The nature of friendship
Friendship is always a topic that's puzzled me. I'm continually mystified by the behavior of others -- especially women.
It all started that summer at the YMCA. I had swimming lessons Tuesdays and Thursdays. One Tuesday a girl said that the following Thursday she'd bring the two of us us a picnic and she specifically mentioned that she'd be bringing those juice pouches where you stick in a straw and drink straight from the bag. (This was in the seventies...it was a big deal back then.) I was really looking forward to it, especially the juice pouches, and when I got there on Thursday she was eating with someone else. She pretended she didn't even know me. I can still remember that feeling of bewilderment.
Then in sixth grade I really messed up. I'd finally found some friends and I was even starting to hang out with the cool girls (you know, the ones who called each other the night before to coordinate their outfits...so they all showed up on the same day wearing similar outfits, that sort of thing...) I had one of those folding hairbrushes in my back pocket, I had a blue denim binder with hearts and arrows written all over it in ball point pen, and we were all really into writing "notes" -- which were actually page-long missives about pretty much nothing. Things were going well for me, and my social future looked bright. But, being socially awkward and always grasping for amusing material for the "notes" I thought it would be funny to discuss one of the girls in the group with one of the other girls...never thinking that she might show the note to the person in question. That was it. I went from being socially accepted to being an utter pariah overnight. And, because this was sixth grade, the kids were always in search of someone new to pick on. Guess who became a prime target? It lasted for years. Far into high school. Remember the movie Carrie? That's pretty much what my life was like, minus the pig blood. It was six years of daily torture. All of this started from one little note. And I learned that people can turn on you in an instant. And girls were especially untrustworthy. But as to motivation, why someone would do something like that...well, I'm still as bewildered now as I was then. The only thing I could come up with is that it was entertaining.
A few years ago it happened again with a college friend. We ended up working together at the same company after college. Everything was great, we were really close, even after we both left the company we kept a monthly dinner date to stay in touch...she got engaged and was planning her wedding and then one day just stopped returning calls. I racked my brain, trying to think of what I could possibly have done to make her just stop talking to me, but I couldn't think of a thing. I left messages. I even sent a handwritten note. Nothing. I still have no idea why she did that.
And, just over the past few months, it's happened several more times...once with the couple who used to live across the street from us...we invited them for dinner and they cancelled at the last minute and never called back to reschedule or anything (sticking us with seventy dollars of uneaten food, to add insult to injury.) And another time with someone who I thought was one of my closest friends...she kept cancelling plans again and again and finally I invited her over and we made plans and set a date and I didn't even buy food or anything because I knew she was going to cancel. I'd like to say that she surprised me, but she didn't. She cancelled. Hasn't called since, either. And although I guess I should probably call and leave a message or something, I'm reluctant to reach out to her for fear that I'll just go through the same old scenario, one more time, same bewildered feeling as that girl from swimming lessons.
I don't get it. My friends are so precious to me, and I'm willing to do the work it takes to maintain a friendship. Do other people have so many friends that you can afford to drop a few here and there and not even notice it -- like pennies? Or did they never really like me in the first place, or just not enough to work hard on maintaining the friendship? Or -- worse -- am I giving off some vibe that drives people away? If so, I wish this is something someone would tell me about so that I can fix it.
And, it also bears mentioning that all of this makes me even more grateful for the rock-solid, time-tested friends I do have. (You know who you are.)
11:52:49 AM 
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