I'm getting less and less concerned with who my friends are and how much effort I put into our relationships because, though I am loyal and I try to be a good friend - a great friend even - I am always let down by how much this isn’t reciprocated. I’m not going into gorey details but I’ve been let down and hurt a lot by ‘friends’ in my life. Nothing serious, just a lack of commitment. When I watch the television, or hear other people talking, saying things like “I love my friends, I don’t know what I would do without them” or “my friends are like my family” I don’t understand this. At first I thought, wow I need to find my group of friends who would do anything for each other and be there no matter what. Then I started to realise that this wasn’t going to happen, and I thought, wow I must be some kind of monster who no-one wants to know enough to care that much about. Now I am realising that it is all a lie. These people don’t exist, they are a phantom made up by cutesy script writers and people who want others to know how many people like them and just how much. Well no-one likes me. I think seriously now I have three people I would call friends and to be honest I don’t see it lasting. I’m not trying to sabotage relationships here I am just resigning myself to the fact that if I put in the effort I should to it, it wont be returned; and there is no way I’m giving more than I get anymore. Sorry to sound pompous but no-one like that is worth my kind thoughts.
I know exactly where this stems from. When I was in Primary 6 at school I had a best friend: Jenny. Jenny and I had been inseparable for years, we did everything together, we shared a lot, we played, it was the typical long time best friend scenario and the type of friend you are meant to keep forever. In Primary 6 a new girl, Kim, came to the school and became friends with us. Kim liked horseriding and so did I so we became friends too. For some reason or other one day Kim and I fell out. I know this will sound ridiculous but bear in mind the country bumpkin back drop to my childhood as you read. Kim said to me “you are a bitch, and you know it!” I was shocked and hurt. I expected Jenny to be shocked too, and to back me up; instead she sat on the fence. She didn’t jump to my side, she didn’t ignore Kim, she acted as a go between. Some may think that this is what they would have done, that she was trying to keep the peace and reconcile friends. To those who think this: that is a pile of crap. If someone attacks your friend, who you truly care about, you should have their back. You should support them and them alone. I don’t care about any other circumstance, that’s the way it should be. With my best friend, if anyone did anything to him, said anything to him or touched a hair on his head I would do anything and everything possible to make sure the person that did it knew just exactly what they had done and how wrong it was. It doesn’t matter that my best friend happens to be my fiancé too, I would do that for anyone who put as much effort into being a friend as he did before we got together, and after that. I expect that, outside of family, there is no-one else in the world who would do this for me, and that’s ok. It really is ok. I’ve accepted this.
So from now on I’m not putting the effort in with trying to keep or make friends. With the friends I have left of course I won’t neglect them, I will continue to be a friend, but once bitten twice shy and now I’ve been bitten repeatedly and I really should have learned by now. I’m not going to be the one to always get in touch first. I’m not going to be the only one who texts back, I’m not going to be the person who puts effort into making great plans only to be let down at the last minute. From now on I am a passive friend and if I meet anyone else who really wants to know me it’s going to be their hard work that gets them in alone, save marrying into my family.
This blog has been so depressing recently and probably doesn’t make happy reading so I apologise for this now. I’ll try and make it lighter and less of a sob story next time.
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