It's Monday morning now, and I am not really ready to hand in all of my homework due in today, but I think I can get by today and the rest of this week just fine, just as long as I keep my mind focused on what really matters in the long run. There has been one thing, however, that has been distracting me these past couple of days, and in addition to making my thoughts linger away from light diffraction and organic chemistry, this distraction has also hindered my ability to feel genuinely glad to see my friends at school, impeded my ability to feel truly happy for the birthday girl, and to just look on the positive side of things generally, with or without the influence of alcohol.
On this blog, I try to steer away from topics that are too touchy. This is subjective of course, but to me, this includes anything to do with marital affairs, sexual orientations and racial issues, as I am a bisexual who has divorced parents, and has learned the hard way how sensitive people can be to color and creed. But one thing that has always remained important to me was my friendship with this one individual, and this will mark the first time I ever talk about him in my blogging career.
We met in September 2002, and while I offered him a seat at my table in our first high school class, he offered me some of his food at our first ever high school lunch. Since then, we have talked for thousands of hours on the phone over the past six to seven years, and I share with him, a lot of memories, heart-to-heart conversations,and inside jokes, as I'm sure you know how typical best friends usually do.
Oh, but last Wednesday, he called me and told me that he didn't want to be friends with me anymore. He said he has grown to hate me because I go against everything he ever believes in. He wanted to 'fix' me, to make me see the 'right' way to live. He says the way I see the world is naive and impure, and while I see his rationale, at this point in time, I don't see how I can change the way I approach life to resemble his philosophies.
I am sorry that I don't care about anyone else but myself, that I am an egoist, and an egotist. I apologize for being so hypocritical, so ironic, for telling others about what I hate when you have a hatred for me that goes so much deeper. I am sorry you have had to keep all your secrets to yourself for all these years, I know it must have been hard at times because you cared about me, yet I was so difficult. And I'm sorry if I care more about money than the children in Africa.
But just because our minds don't run the same way doesn't mean we have to throw all that away. It's unfair for you to give me just twenty minutes to absorb what you have been hiding for six years. You can't just end it, because I put all my trust in you, and my care for you is all the genuine caring I can muster.
But if you want it to finish there, then so be it. As you said, perhaps our paths will cross again some day.
This isn't the first time this has happened. Various people, in my old school, in my current school, and the school I went to in between those two other schools, have all ended their interactions with me. They block online communication, they refuse to reply to my invitations to social gatherings of ten or more, they ignore my text-message, they don't pick up my calls, and they walk by me, and don't care. And to be honest, I don't care either, I mean, why bother if they won't reciprocate?
But there's something extremely wrong about breaking it off with my best friend. I feel a hundred percent guilty about this one, because in my eyes, there was very little wrong with him, and I must attribute this resolution to my own personality flaws. Sigh.
This has happened to you before, right?
Don't you just hate the feeling too?
Monday, February 23, 2009
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14 comments:
Awww... Cheer up Michael. Did you tell him last Wednesday the same words you typed here?
You're right, 6 years of friendship can't end this way just because of attitude problems and cross-road minds.
I've never had a best friend in my whole life. But I know how it feels to lose someone this way.
I feel awful for that person. I mean, being best friends...shouldn't he have told you all of these a long time ago? That's what friends are for right? Well, anyways, no one really knows what's the best way of being a best friend is.
Can you still try to talk to him about this?
.Louise
My ex-b/f and I had been dating for nearly 2 years when he decided to rejoin his family religion. Suddenly, everything I did was wrong. I told him, "You've known me for 2 years. I'M not the one who changed." He admitted that HE had changed but, somehow, it was still MY fault.
Whatever.
has happened before with the friend that cut me out but she wasn't my best friend. it still annoys me though that she's just cut me out randomly like that with no explanation no nothing. to me that obviously says that i don't mean a lot to her in order for her to get me out of her life like that.
but hey, back to you!
you know i'm a little surprised that he never told you how he felt before? but then again I guess this is the first step. i think he needs some "time off" from you to gather his thoughts. he said what he had to say. he will come back. i bet you a margarita on that! ;)
and as to changing your personal "flaws" totally up to you of course but friends accept each other the way they are right? all those annoying things as well.
Aw Michael.
Its happened to me before, 9 and a half years of friendship between me and my best friend and it all died down because of a guy.
I was going to give advice because as I was reading what you wrote I came up with something but as I clicked ''comment'' I forgot it. If I come back to remembering it, I will tell you.
michael,
i'm sorry that you;re going through this. i guess it's part of life that friendships, like relationships go through rough patches, and they need to be worked through. you obviously feel that this friendship is worth saving so i agree with louise - you should tell him exactly what you've told us. about a year and a half ago i tried to cut out my best friend from my life - i had been holding grudges against her for letting me down about things (really, i think it ran deeper than that) for 5/6 years. i held back from telling her for so long cos i thought she wouldnt understand, and i would lose her. when i finally did tell her, the straw had broken the camels back.
what saved the friendship was that she listened to me, and tired to understand how i was feeling. we took it beyond blame, to the realm of personal securities.
on a deeper level, i know everyone is different, but for me i cut people out because i feel that they dont understand me, and that i cannot be myself with them. those may not sound like big things, but i am a person who has always struggled to realise my identity, and contstantly felt like i was being subsumed by the personalities of other people. (of course, the problem lies with me, and not with other people.) if your friend is anything like me (and you may not even know, because very few people know that i feel like that), then he is reacting against you because you seem to have a very strong, individuated sense of self and he finds it difficult to allow his own self to find expression when he is with you.
tlk to your friend, and really listen. if you can get through this, it will actually bring you closer.
love,
yolanda
Unfortunately, his friendship wasn't unconditional, was it? I really hate that happened to you...
{{{BIG HUG}}}
I'm a little ashamed to say that this has happened to me before, but unlike you, I was the one dropping somebody very close to me, and with my case, I dropped him without even an explanation. I blocked him from MSN, wouldn't answer his emails, avoided him at all costs, and even got some of my friends to do the same.
It went on for six months, until one day I realized I didn't remember what the grudge was that I was holding and started talking to him again.
So, my advice is to give it time. His anger will fade eventually... it's just a matter if it will fade before you graduate or not.
I remember being dropped by someone to whom I was very close and it hurt rather more than I expected. But, I recovered, realised that it was their loss (and mine) but that there was nothing that I could do.
I think that this is more their problem than yours. Maybe you could stop trying to own everything that happens to you. Sometimes it's nothing to do with you and everything to do with the other person.
But hey, pop by when you're at UCL and I'll introduce you to some really boring old people :)
I am so very sorry that this has happened to you! You said that you see very little wrong with him. I implore you to take a second look. What "nice" person would be so fake for all those years to then end it by telling you that he wasn't really your friend after all, but only trying to "fix" you? By trying to "fix" you, he was purposly ignoring his own faults.
One day he will recogize that he was better off for having known you at all!!!
Louise: I'm fine, even happy, with it ending here.
J.J.: Yes, 'whatever'. That would go neatly with my response to Louise.
Carmen: Thank you for coming by my blog, and leaving a comment. I really appreciate it and all of my readers surprise me whenever they tell me they love it, 'cause honestly, I'm just complaining about everyone, yet that's entertaining somehow?
Vivienne: Sort of, but this concerns life philosophies, you know! The deep stuff that I don't think I can really gather in my head in a short amount of time.
I agree with you about... if they just cut you out, it shows how they don't really care. And, well, even if he comes back to me, I won't ever... carry the same feelings for him as I did before, you know?
Yolanda: I'd love to meet you in person one day, you give great, encouraging advice. You see, as I said to Louise, I don't intend to talk to him. He can if he wants to, maybe I will when I'm under the influence, but I won't want to approach him in a right state of mind. I seem to have something repulsive about me that makes several people want to block me out, phase me out and ignore my existence completely, and I'm sick and tired of it. Too bad.
Shila Shila: I sensed it wasn't unconditional for a long time.
Rosalie Bass: I think I'll be long gone when he finds it himself to attempt to contact me again. It's gone, over.
Madame DeFarge: I will pop by, can't wait to. And about there bring nothing I can do... I've had that been told to me once before in the past year, by a romantic interest. Interesting, but perhaps you're right.
Jen: He said he learned something from me, that he cares about me, it's just that we don't see eye-to-eye. He felt the need to impose upon me this whole holier-than-thou vibe that was just overwhelming and surprising.
youre welcome michael. i thought it might be helpful to you to hear things from the other side of the fence.
you say that this keeps happening to you, and that it must be because theres something repulsive about you. here's some food for thought. a person who keeps getting into relationships where the other person cheats on them. does that mean that the person is not worth being with, or that they keep going for cheaters? i think through a combination of factors, you've got a situation that keeps repeating in your life. it's not a reflection of your worth - it's a reflection of what you are attracting, and what you believe you are worth.
if you have some time, i would really recommend reading a bit about "the life script". it's a term in psychology, and i think you may find it really interesting.
keep the faith.
love,
yolanda
Hi You know what this happens to everone some point of time and you are not alone.
Stop feeling guilty.It happened to me some 6 years back I had best friend whom I used to hang out with share everything but one fine day she came up to me to tell that she doesnt want to be my friend.I didnt question because it was her descion.
I have always believed "If u love smthng set it free if it comes back its yours else it was never was"
And guess what this friend of mine called me up a year back and appologise for eveything.And we are tsill in touch not the way we were
Dont worrry you are not the only one
Mahak
Thanks for posting on best friend abandonment, kind of revealing. I thought a few of these happened in my life too, realizing before commenting that the friends who left were not best friends as it seemed they were. The companions that were there from roughly age 3-7, Sarah and Jamie and 12-15, Emily showed low interest almost all of the time until people moved and phones were not answered much. It can be hard to tell an unrequited friend what makes them intolerable, but I would like to talk about ending friendship with the person next time, even if I'm going to be criticized.
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