tripledigit Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 I have a friend who I've known back in high school. We were quite close then but not best friends. After uni, I lost touch with her until she called up one day after about a year of not hearing from each other. She wanted to know how I was going and to keep up our friendship. I really appreciated her doing this, because I had lost touch with other high school friends so I ended up valuing the friendship with her. I had other good friends, but knew that friends which grow up with you in high school are only once in a lifetime. Shortly after we both started dating with our now current fiances. I introduced her to my group of friends and we hung out a lot, sometimes double dating. Back in high school, she was always sensitive, so sometimes people have "tread lightly around her" so that she wouldn't take offense at some minor remark made or thing done which she thought was at her expense. She was a bit better about it now, although there were still times when she'll get mad at the smallest thing and then show a disinterested/mad attitude for the rest of the afternoon. for example, we had broadly mentioned once that it woudl be good to go to china together for a holiday. last year, i asked if she wanted to go, and she couldn't take time off from work. i ended up going with another friend. at a dinner a group of friends was asking me about this trip, and then i noticed that she was quiet and giving me the cold shoulder even though she sat opposite me. later that night, she made up and said that yes, she was a little upset with me because we had said that originally we would go to china together and now i was going with someone else. i pointed out that i HAD asked her first, she acknowledged this, then said it was her issue. anyway, in the end, it wasn't a big issue, but that's an illustration of how she coudl be. i found out that 2 of my best friends in the group didn't really like her (not in a hatred way, but just would not consider her a close friend except that they now all had mutual friends) . to my big surprise, even my boyfriend said he didn't really like her (and normally he sees the good in everybody). when asked why, they said that they were sick of her being an attention seeker and getting mad at the smallest things. my boyfriend said that she was weird, because one could never be sure how she would be, one minute she woudl be/do one thing, the next do/say another. well, she had gone through some good times with me,and supported me through some relationship issues etc. also importantly, i valued her friendship because of the nature of it - being a childhood friend when i have lost touch with most other childhood friends. so i didn't try to let those opinions affect me, although at the same time, i could see how she had those issues. but if they didn't affect me, i accepted them. these issues have started irking me recently to the stage where i'm wondering whether she's a worthwhile friend to keep. it started when she got engaged and asked me to be one of her bridesmaid. i was excited at first and things were fine. the first incident that irked me was when we had lunch with a group of friends. After lunch,, we all stood around, discussing what to do next. She and her fiance did not join us, they stood a few metres away, keeping to themselves. all fine, but then when i jumped into the car to drive off to our next destination, i overheard her say loudly to another friend "no, it's alright, even my bridesmaid doesn't want to help". i got off and asked her what help she was talking about. turns out she was going home to do the bombonieres for her wedding. i was a little annoyed that she hadn't asked me to help, then just assumed i didn't want to help and said to someone taht "even my bridesmaid doesn't want to help". but i let it go, not going to make a big fuss over a small matter. we ended up spending the afternoon helping her with te bombonieres. then, a few months later, i got engaged too. i excitedly called her up to tell her news, one of her first responses was "was i the first one you told". i said no, i had told another friend (a really close friend) already but she was the second. she said "oh, so i wasn't the first one". i got annoyed, thinking what's the big deal, and also, considering that she was always going on about "my best friend Maria" (her closest friend) in front of me all the time, she was hardly the person to take offence at me not treating her as my best friend. plus, "best friends" went out in high school didn't they? anyway, after that, our friendship just went downhill. i got sick of calling her cos she was always too busy with her boyfriend or her boyfriend's group of friends. like, she'll tell us that she wanted to save money for the wedding so didn't want to come on a skiing trip with us, then i would find out she went skiiing with her boyfriend's group of friends. i helped her out with her engagement party, then on the night of my engagement party, in front of a whole group of friends offering to help me out with the preparations, she stayed silent and did not offer to come over or help. she compared her ring to mine - "how many carats is it?" then, when she found out, she told me hers, turned out hers was a little bigger, but she said "how come yours looks bigger". i wasn't sure if she was just trying to push in the fact that hers was bigger, or whether that was truly an innocent statement. i mean, i don't care if hers is bigger or not, i am happy with it, but i don't appreciate friends trying to compare things because that's not how friendships should be. then, i bought a house. she came over, said it was really similar to the one that she was building. she came with her fiance, and she went through inspecting the house, saying to him "this looks very similar to ours, do you think ours is a bit bigger though.? maybe cos our floors will be lighter in colour so it just looks bigger", or " our bedroom will be at the front though, so that the veiw is better", etc etc, staementts to that effect. there were also a few incidents where i wasn't sure if she said things innocently, or if she had an ulterior motive to have a dig at me, and make me feel inferior or upset. at this stage, i started having issues with family and some other things, so i guess maybe i am more sensitive than normal and my self esteem has lowered. i would liie to think it is just that,and that, once i am back to normal, i won't be so sensitive to her comments. it also doesn't help that everythign i say is verified by other friends who say that they know exactly what i mean, because yes, she does say stuff sometimes where they are left wondering what the statement really meant, ie. whether it was really an insult in disguise". the worse, i told her about personal issues, and having to live with my parents after marriage becuase of certain issues (which i am very frustrated about), and then she wrote me an email saying whether i was goign ot move out after marriage...when i had clearly told her was going to be difficult. it's stuff like this that makes me wonder if she's a true friend, or if she says stuff to hurt me on pupropse. i ended up keeping my distance from her for several months, and eventually brought up the issues with her because it was getitng to the stage where we were quite cold when we saw in other. she in turn said i hadnt helped with the wedding. i got so annoyed. i had messaged her several times wehther she needed help and she said not that week. and everytime she had asked me to help (which was just once) i had quickly agreed. there was only one time i could not make it to a dressfitting because i had already organised something much earlier, but i made up for it by going to the dressfitting by myself another time. so she had nothign to complain about. in the end, i brought up all the issues i had with her, she kept saying that she was very innocently saying it. should i give her the benefit of the doubt? that still doesn't change the fact that i think she is quite hypocritical.
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