What a tangled web we weave

[Ash20]

Hey everyone, I’m having some friendship issues and was wondering if anyone has advice for me. It’s a long story, but I’ll try to make it as short as possible.

 

The Complicated Past:

 

When I was a freshman in college I met a great group of people who I became very close to. I won’t use their real names, but I’ll make up names because names are needed to keep the story clear. So, the main group that I became close to was Rachel, Sara, Tyler, and the guy who is now my bf, Sam. We were like a family, we did everything together. About a month after I met this group of people, Rachel and Tyler started dating. Shortly after, Sam and I started dating. Everything was going well with us until about 2 weeks into my relationship with Sam when I realized Sam had a girl best friend from back home who was beginning to make her presence known by her many phone calls (let’s call this girl Dana). So, the first time I met Dana, she didn’t even look at me and I knew she didn’t like me right off the bat, but I couldn’t understand why because she didn’t know me and I was being very nice to her. Anyway, the truth came out eventually that Dana didn’t like me because I apparently took all Sam’s attention away from her. Dana would constantly try to get between me and Sam, so I naturally really started to get annoyed with this girl. By this time, it was fall of my sophomore year of college. I tried time and time again to talk to Sam about it, but he wouldn’t listen to me, despite the evidence that was right in his face. Not knowing what else to do, Sam and I started to fight constantly about the situation. Rachel, Sara, and Tyler tried to stay out of it, since they were friends with both Sam and me, and they didn’t know Dana at all, but as time went on and Sam and I continued to fight, Rachel and Sara began to take Sam’s side in the argument, until they started to completely ignore me and basically kicked me out of the group and Sam and I broke up.

 

While Sam and I were broken up, Sam began to bring Dana around and introduced her to Rachel, Sara, and Tyler and they all started hanging out together. The next year (my junior year of college), Dana became a student at our school due to family issues. She was always around Rachel and Sara and I was not talking to Rachel and Sara at this point. Rachel and Tyler had broken up too by this point, but they still hung out with each other a lot. Sam, Tyler and I had started talking again, and Sam and I eventually reconciled and rebuilt our relationship. He stopped talking to Dana completely. We were at the store one day when we ran into Rachel and Sara. I made awkward small talk with them and they invited me to hang out with them later that day. Later, when I was hanging out with Rachel and Sara, they both apologized to me for their behavior and expressed how sorry they felt about it and that they still wanted to be friends. Although, I had been extremely hurt by their behavior, I decided to let bygones be bygones and we restarted our friendship. However, they were still friends with Dana, which bothered me, but it is not my place to tell them not to be friends with her.

 

The Awkward Present:

 

This year (my senior year), Sam and I are still together and our relationship is better than ever. Tyler had graduated last year and is no longer in the area, but he still keeps contact with all of us from time to time. Although Rachel, Sara, and I have rebuilt our friendship, I know it will never be what it used to be, but Sam and I never see them anymore. We are always trying to make plans to hang out with them, but then they always cancel because they are doing something else. They are now making a lot of new friends with other people, but they really haven’t contacted Sam or me all semester. I thought we were supposed to be friends. I know by now, that they are better friends with Dana, but they promised to continue their friendship with me. They even text me at the beginning of the semester saying they missed me over the summer, but they have really made no effort to hang out with me and Sam while we’re all in the same town for school. Sometimes this makes me sad, and sometimes I wish things could go back to the way they were before all this mess, but I know it never will. It just hurts because we used to be so close, we girls were like sisters.

 

Should I continue to pursue a friendship with them? Or should I just let it be what it is and try to make new friends?

Edited October 23, 2010 by Ash20

[Tayla]

I mean this kindly, can you perhaps make your posts' more precise and less wordy? The consistent " Sorry this post is so long" can be curtailed by making it brief and precise (call it readers digest version)

Your time to write is just as important as the reader who has to read thru this and then try to decipher what your main objective for such a dissertation is.

Basically the stuff without the fluff.

 

You seem though to be having family relation issues and friendship issues, boy they are tough to deal with simultaneously....

[Ash20]

I admit the other post could've been a lot shorter. I just needed to vent. But this post I definitely think needed the back story in order for people to get a clear understanding of everything and be able to give useful advice. I could've cut out a few things, but most of it is relevant.

 

The bottom line is...my friends have become friends with a girl I don't like because she tried to screw up my relationship with my bf. But they are entitled to be friends with her if they want, it is not my place to try to stop them. Although they said they want to be friends with me and hang out, I haven't really heard from them all semester.

 

My question: Should I move on from the friendship or continue to try to be friends with them?

[Tayla]

Thanks for downsizing and getting to the point. With that said, its a matter of listing the pros and the cons of this friendship. Is it a life long friendship? Would you find as you aspire to other likes and transistions that they would also be supportive? Are you supportive of them for their differences as well as their likes. Sometimes stepping back and looking at the future prospect can enable you to have a clearer answer to what can be done. Not projecting but accessing matters from an objective point of view.