pseudonym-anemone-blog - Tumblr blog

pseudonym-anemone-blog · 8 years ago

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Dear Reader,

Okay, so I made a tumblr because I really wanted to talk about some things, but I... haven’t had a lot of options. But my privacy is really important to me, and even more than that is the privacy of my family. Be patient with me. My opinion is no more important than anyone else’s and my stories are certifiably unremarkable. But they matter to me, and maybe they will to someone else.

I think for my first entry, I want to talk about growing away from a friend.

Let me give you some background. I met my friend, we’ll call him friend A, in middle school. He was so quiet and very calm. I saw him speak with people only a handful of times

As for me, I was an awkward kid. I look back at myself and can only cringe. I was this girl that got along with everyone, but wasn’t really close with anyone. I grew up with a big family and for some reason that turned off my brain’s ability to normally socialize and make friends.

So, A’s quiet tendencies intrigued me. It was kind of like a personal challenge, and for once the awkward silences were not necessarily my fault, it was just how he was. So I’d bug him, I’d do whatever I could to get him to answer, to trick him into smiling or drag a response out of him. Now, don’t misunderstand, this was not a daily routine. But as months would pass and for whatever reason our paths would cross, this is what I would do. That amounted to just a few handful of interactions, but it was a sort of foundation.

I didn’t really talk to A again until tenth grade year of high school. We had gym class together, and A was very different from middle school. He had started dating this girl, and for all I could tell she was the reason he was so much happier, more open. Fun fact, two years later, he would propose to her. He was still quiet, but he would tell stories and interact. So A, another boy, and I all got closer during that gym class. We would goof off together, play ping pong. It made crappy gym class something fun.

So eleventh grade rolls around, and I have a science class with A. I find an excuse to message him online and to this day, I joke around that the only reason we’re friends is that I wore him down. But we got close, really close. When he broke up with his fiancee, we started talking even more. And coincidentally, we ended up going to the same university, and I was so relieved I would have my best friend with me.

But then I did the thing I knew better than to do. I caught feels. Part of being as awkward as I am, I knew how to be single. To this day of typing my guts out on the internet, I have never gone on a date. So I knew he didn’t feel the same way about me and that was okay. It’s cliched, but being his friend was enough. Months went on like this and nothing really changed.

But then over one summer, I didn’t keep in touch as much. He didn’t really say anything about it, but when we came back to classes in the fall, something was different. He was being dodgy about some questions. Come to find out, he had gotten back together with his fiancee.

I was crushed, and I knew that it was wrong. I knew that I was being selfish, because if he was happy again, that should be more important, right? Part of me truly believed she was wrong for him, but I couldn’t tell if that just came from a place of jealousy.

So I told him. I told him that I couldn’t be happy for him because I liked him and it felt wrong to not be supportive of something that made him happy. I had felt so guilty, guilty for him and guilty for his girlfriend that I barely knew. He ignored the message. It was the first time I cried over a boy. I had cried plenty of times over the years for plenty of reasons, but that was the first time it was ever over a boy.

It flew all over me. I don’t expect a lot of things, but one thing that I think is reasonable to expect is honesty. So I was hurt, embarrassed, and in that moment, angrier than I had ever been at him. I tore him a new one.

He apologized and said that he just didn’t know what to do. He didn’t feel the same but didn’t want to lose our friendship. Well, duh. I could have told him that. I didn't tell him expecting to ride off in the sunset together, I just wanted him to know why I was so upset.

We talked about it. I forgave him, he forgave me and we tried to go back to the way things were. But it was never the same after that. Things went on with half-hearted attempts to keep in touch for the next few months. He broke up with his girlfriend again. Life went on, just more separately. And that brings us to the last few weeks.

Like I said, I value my privacy and that of others, so all I will say is I had a hard situation with my family, and it was the first time I had ever had something like that happen to someone I love. I was grieving and angry and sad at the world, but I didn’t want to talk about it to my family, they were dealing with the same loss, the same hardship. I couldn’t tell them about what I was feeling, it felt selfish and wrong. Other acquaintances were sympathetic and well-being, but they didn’t know me. I wanted to talk to a friend, I needed a friend.

Before the death, I tried talking to A. I told him about it, the situation, and what I was feeling. He ignored the message for four days. In those four days, the situation...changed, and my heart was broken. Every heart in my family was broken. That’s when he messaged back, with a kind, generic message. I shoved down the anger as much as I could, told him how badly it hurt but said better late than never and tried again to see if he would be there for me.

After another five days, he sent another kind, generic message that ended with, “I'm sorry I dodged you for a few days again, but it's a difficult subject matter.”

And that message was when I knew, really knew, we weren’t ever going to be best friends again.

I can’t be mad. You can’t make someone be there for you. You can’t make them understand how badly you need someone to talk to, someone to just listen.

So, I’ve come to grips with the end of a friendship that at one time meant so much to me. I’ve done my mourning, discarded the mementos, but for some reason it was hard for me to let it end with nothing to mark it or commemorate it.

So dear Tumblr, this is my first real post and it’s about ten thousand times longer than I thought it would be. But it is also my burial of a friendship. If no one reads this to the end, that’s okay. I feel better just knowing it exists.

If you made it this far, thank you for listening. It’s more important than a lot of people realize.

Yours truly,

Anonymous

#journal

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