Not religion-related. Feel free to skip.
My friends fall into three different categories: 1. Childhood/Teenager 2. Friends from old churches 3. New friends made in town via BumbleBFF, Reddit, or connections My oldest friend has been my friend for 30 years. We virtually grew up together and our mothers were best friends. At one point she moved away, but we eventually reconnected when she moved back to my state. We talk regularly via messenger, video chat, and on the phone. I see her in-person about once every 2-3 months. She's also a LOT. Extroverted to the max, loud, obnoxious, likes to get drunk, super dramatic and in your face about everything. Honestly, if we had not met each other as children I would never be friends with her as an adult. At all. She's not a bad person as much as majorly traumatized and in need of some serious therapy. If there isn't drama happening in her life, she has a tendency to create some. She's always on the outs with someone. Her co-workers at her last job hated her because she is in your face and rude. They kept trying to find ways to fire her, but couldn't because (despite her personality) she did her job well and perfectly. They took to just excluding her all the time in hopes that she would quit, which she did. From my friend's perspective, they were all just being horrible people who didn't like her working style. But anyone who listened to her stories and knows this woman, knows right away what is happening. You have to take some of her stories with a grain of salt because she blows things out of proportion all the time or worse, creates the drama herself and gets upset at the backlash. She goes through friends like water. The few who have withstood the test of time are either just as in-your-face as she is or so chill that they just don't give a fuck. She's always left me out of the drama and I just assumed it was because she didn't want to ruin our friendship and knew I wouldn't put up with it. I was wrong. This woman tells me on Friday that she doesn't like that I am not asking her more questions about her pregnancy, responding to messages too slowly, and that I change the subject to me all the time. Firstly, texts and messenger aren't real conversation to me. They are blips of information sent back and forth. Sometimes I respond and sometimes I don't. I'm busy. You want to chat with me and talk about the things that are important to you? Let's schedule a time to chat virtually, on the phone, or in-person. I am most definitely an in-person talker. You would think my friend of 30 years would know this. But no, she's upset about me sending a GIF rather than asking questions about her gender reveal party and pregnancy. A gender reveal party that I wasn't invited to by the way. She wanted me to be excited and ask her questions about a gender reveal party I wasn't invited to! She kept saying that it seems like I don't care because I'm not asking these questions via chat. Here's the thing, in the past, I never had to ask her questions because she was happy to info dump and provide me with answers before I even thought to ask them. I've never needed to play the 20 question game with her because she was so open and told me everything. That's been the dynamic for our entire adult life. From my perspective, it seems like what she is really upset about is that I am not asking a million questions about her new pregnancy and wants me to react in a very particular way and within a certain time frame. Me not seeing her message for four days was unacceptable, even though I told her I was taking time off and unplugging. I'm been questioning myself all weekend about this. It is true that I am not a big question asker. It feels invasive in many ways and I don't want people to feel like I am quizzing them about their lives. If you want to give me information, I'm all ears. If I change the subject, I am not doing so because I don't care, but because I had something on my mind too. I am happy to return to whatever subject someone wants to talk about. Do I care about her pregnancy? No. But not because of her. I don't care about anyone's pregnancy. I am actually icked out by pregnancy in general, so no....I'm not going to ask you questions about blood draws (I have a real phobia of needles) or your birth plans or anything. I have never in my life touched another human's pregnant belly. I don't care what people name their children or when the due date is. It's information, but that's all. When I ask (almost always in person) it is because that is the social norm. There was a second issue that came up though, which was that she feels like a deeper friendship requires confrontation. That this was an important issue to address because she thought it would deepen our friendship as she was sharing a "hard truth" with me. However, when I didn't respond in the way she wanted, she got upset and accused me of conflict avoidance. The issue is that I see zero point in her telling me any of this besides creating drama. Clearly, I am a friend who cares, I've shown that I care in numerous ways over the past 30 years. You know me and know what I am like. If this is a perceived personality flaw, bringing it to the forefront and confronting me on it isn't going to be taken well. Especially because this could have been brought up a decade or two ago, but you only chose to address it now that I didn't respond to your gender reveal the way you wanted me to. I feel manipulated and dragged into a drama shitstorm that I would be happy to stay out of. Also, this has done the opposite of deepening our friendship. I don't want to remain friends with someone who creates drama at every turn. I don't want a deeper friendship with someone so volatile. I have so much shit going on in my life and I do not need one more blessed thing to make it more stressful. I don't have space to go deeper with someone like her. I just can't. Here's the one thing I'll bend on: Yes, I probably am avoiding talking about things that I think will bring conflict. Because I don't want or need conflict in my life. I am avoiding confronting her on issues because I don't want to be unkind, I've accepted that this is who she is, and I don't think anything will change if I did address something. So she isn't wrong that I am avoiding conflict and for her, that means that we will never be deeper friends. So be it. UPDATE 4/1/2024: Upon the suggestion of my brother and best friend, I wrote a hand-written note to said friend. She refused to have a conversation with me in-person or via phone because she said she wanted a record of our conversation so I couldn't twist things. That's when I stopped talking to her entirely. How dare you accuse me of conflict avoidance and then refuse to even discuss this with me. For the record, all of our conversations up until that point had been 100% via Facebook messenger. Blech. So I wrote her a note and sent it in the mail. She didn't respond. I was careful to leave out cursing and tried to be very measured in. Here was my letter: I don’t want to just ghost you or this friendship. I think it is also really important that I convey all my feelings about the situation we have found ourselves in. Firstly, I can see that this issue is very important to you. You need people to be just as excited as you are about your life and the things happening in it. I know how happy you were to find out that you had not miscarried and were still pregnant. Sharing your feelings with me about how you felt like I didn’t care because I missed a text message, didn’t ask enough questions, and talked about my things before asking you about yours must have been really frustrating. I can understand that the radio silence on a message was really frustrating. If someone had done those things out of maliciousness or selfishness, it would make sense that you’d be angry. The problem here is that I didn’t those things to be malicious or selfish, and I am fairly certain that you knew that. Because that is not the kind of person that I am. I saw a screen shot and didn’t even open the image, then forgot to go back or respond. My apology and explanation should have been enough. But they weren’t. In fact, you went on to tell me how I should be acting and how to respond to you in a way that you deemed acceptable. You demanded that I validate your feelings, while being shocked that I had feelings of my own about the situation. That is very controlling. To suggest that someone doesn’t care or even that you feel like they don’t care, when they have a long track record showing that they do care, is beyond hurtful. And this has made me really evaluate our friendship. I know you are an extreme extrovert. Because I don’t live near you, I have become your 9-5 friend. Someone you talk to when you aren’t busy with anyone else. You don’t return or answer a single phone call at night or on the weekends. You have an entire life and friend group that I simply am not a part of. Visiting is the only way to be added to the social calendar and even then, I don’t always get to be a part. I was expected to be excited about a gender reveal party….that I wasn’t invited to. In fact, no one even considered inviting me. That hurt. Being left out of an event that was clearly important to you and then being expected to be super excited about it and respond in a very specific way. You weren’t going to ever get the response you wanted from me, because you don’t get to control me like that. You do not get to tell me how I should feel after you “confront” me on something. You don’t get to tell me how I am supposed communicate with you. Especially when we have been communicating in a perfectly acceptable manner for our entire adult lives without issue. You changed the rules of how we communicate with each other, accused me of something that wasn’t true, and expected me to be fine with it. More than fine, you expected me to conform to your expectations immediately and agree with you. When I didn’t conform, you chastised me again, as if that was going to force me to react and respond in a way that you felt was appropriate. All it did was make me angry. The way you confront friends, to the point where you filter through friends constantly, if also toxic. You do not need to confront people to build deeper friendships with them. It isn’t necessary. You didn’t confront me to build a deeper relationship. You confronted me because you didn’t like that I didn’t respond to a text and it hurt your feelings. Rather than pick up the phone and just call me, you spent a week stewing over it. By the time you said anything to me, you were beyond upset. For me, I had zero clue that there was any issue. I’m not sure how you expected me to act after that emotional ambush. The place I really draw the line is when you refused to talk to me about this in person or on the phone. Because you wanted a written record of our conversation so I couldn’t misconstrue anything. As if you needed to keep a recording to present in court or something. I am not your ex-husband. We don’t need a written record of our conversation. If you had seen me sobbing that day you chose to confront me, I don’t think you would have said half of what you said to me. Because you would have seen my genuine shock, hurt, heard a genuine apology, and deep sadness. Instead, you chose to confront me via text, one of the absolute worst forms of communication in my opinion. I don’t think it has ever been a secret that I prefer phone and in-person communication. This friendship cannot continue if you refuse to have difficult conversations with me in person. I’ve managed to maintain many long-term friendships. And it is because I accept people for who they are. I accepted a long time ago who you were and have never felt the need to confront you on anything because you have made it clear that you are unaopologetically you. It’s what I love about you. I cannot be everything you want or need me to be. I can’t be that for anyone. You have an issue with how I respond to messages? Or how I communicate? Or the way I express care or sympathy? Then I am not what you need in a friend, or at least not in that moment. I’m not going to magically become a better texter (even when I try to be better) and I’m not going to gush over your pregnancy, because I don’t gush over anyone’s pregnancy. I didn’t even gush over your pregnancy with Luna. Clearly, you need someone who will do that for you, and I hope you have other people in your life who can meet that need. Things I can do and have done to show I care about you and your children: I can make a cake for a party I am not even able to attend. I’ll help plan a surprise birthday party, complete with cake and decorations. I’ll babysit your daughter for three days because daycare isn’t running after Christmas. I’ll dogsit your dog so you can spend some quality time on vacation with your little family and not pay for a kennel, and get better after everyone got sick on said vacation. I’ll handmake you décor for you nursery. I’ll hold a baby so you can get some time to yourself. I’ll send meals during the hard days and buy little things just because I thought of you. I’ll agonize over your Christmas present because I want it to be perfect. I’ll paint miniatures with you and play board games and tell stories around a campfire. If that isn’t enough, then I understand. Sometimes we can’t be what someone needs. Maybe at this stage in your life, what you need is a texting buddy and someone to ask you a million questions about all the fun stuff happening in your life. What I need right now is a friend understands that my life is constant chaos full of phone calls, emails, and texts from multiple social workers, GALs, lawyers, teenagers, schools, court, etc. and is willing to overlook when I don’t respond to something or forget to respond. If you cannot be that person, that is okay too. My expectation going from here is an in-person or at least phone call to discuss. If you refuse to do one of those things, then we can say our goodbyes here. I will not remain friends with someone who chooses to confront people in the most impersonal way possible. There will not be anymore texting back and forth about this subject. If you respond with anything besides a time to talk, then I’m walking away. I know that sounds extreme, but this is not the way to talk to a friend and I am hurt and angry by the impersonal nature of this entire thing. And it truly is okay if you decide that I am not the friend you need or want me to be. Perhaps this has been building for a lot longer than I thought and you cannot overlook my character flaws anymore. So be it. I would be hurt, but I also know that sometimes friends outgrow each other or have reached a point where there is not real conflict resolution.
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AuthorThis is a personal, but secret, blog archiving my deconversion from a Christian to a non-believer. Archives
December 2020
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