Wordspew / Needed a rant..

[Mooncloud]

I've been thinking a lot lately about this one 'friend' I've known for several years. I honestly don't think I even remember how we became friends exactly, she was the organiser of some university club I went to when I was in college - they were all older and I just kind of turned up one day and a handful of us ended up hanging out all the time, now we're still a pretty tight group years later, long after everyone graduated and moved on. But she was definitely always the 'leader' from the beginning.

 

I would say I was very close to this particular friend in the early days, when we lived in the same town and I used to chill at her student hall to get away from home. We shared a lot of personal reflections and I actually looked up to her in some way that became more of a desire for her to look at me on her own level and show me genuine affection.

 

I realized much later on I got neither of these from her, only thinly veiled fake attempts that over weeks and months made me oddly uncomfortable to be around her. She has a way of patronising and cutting a person down when she talks, and her general personality smacks of narcissism - which I couldn't clearly see until I saw less of her, and was able to pinpoint that I always seemed to leave feeling a gaping hole in my self-esteem when I did.

 

She was quite present at a later point in my life after we'd both moved away to our own places, and other members of the group had gone to different cities - we often visited each other individually since we were still close in distance. At those times it was less 'I'm hanging out after college because we're both here so no pressure' and more 'I'm arranging a weekend trip for this and taking responsibility for both of our time and lifestyles in our own homes'. I'd be excited at the idea of spending time with her at first, but as it got closer to the date I'd start feeling anxious like I was preparing for an inspection. It would be like she took control as soon as she arrived and I would just be sitting in for the ride in the backseat the whole way.

 

Visiting her on the other hand was a whole other story. She went through a very publicized ordeal of buying her first house, and stepping inside its threshold meant relinquishing all agency you thought you had over your needs and decisions. I'd basically be able to get through a whole weekend being a mindless puppet barely speaking a word of opinion while she controls everything around me and leave having gained no significant benefit; only feeling like I'd reverted back to being a 10 year-old child and with several earfuls of stories she'd regaled to me in great detail about all the fantastic events in her life since I last saw her.

 

When things became busier for us both and we stopped seeing each other as much, it felt like we had begun to drift enough apart for me to forget her underlying nature. Somehow whether through visits from our other friends or an important event that leads to one of us reaching out, we continue to meet and each time just feels like the next worst experience in a declining sequence.

 

The last time I saw her we had decided to have a big meetup of our friend group, and she had offered to host it at her house. This was convenient for all of us since it's in the middle of where everyone is located, with good travel links and enough space to sleep us all overnight. I decided to go since I missed my other friends and didn't want to feel left out of the fun, although I massively lowered my expectations of the experience so I wouldn't leave too inevitably disappointed.

 

Whilst this helped and I actually had a good time with my friends regardless of my detachment from the occasion, I still left with a bitter taste in my mouth and quite angry that I felt like I'd again wasted my time being constantly undervalued by her in her house. We had scheduled another meet-up a couple of weeks ago to go to a yearly convention which I normally enjoy whether I go with this group or not - they are usually there too so we try to make an event of it - and I had told them I couldn't make it after all since I have been pretty unwell and had tests scheduled in hospital right on the same dates.

 

This turned out to be a mis-read on my part but by the time I realised, my friend had decided to completely ignore what I'd said despite my other friends checking to see that I was alright. She was the only one to just pick right back up on the conversation about their plans for the weekend (without me included in them) and steering it right back in her direction.

 

I decided to keep it quiet that I had mistaken the dates, and missed the event anyway to go and spend a weekend with my sister, and I had a really nice time there. On my return my friend has continued to disregard anything I say over our group chat and has not even attempted to show concern for my current uncertain situation even though I'm genuinely quite worried and needing support right now.

 

I'm at the point where I don't think our friendship has anything left to offer and I am just beating the figurative dead horse trying to salvage it. I'm sure she has absolutely no issue with keeping me in her life at disposal when she needs a faceless being to validate her lifestyle, but I just don't want to be that person anymore.