I was friends with this girl from about 2nd grade to halfway through 8th grade. Bestest friends forever. We even had necklaces and bracelets with the best friend broken heart thingy. Called each other all the time. Always hanging out at one of our houses. Wrote notes to each other in our own secret code. That type of best friend.
And then in 8th grade she passed a note through a mutual friend of ours. This note said “You’re not cool enough to hang out with. Here’s all your stuff back. Go be friends with nerds and don’t talk to me anymore.” After I’d already bought her Christmas present too. Jerk. (Not as annoying as when that boy that dumped me after I bought our prom tickets though. But that’s another story.)
Anywho, go forward 10 years and now we’re at this email I got this morning.
I’m not really upset at her anymore and actually hardly ever think about her. I do jokingly refer to her as my archenemy, which she was for a time, but then I just stopped caring and got on with my life.
So this is how it happened: I got an email from this girl (she’s got a really common first name) that seemed to know me. I didn’t remember her though (she has a different last name because she got married) so I sent back the obligatory nice response email. The “Hi, how’s your life? It’s been so long” I-have-no-idea-who-the-hell-you-are email. After that, I see some pictures of her (because this is actually happening on Facebook and through their email system) including an old one and I think to myself “Oh, in that pic she looks a little famili—Her?!”
Very weird. We send a couple more emails back and forth and now I may be seeing her in a couple months.
Anyone else have something like that happen? I thought ex-best friends were just supposed to stop existing.
If this happened when you were an adult, I’d say you were right. But this happened in 8th grade. People grow up, realize they were jerks, and try to make amends. That’s why high school reunions can be fun…all that petty adolescent bullshit isn’t important once you enter the Real World of mortgages, car payments, and bitchy bosses, and classmates you didn’t exchange four words with all school year end up hanging on your every word at the reunion.
I agree. My wife fell out with her best friend a few months back and really missesd her. They have since been in touch and are starting afresh the next possible time they are both free. I hope they can make up, they were too close to lose what they had.
I agree. My wife fell out with her best friend a few months back and really missed her. They have since been in touch and are starting afresh the next possible time they are both free. I hope they can make up, they were too close to lose what they had.
When I was seventeen I dated this guy. He dumped me for another girl. The antichrist.
I exist in a small incestuous group of friends, but me and her, we hated each others guts. For years.
And then one day, we started hanging. And we are really close friends. She is funny and interesting and bright and tells great stories.
People grow up. One day you realize that eighth grade was stupid, that they guy you both dated at seventeen really wasn’t worth the tears you both shed over him, and that people who knew you back when you cared that hopscotch chalk was pink are valuable to have around.
Ditto…I fell out with my absolute best friend a few years ago. The way scott62 feels is the same sentiment my SO expressed when I told him we were getting together again. I saw her last weekend, I felt like I had come to my other home.
I’m not really looking to be friends with this girl again. I’ll be friendly with her, but my life is certainly complete regardless of whether she’s in it or not. I know people grow up and change but I’ve still got this tiny little fear whispering to me that if I extend a friendly invitation, she’ll reject it just to spite me. Completely irrational, I know. 13 yr old girls and 24 year old women act differently. Or so I keep telling myself. sigh
I am curious to see how she’s been doing and what’s become of her though. It’s always interesting to see how childhood friends turn out. I asked her out to dinner, so we’ll see how she responds. A negative answer* would reinforce my fears that people are just nice to me so they can shun me; and a positive answer would go a little bit towards disproving that. And I need all the disproving I can get.**
*Negative as in “Oh, I don’t actually want to be near you. I just wanted to brag about my life by email” not as in “Oh, I can’t make it that weekend. Maybe another time?”
**I’m just a little suspicious of people in general and moreso of girls. I chalk it up to a string of bad friendships while I was growing up. I’m getting over it though.
See, that’s what you did wrong. Those ‘broken heart best friend’ charms are the KISS OF DEATH for primary/highschool friendships. I saw dozens of friendships busted up after buying/sharing those things. Evil, evil things.
This has just happened to my wife. Her best friend since she was 15 and in high school was a guy. About three years ago, he just stopped communicating with her. No explanation, nothing. She was understandably perplexed, as they shared a bond with each other that nobody could replace.
Then, out of the blue, he contacted her by e-mail a couple of weeks ago, and they did the three hours on the phone thing. I told her I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in a very long time. As it turns out, he had been going through a very bad time with his boyfriend, and had to leave and start over by himself again and had stuggled for a couple of years. I guess he’d got to the place where he was ready to get some normalcy back, so he called on his old friend. She’s going to drive to the city where he lives in a couple of weeks, and spend a few days there to hang out with him and catch up. Good for them, I say.
I had a best friend through grade and high schools, and she was much prettier than me – the boys flocked to her and trampled me underfoot in the process. When we were 19, I had my first boyfriend, and she had he seemed to be doing a pretty good job of staying apart. But at his place, I saw his phone bill, and it was filled with lengthy phone calls to her number, and still I turned a blind eye. When I met the guy who would become my later husband, she started flirting with him, too. So I dumped her as friend, and never looked back. A few years ago, she tracked down my sister by e-mail and made overtures of friendship towards me, but I wasn’t interested.
A few months ago, a friend from Jr. high contacted my brother on facebook to get my email address, then she emailed me. The typical “How are youuuu?”, “How’s life?”, let’s be friends again type stuff. I debated for a few days whether or not to email her back then decided against it.
About 90% of the people I went to school with are all jolly for Jesus. She’s in that 90%. They’re not people I want to interact with now. I don’t have a problem with their beliefs. I have a problem with them being pushy with their beliefs.
Around that same time I ran into another ex-friend at a restaurant. In highschool she stopped calling and hanging out with me - no excuses, nothing. Then, 5-6 years later she sits down at the empty booth behind us at the restaurant trying to chat with me while Mr Johnson & I are out to dinner with another couple. That’s rude and awkward.
She stopped caring about me back then. That hurt, but somewhere along the way I got over that and moved on. Nowadays I couldn’t care less what’s going on in her life.
A civil attitude is all I have to offer to anyone else from my past and most people in the present.