I’ve got so many things that need to be said, I hardly know where to begin. Had you said ONE more insulting thing to me today, not only would I have ripped into you with a vengeance, I would have been incredibly tempted to backhand you. I’d say you know why I’m saying this, but knowing you, I’m sure you have no clue. I’ve never met an adult who treats people like you do. That first night we hung out I was so excited to meet you and thought you were just awesome in every way. I was excited by the idea of making a new f riend who had the potential to be a really close one. We stayed up, did blow, and told stories and laughed and laughed. It couldn’t have gone better, IMO. So the next day when you contacted me about hanging out again, I was totally into it. And I had told B about you and he wanted to meet this great chick I kept talking about. So, we wanted to party and everyone was interested in procuring more drugs. The deal took quite a bit longer than expected, but I figured anyone whose ever dealt with drug people is aware that it can take forever. So I dropped you off with my husband and figured you guys would hang out however long it took. So after all the waiting, we all get in the Jeep and start heading back. Stll no sign at all of any issues or problems, why would there be? We go back to the house with you and start doing up the blow and talking crazy like coked up people do. We went home that night and were both thrilled to have met someone we both wanted to be friends with.
So I call you a few days later, so excited to talk to you. We start chatting and out of nowhere you come at me about how I didn’t listen to anything you said (which was baffling to me) and how I talked over you and made you feel awful and on and on and on. We hung up and I was floored. I couldn’t believe I acted so badly like that and was mortified. I was worried that I did something so wrong that you wouldn’t want to hang out with me again. I really thought about it, and told B, and just felt like crap. Why would I think you’d exaggerate that stuff? After all, you were so cool. I figured if you said it, I needed to evaluate my social skills.
So a week goes by and all is well and we hang out some more. For the most part I though you were great, and although I noticed a few red flags, I figured they were related to your childhood abuse and the robbery. I felt such empathy towards that, and wasn’t going to judge you harshly because I knew you had a lot of unresolved issues around that stuff and I didn’t want to pry. Until today, I’ve been giving you an enormous amount of slack. When you’d say mean things to me, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I mean, who but a clueless jerk would act like that to someone going way out of their way for her? You rode my ass about my driving and didn’t hesitate to tell me 500 times what a shitty driver I am…while running you around town and going way out of my way to pick you up. B said, “I just couldn’t believe she went and go on and on about your driving after you did her a favor like that.” But I defended you, and said it probably didn’t mean anything, even if it was beyond annoying. Same with the oh so hilarious fart jokes (like my 4 YO nephew makes) that had to go on for over 20 minutes even after I told you to stop. But oh no, Indygrrl stinks up the whole city, right?
Even what should have been a brief conversation about the way sex changes are done, and how they create female anatomy had to go on and on and on and on and on, You just couldn’t resist browbeating me and telling me how wrong and stupid it was for me to even think it could be done the way I said (even though I was right and showed you that when we got home, which you barely acknowledged). Guess it wasn’t as fun when you got proven wrong. You never tell silly jokes that just get made, laughed at, and then move on to something else…you MUST beat it into the ground to a point where other people are just annoyed, not that you’d notice or care.
The night we went out to the IMN party? I can’t believe I actually suggested that B could pick you up on the bike while I was doing other shit. Looking back, I see what a dumbass I was for thinking that was a good idea. Anyway, the night started out great, and turned into us getting suckered into giving your friend who hates me a ride. Eh, that’s ok, not gonna make a deal over it. We go to the Ship, hang out, and when we were ready to leave B and I felt no obligation at all to give the same girl a ride to the afterparty. When someone is rude to our faces that’s where our generosity evaporates. We get to the party and your girl is already there, and we ignore her, but naturally overhear her drunk ass bitching about us “leaving” her. We drove. We decide who rides in our vehicle. When we left to go home we had to hear how bad you feel about leaving the bitch, and how you wanted to give her a ride… It was funny that you felt a sense of obligation to her, but didn’t think twice about the people who repeatedly went out of their way for you.
After that I figure I’d cool things off and just be facebook friends for awhile. During that time you jumped my shit hardcore for suggesting you might find some inspiration or connectedness to a friend of mine who endured serious childhood trauma and writes a blog that addresses some of it. I actually thought you’d find it really helpful in putting some of those painful memories to rest. So imagine my surprise when I get accused of making light of your story in an effort to get traffic to my friend’s blog. I probably re-read what I’d said 100 times and could not understand at all how anyone could interpret it that way. At least three different EE’ers sent me messages that day in support of me. They were floored by your reaction. P (my bff) was two seconds from lighting into you for talking to me like that. But she’s a person who knows my heart like she knows her own, and knows she can trust my motives. I really did think you might enjoy relating to a woman who has such a similar history of horrors. I still don’t see what’s wrong with that.
There were a few other things as well, and at times I couldn’t help thinking that you didn’t really like me at all, despite how I have tried to be a good listener when you want to get something off your chest. To say I gave you the benefit of the doubt is putting it mildly, even knowing you’d never do the same for me. Again, multiple EE members would send me messages when they saw that kind of shit. But for some reason, I glossed over it. Looking back, this is unique in the context of my life history. I’m known for not taking any bullshit, and ALWAYS defending myself because I expect, at the very least, minimal respect. I bit my tongue for a long time because I didn’t want to add to your issues by making a big deal over little stuff. Turns out I’m the only one who saw it as little stuff, others were putting the red flags in my face and I kept pushing them away.
So I didn’t see you for awhile, and with time it’s easy to just remember the laughing and fun and ignore the rest. You were the first person I thought of the other day when I knew B and N weren’t gonna be home that night. And I didn’t mind at all picking you up, because I missed you and was excited to hang out. And it started off great, picking you up and seeing your cute new 'do and you were happy and funny most of the night. We’re hanging out and the first few mentions of how great you think my husband is didn’t really get my attention. But you just wouldn’t stop with it. You had to tell me how lucky I am to have him, that I hit the lottery getting him, and on and on. And the underlying sentiment seemed to be that I am lucky to have HIM, as if I don’t deserve a guy as great as my husband. And I’m sure you’re sitting here thinking, “OMG, I never said anything like that.” And maybe you don’t think you did, but one big thing was becoming crystal clear, and that’s how you don’t have any respect at all for me, and don’t even pretend to act as if you like me as a person.
Your incessent slams in my direction (thinly disguised as humor) never let up for a second, even after I fake a haha and assume you’ll drop it. It’s as if you sense my irritation and can’t resist saying anything and everything you can think of to get under my skin. Even when I play it cool just sorta waiting it out, you dig in a little deeper. How many times have I been exasperated and finally said something? One, maybe two times in the last three months? And then you had the unmitigated gall to act like I just tore you up, when all I did was say, “Crikey, just stop! You’re beating it into the ground and it’s not cool.” And knowing full well the few (very few) things that I just don’t have a sense of humor about myself, it’s as if you’re rubbing your hands together with a devilish grin over the thought of making those exact comments that I JUST asked you to stop. How you had the nerve to act offended, I’ll never know. Because I think you know damn well if I said 1/4 of the shit to you the way you do it to me you’d flip out and plunge a knife into my heart.
I’ve always found it interesting (and very telling) how the one who love love loves to dish it out in every way, shape, and form, with no subject too crazy, and no person off limits, can’t take a fraction of what she dishes out when it’s directed at her. And get shittay over it! But because you are queen of self-deprecating jokes, the assumption is you have a great sense of humor about yourself. But when I make silly jokes in your direction, you can’t handle it at all. I wish I had a tape recorder of last night so you could hear yourself.
There are a few things I’m not comfortable talking about with you, and the D/J/N (married friends love triangle) stuff is a big one. You know my feelings on it. I know yours. I told you awhile back that I have no interest in hearing about that other girl. I said I was glad you and her have a great friendship, but I don’t care to hear the details. But oh no, you enjoy telling me repeatedly how sweet and wonderful she is, and I’ve said great for you guys. But you keep going and make sure I hear about how amazing she is, even though you know she has been a rife cunt to me several times AND I DON’T EVEN KNOW HER. Someone who takes amusement in saying horrible things to strangers isn’t a person I want on my radar. I don’t want to dog on her or call her names. I just want to erase her from my memory entirely. You also know that I’ve been friends with J and D for a very long time, and I love J like crazy and of course I’m going to be sympathetic to her side of things. Knowing that, you couldn’t help but tell me how in love your friend and him are, and then you trashed MY friend J some more. Here’s a newsflash: that’s her husband, and if she wants to go through his email or his jockey shorts, that’s between the two of them. Your indignation about her reading your silly emails is ridiculous beyond belief. I know you think that was all about you, because you gave her no compassion or understanding at all with regard to that tiny thing. How you think you have a right to be so angry when these two are going through a serious, lifechanging, heartbreaking thing is something I can’t even comprehend.
And I’m not perfect, or anything close to it, and I don’t have the expectation that anyone else is either. I know what my bad traits are, and even my good ones that can get annoying at times, and when someone’s gotten annoyed or angry with me I really try to dig deep and identify what role I had in it. Sometimes it’s a big one, other times I come to realize I did nothing wrong. Like with you. I have not done anything wrong to you, despite the way you act about it. And I make jokes about my being delusional, or drunk annoying girl, or chatty coke girl–because I’m AWARE of that shit and don’t want anyone to think that I’m not. I try very hard to recognize my role in relation to others, when it’s good, when it’s bad. I do this because I want to be a better person, and someone who can admit when I did wrong. That goes a long way with people.
Here’s a good example: you were looking at my prescriptions I got yesterday and joked around about “give me some pills.” I laughed it off because they’re bronchial meds and antibiotics. And because you do this with so many things, I assumed you repeating it over and over was your way of trying to be funny. If you had said, “hey, can I get a couple of those whatevers?” I’d have said, oh yeah, here you go. Instead you chose to repeat it and not be specific, and I have no idea how I was expected to know that this one was a serious question rather than your constant questions like that about other shit that are jokes or something. “Can I have TJ?” (my cat) Ok, that’s a joke, and I know when you play that game. But how you’ll sit and say “Can I have TJ?” several times in a weekend just makes me sort of ignore it. Same with a few other things. But the pills questions were in the exact tone you use for the other ones, so I wasn’t paying attention. And then you got annoyed because I didn’t know that. It wouldn’t matter what I did, I can never win with you. One way or another I’ll do something you have to get on me about.
Another one? When I drove you home after a tense afternoon and you wanted to go to the Chinese place. Rather than remind me when I’m about to turn (in an area of town I don’t know very well), you say nothing. And then when I realized I had forgotten I asked if you wanted me to go back. You said “No, it’s ok,” and then had a shitty look on your face and acted annoyed. Can you explain how I’m supposed to read your mind? I asked you a straightforward question and you could have just said, “Oh, if you don’t mind that would be tits.” Despite my annoyed state of mind and urgency to get you out of my Jeep, I would have been perfectly fine with going back to the restaurant, but I’d bet the ranch that you weren’t thinking about me like that. You were too busy being a brat. And when something about driving came up you started to say, “Yeah, especially with…” and let it trail off, which was the best fucking decision you made all day. I’m an adult, so I can put aside anger and annoyance, but had you finished with what you wanted to say, “…a bad driver like you,” I can’t promise you wouldn’t have gotten the everloving shit smacked out of you.
Note this for future relationships, willfully pushing people to their breaking point is not an intelligent chess move.
This afternoon when you were making no effort to disguise your utter annoyance with my presence on the planet, I sat there and asked myself how on earth this happened. I say hey, check out this montage for a favorite show of mine, and we get to looking at YouTube and stuff. I remembered that white shirt I wanted to give you, and thought you’d see it as a nice gesture. When the singing of that dumb song started, it was met with me saying “Oh no, I couldn’t even be paid to listen to that awful shit, haha” You sang a verse for comedic effect and I thought that was funny. That’s where anyone else would end it. But you had to keep singing it, and I’m like come on, I can’t handle that shit, which only seemed to add fuel to your determination to show me as much disrespect as humanly possible. Did I snap at you? Hell yes I did. And you and I both know you wouldn’t have stopped otherwise. I had already asked nicely a few times. So you just couldn’t take me standing up for myself and had to make a comment under your breath and walk outside. And all of that was in addition to overt comments about how sexy you think my husband is—to my fucking face. Do you know that the minute you walked outside I texted B and asked him to come home from work right then to deal with you for me? I didn’t know if I could drive you home if you were going to act like my 13 YO stepdaughter. The two of you are remarkably similar, maturity wise.
Throughout our short friendship (5 mo), I’ve tried to understand you and get where you’re coming from. And I’ve spoken to B and a couple other friends (my bff and one other) about it, not in a gossipy way, but in an attempt to find out if I am crazy for interpreting everything the way I have. All of them are overwhelmingly convinced that you have severe mental illness and I have done little, if anything, wrong here. Again, none can believe I’ve put up with it this long, because that isn’t me. But my heart breaks for you and what you’ve endured. I know that your problems stem from unspeakable tragedy. Regardless, it doesn’t make it any easier to be around you, and now I feel I have no choice but to walk away. I think your emotional development stopped the minute that man started abusing you while your mother had blinders on, it seems to be a textbook case of arrested development. And if I thought there was anything at all I could do to help you, I’d no doubt do whatever I could, even at great cost to myself. But for whatever reason, you aren’t ready for, or don’t want help. My guess is you’ll continue living under your father’s roof, just as a teenager who still lives at home, and keep making friends and losing them, as you’ve been doing for years.
You have beautiful qualities, E, your sense of humor, your wit, are something special, as is your writing talent. And your tender heart could do so much good if you knew how to conduct your life differently. You need serious help, and even though my feeling is that you are closed off to the idea, I hope you’ll prove me wrong. Because, unfortunately, no one else can do that for you. Maybe someday you’ll find the strength within yourself to seek and make use of help by any means necessary, and that’s my hope for you. I love you dearly, my friend, but this is goodbye.
