about her) and that's why she hasn't talked to me in a month.  But because of that she doesn't want a friendship.

Ummm...It would seem that my old friend (exiled this morning), mentioned my name when she told off "wife" in a text message battle to the death.  I sense that precipitated this lovely message in my in-box.  I feel cheated.  I didn't even warrant a text message! ~lol~  I would have thought that my not going to see her anymore or going to the gym with her or calling would have gotten the message across...especially when we know I'm not on good terms with "husband".  Why some things have to be said out right, I don't understand.

...how life bites you in the ass sometimes?  I left a group of friends back in July because of the power plays (the excessive pot smoking was kind of intolerable, too...the smell of it makes me gag), and one of the friends I left behind sent me a text message last night (ok, this morning) at 3:15 am.  She said that she was now "exiled" as well.

I've spoken to her twice since my self-imposed exile came about, but mostly because she was having a rough time with her own personal life.  We were friends for about 5 years before I finally got fed up with her and everyone else, so when she comes with a problem, I have a difficult time turning away from her.  Whatever the reasons for her own exile (if they're true, then they're stupid), I texted back, "Welcome to the club.  Coffee?" 

We got together this morning to bitch about them behind their backs, and it occurred to me that the couple who kind of "organizes" the group - they are not the people I thought they were or they claimed to be.  Everything is so undercover; one minute they're giving you drunken hugs, telling you how well they know you and love you for what you are, then in a text message or an e-mail telling you that you're too immature for them, and then they use big words to try and intimidate you into thinking you're less.  It's intellectual snobbery at its best.

I remained on civil terms with the "wife" in the couple, because she works at the same high school I do (now they claim that she got me that job - as if I didn't intern for 2 months there this spring).  But the more I look at them from an outsiders' point of view, the more I realize how much better off I am.  Her sister is doing poorly with an illness and is settling her affairs in case the worst happens.  When "wife" was asked if she could care for her niece when her sister passed, she refused, saying that she and her husband didn't want kids (she just had her tubes tied at 32, childless), but she would find a good home for her...like she was a puppy instead of a three year old! 

This is just one thing, mind you, but the more "things" I hear, the worse I think of them.  And I feel badly that I do, because we had some great times for a good year or so.  I guess all good things do end, I'm just sorry they end so badly sometimes.