Count Blucher–I feel for you. Also, I put your French phrase through babel fish and got this: “As soon as the bitch passes the door, the vacation of friendship by the window.”
Which I think means, as soon as the wife enters, the friendship leaves. Or something like that. She sounds a right bitch. I do wish my friend and I were at least at the Christmas card stage. I tried last year–it came back addressee unknown.
I’d say that there are very few cases in which “something petty” really causes a breakup of a friendship. In most cases I know of the “something petty” was just the straw that broke the camel’s back - the trivial trigger for a friendship on the rocks or on its last legs for other, un-discussed reasons, or reasons one or both people aren’t willing to face or even acknowledge.
That’s the hard lesson. I went through it when I got divorced. Lost every friend I had.
People who think they have a lot of friends, dozens, scores of friends…it’s only because those friendships have never been tested. No real stress has ever been put upon them. Either that, or they have an extremely loose definition of “friend”.
Must be somehow seperated at birth from my ex-wife.
Everyone was “being mean” to her.
When she filed for divorce, she claimed that MY house, which she’d lived in rent-free for five months ending 3 months before we got married, and had invested all of about $50 in…was community property.
But her house, in which we’d lived since moving out of mine, and into which I’d put more than $25,000 into (including bailing her out of 3 years of non-payment of the mortgage held by her parents), was hers and hers alone.
When I claimed the opposite was true, she railed to the stars and everyone she knew about how I was trying to STEAL her house and destroy her.
When her parents found out that she’d lied to them about the entire divorce (she’d been telling them that I had been the one who filed for it, and had forbidden the attorney, her step-father’s attorney being paid for by HIM, from telling them the truth!) and just how much debt of hers that I’d paid off (over $40,000!), they threatened to disown her.
At that point, I got an “Oh woe is me” letter from her, begging for my patience and compassion, because her step-father, “the great white shark” was trying to destroy her.
Um yeah. You just spent five months lying and slandering me and trying everything to destroy me. Now you want my compassion. FUCK OFF AND DIE.
Ultimately, I won a decent settlement. Her parents paid 90% of it.
And she still railed that they were out to get her. :rolleyes:
I had a work friend who I had gotten fairly close with. For some reason, nobody liked her there, and I like to think I was the only person (other than our manager, who will at least pretend to like anyone) who understood her. Not too long after I’d given my two weeks notice, she told me she had been hired to babysit for her friend at his wedding about three or four weeks later, and that she would like me to come along and keep her company, since her boyfriend didn’t want to go. I happily obliged.
I didn’t expect to be paid, but on the way to the wedding she told me that she would cut me $50 of the $100 she was getting. Of course, I happily obliged there too! But on our way back to her place, she said that she hadn’t bought her textbooks yet (this was a woman who had just bought an at-least-32" plasma TV, and she and her boyfriend had every major videogame system and tons of DVDs and games plus a pretty nice computer) and could she just keep the $100? I said, “Well, as much as I didn’t expect to be paid, a deal is a deal, especially considering that other couples kept dropping their kids off with me when I wasn’t even supposed to be babysitting anyone. But I’m a starving student too*, so I understand your predicament. Just pay me $20 or something.” She reluctantly agreed, and tried to get change for the $100 when we stopped at In N Out, so she could pay me. They wouldn’t break a $100, so she said she’d get change some other time and pay me then. I said, “OK, no rush, just do it whenever it’s convenient.”
I hadn’t heard from them again until a couple of months later, when I ran into them at a mutual friend’s wedding. They were the only people I knew there and they ditched me between the wedding and the reception, leaving me to sit by myself all through the reception.
Over twenty freaking dollars. Right after she bought a new TV. And we had shared some really deep things on the night of that first wedding, too. I mean, we told each other secrets from our childhood that probably neither of us tells anyone else. To be fair, we were a little drunk, but it still hurt to really open up to someone and then be avoided completely forever over twenty freaking dollars by someone who had just dropped thousands on a new TV. God damn. Some people.
Yikes! Audacity. Sorry, that just jumped at me.
One of my friends from law school stopped speaking to me in our second year when she learned that I had grown up in New York. She informed me that no self-respecting Southerner would ever be friends with a Yankee. She actually expected me to apologize for my Long Island upbringing, and for “deceiving” her by concealing my accent. (I’d been living in Florida for nine years at that point, so my “Lawn Guyland” accent had all but disappeared.)
Her reaction was surreal. Until that day, I’d never seen such irrational hatred for Northerners outside of Yosemite Sam cartoons.
I would tend to agree. I would suspect that for the most part, something tiny just triggger a little epiphany and a huge incompatibility that you never really noticed before becomes insanely clear.
For example, my ex-girlfriend was helping me move once. I’d asked her to help me move my home office. At the time I was working from home. I needed to move my office, then put it away and organize it at its destination immediately, so I could work in a fully functional office the next day. The guys were going to help me move everything else the following weekend.
The office filled only 2/3 of the moving truck. She wanted to fill every nook and cranny of it with all the other stuff we could fit and she could help carry.
I explained that it was an important priority for me to be able to deal with my office stuff so that my work-flow would be as uninterrupted as possible. It was my job! I was self-employed and I couldn’t deal with a bunch of other crap. It had to be the office and only the office, so 9-5 the next day I would be ready to work and not trying to find my stapler. Yes, normally it would be a good idea to do as much of a move as you can, but not in this case. I really, really wanted to only deal with my office. It was important to me.
Despite my protests she started grabbing anything that would fit and filled the van to capacity. I said, “No, please stop!” and she turned a deaf ear, marched right passed me and grabbed another box and put it the truck. She wouldn’t discuss it with me, she just started filling the truck as if I had never said a word.
That’s when I realized that she didn’t give a shit about what I wanted or my needs. She never did. The entire time we had dated, she had always compleley disregarded my preferences.
If she was responding to the OP, she’d probably write: “My ex-boyfriend dumped me because I insisted on making the most of a truck rental. I filled the rest of the truck for him, but he dumped me because he didn’t get to have his way!”
On the surface, it seems petty. Yes, I dumped her over a squabble about a truck. But it was the symptom of a much bigger problem: she didn’t respect me enough to even listen to what I had to say, and didn’t give a rat’s ass about what I needed. That’s major, not petty.
Yup, that sort of thing has been my experience as well. Of course, in hindsight, it was just as often the case that I was the one who was “at fault” rather than the other person - or we both were.
The example I’m thinking of was how I almost lost my best friend.
We’d been friends since we were both teens, and our relationship had always been different. For one, we were best friends of the opposite sex, and very self-conciously platonic. This wasn’t easy, it set into place jealousies in both directions that were difficult for either of us to handle -particularly as we both started dating other people.
One day, we had made plans to meet and go for a wander in the park (as we often did). Nothing special, but just a fun passtime. I went over to her place, and we had tea; then she just announces that she had made plans with some new guy she was seeing, he was arriving in a short while, so would I mind going home?
Well, I did mind. If I’d known in advance that she had other plans, I’d have done something else, too. So I was pissed off, and left. On the way home, I just got madder and madder. I felt she was taking me for granted - my time didn’t matter, what we did was just something she did when she had nothing better to do, etc. Unfortunately (or fortunately as it turned out) I wrote it all down while I was still angry, and mailed it to her. Then, I awaited her reply. There was none.
I wasn’t going to call her - I was too proud - and I certainly wasn’t going to harrass someone who evidently cared so little for me. So our friendship, thriving as I thought until then, died in the water.
I think a year passed before she got in touch with me again; pretty well as soon as she did, we resumed being best friends. During that period I got married (and I still am married), without inviting her of course, something I now regret. Now we have been friends for some 22 years. What had happened?
What I think, looking back on it, was this: while on the surface we were both cool about being platonic friends (and talked quite openly about it), neither of us was really mature enough to handle it well. She was pissed off that I’d recently gotten serious with another girl, but had no legitimate outlet for this jealousy; so she was willing if you like to push me a little with a reminder that she, too, could find a boyfriend; at the same time, on my part, I was getting too possessive where I had no right to be - certainly I was right to be annoyed at having my time wasted, but not to react as if it was some sort of rejection.
So that relationship had to end, to make way if you like for a new relationship on healthier terms.
Again, as in the “loading the van” case, the outward act was petty - not being informed of other committments. But there was more serious stuff at work.
Hard to lose what I don’t have. Never lost a friendship due to something petty.
Then again, even if I did have friends I probably wouldn’t lose them to something petty, unless they were the ones to end it. I’m very easygoing in general, and I can let almost anything go on my end, if I have reason to.
Or, the ‘something petty’ is just the occurrence one party uses to end a friendship already fatally injured – from their point of view only – but not, up to that point, finally put out of its misery. The other party, not being aware, forever after is convinced something petty ended the friendship.
I know this is true for one of my friendships that ended over “something petty.” Which it was - but it was the 800,342nd something petty and many of the previous things had been discussed and, well, I was done.
Had a friend in college that we used to hang out with a lot. Helped each other through some hard times and just spent a lot of time together.
So after two years evidently we find out that her roommate’s BF is cheating on her. Roommate finds out at the same time and is obviously embarrassed. Asks who knows, I say just us. Friend gets pissed and never talks to me again.
I appear to have lost a friend just recently, but have no idea why.
I run a small forum focussed on UK culture (tv, film, books, etc) that he is a member of, but he has stopped posting, and has ignored an email I sent asking if he wanted to catch up before Christmas (we live in different cities). I’ve not been aware of any ill feeling, in fact he was working collaboratively with my husband on a writing project.
I don’t talk to my sister because she sent me a Christmas card.
I’m not Christian, and I’d asked her many times to drop me from her list, but she refused, because “It’s the thought that counts.”
I told her the thought that came through loud and clear was that she knew I didn’t want her church or her card but she was sending it out of spite. Still got a card. So I marked it “Return to sender, Bah Humbug” and she got miffed and stopped talking to me. That was 11 months ago. If I get yet another card this year she will get it back glued to her mailbox.
Now, that’s petty. Unless you’re Jewish or Muslim or Hindu-then she’s clueless. If you’re an atheist, that’s valid as well, but it is common practice to send Xmas cards to everyone, unless they are of different faith. She could send you a holiday card, though, so perhaps she is being a bit dick-ish.
Hmmm…maybe this isn’t all that petty, afterall.
I used to eat dinner every week with my buddy. I did it mostly because I kind of felt sorry for him… he didn’t have a lot of friends or social activities to attend, so I made it a point, every single week, to clear a day and have dinner with him.
One day he tells me he’s planning to stop smoking. I congratulate him and am very supportive. He tells me he’ll need to take 3-4 weeks off from our weekly dinners, because they tended to be in a pub and he didn’t want to be around the temptation so quickly after stopping. Sure, I said, call me whenever you’re ready to grab dinner again.
About a week later I was moving and called him to ask for a hand. He told me he was very tired and wanted to sleep in that weekend. Fine, I said, we’re starting at 10:30 to leave you plenty of time to sleep in. He told me he was still quitting smoking and would have “the shakes”, unable to help me move. I told him “look man, it’s a holiday weekend and most people I know are out of town or otherwise busy and I’m having a hard time finding help. If you could even come for an hour, it’d be a huge help.” He told me he’d give me a call sometime during the move to come lend a hand for a little bit.
Never heard from him again.
Context is all. I would think from the discussion that the card thing is symptomatic of other issues, since between people of goodwill it would not be a big deal either way. I’m guessing these sisters used up their reserve of goodwill towards each other long ago, and the card is just the symptom of that lack.
I’m not Christian, and it wouldn’t bug me to get a Christmas card (I get many) - and on the other hand, if it did bug me, I’d fully expect any friend or relation of mine to respect my wishes and not send one, if I told them. The annoyance and lack of respect on display in this story are both symptoms of a relationship already in deep trouble, probably I would guess over past annoyances and lack of respect.
I stopped being able to talk to a guy at work because he gave me a ride in his Saab and I mistook it for a VW. All small cars look alike to me.
It sounds very similar to my ex-girlfriend ignoring my express wishes. Malachi requested “No Christmas cards.” Her sister ignored that.
There are few things as irksome as someone who communicates loudly and clearly:
“Yes, I heard you. I just don’t care.” Or, “It doesn’t matter what your wishes/needs are.”
My sister’s ex-girlfriends mom was like that with vegetarians or anyone with dietary restrictions. Nut allergy? Tough shit. She’d send you brownies with nuts all over them, because “It’s the thought that counts”, even if she’d been warned they could kill you.
My younger sister. I was living in a room with a shared bath and she was living in a studio basement apartment in a house. We were fine.
Then I got a nice two room apartment on the second floor of a six-family house. It had a real parking lot in the back. I don’t drive.
She got pissed off because I had a parking lot I didn’t need and she had to park in the street. “Why would you take a place with a parking lot?” I don’t know if she thought I should have given her the apartment (and parking space) and taken hers, but she stormed out of my apartment on her first visit and never contacted me again.