End of a friendship that wasn't really a friendship

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January 27, 2016 at 3:33 pm #93987

Joe
Participant

I had spoken in previous posts about the possibility of walking away from certain friendships. One of them has ended.

I had doubts about the validity of our friendship for some time – we no longer had anything in common. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the friendship was based on falsehood – I felt like I had to really go out of my way to impress this friend.

But even when I shared good things and bad things with this friend and confided things in him that I wouldn’t even tell my own parents, he sometimes took this and threw it all back in my face by telling other people things I had said, when I had intended for them to be told in confidence.

I felt pressured into being nice to this person all the time because he is over-sensitive and can get upset pretty badly. On the rare occasions when I did have the courage to call him out on his b.s, he would just act all little mister innocent, or make me out to be the villain. This person is thirty-something years old and acts extremely childish at times – I wonder if he is incapable of facing up to any real responsibility.

I’ve calmed down over the past few years, I’m no longer the chain-smoking, heavy drinking hellraiser who used to stomp around the university campus in combat boots and a trench coat with my hair dyed a nuclear shade of green – I think that’s the kind of person he wants me to be. I’ve been trying to make a more conscious effort to take better care of my health and to be more frugal with my spending but every time we’ve hung out it’s always involved eating junk food, alcohol and spending money. I can’t trust myself around this friend. This is somebody who has no real responsibility in his life and spends all of his money on comic books and heavy metal cds. On a few occasions he mocked and criticized the fact I was considering the possibility of never drinking again (I honestly would not miss alcohol). At times, he even had the gall to criticize me on my spending habits.

Most of what we did for “fun” involved me waiting around for hours whilst he trawled through record shops, comic shops, just about any kind of shop you can think of for more crap to add to his collection – he would take his time and I would be passing out from boredom. I can remember two times I did the same to him – when I was shopping for art supplies or looking for a place to buy a hot chocolate, he threw a strop.

He never used to respect personal boundaries – he would try and initiate conversations about things I really didn’t want to talk about, ask really personal questions I didn’t feel comfortable talking about or things I would rather have forgotten. Remind me of my flaws. Again, I bit my tongue – I’d feel bad about calling him out because he acted like he lacked culpability.

The friendship has ended – I won’t go into the exact reason why the friendship ended – it was his decision (and quite frankly I couldn’t agree more). But we were in the same friendship group as my best friend from childhood and she has recently told me that on more than a few occasions, this person whom I thought was like a replacement brother for the past four years had been frequently bad-mouthing me behind my back as well as divulging things I had told him in confidence.

“He hardly ever calls me at all to know how I’m doing” (I can honestly and objectively say that I was always the one to initiate phone-calls)
“He’s so selfish, why didn’t he want to hang out with all of us? Doesn’t he like me? I bet he’s trying to avoid me on purpose…I bet he’s flaking on purpose just because I was too busy last winter to hang out with him…” (If I can’t attend a social gathering, it’s probably for a good reason – I’m cool when people are unable to follow up my invitation to hang out but when I have to turn people down it’s suddenly not okay?)
“He phoned me all the time when he was in Spain…He was only using me for somebody to talk to..” (Because he was my best friend and I wanted to let him know how I was doing?)
“I think he’s stupid for wanting to go vegan…”

He has fallen out with our mutual friend (the other best friend who told me about all the times he had been slagging me off) so I had to arrange to meet him to pick up some of her things she had left with him. When I did, I asked him “Is that it? Anything you want to tell me?” He just shrugged and said no. I was pretty peeved off about this.

On one hand I feel relieved that this friendship is over – it was draining and it felt forced at times. I can concentrate on being healthy and getting things done without that huge distraction of a person.

On the other – I feel anger, guilt, shame…I feel as though I was the bad friend, like I was the passive-aggressive one. Okay, sometimes I was. I’m not perfect. No friendship is perfect. But I never bad-mouthed him to anybody at all, I only ever had good things to say about this person. I was only too happy to drop everything on a whim at his suggestion to come and hang out with him. Maybe I do have a habit of making new friends and then placing them on a pedestal.

Any thoughts or insights on this? Do you think I should call this person and demand an explanation or do I just let him slide away?

Thanks

Joe

January 27, 2016 at 4:44 pm #93992

Dina
Participant

Hello J,

Im so sorry you are going through this. I know hard difficult a lost friendship can be. However I do feel the need to ask: why was this person ever your friend? I dont hear you say once in this article good things that came from this friendship. The point of friendship is to add quality and companionship to your life. Friendships should never be forced or exhausting. Of course people occasionally fight or disagree, but if someone is constantly irritating you, making you feel bad about yourself, what is the purpose of having them in your life at all?

Clearly there are a lot of hurt feelings here. It sounds to me you were both incompatible as friends for each other, and that is an okay thing to recognize. Much like one would advise you in a relationship, I would suggest you cut ties. When you continue to call your ex, all you do is continue to hurt yourself. It’s easier to let them go and move on with your life. Think about it. Is there really any explanation he could give you that would make you feel less angry? All youre doing by being angry is hurting yourself. While you sit there reeling in anger, he is out living his life. I suggest you do the same. Move on. Make better friends. Enjoy your life. It’s just too short to spend on someone who makes you this unhappy.

I hope this has helped at least a little bit. I do understand how it feels. I have lost good friends in the past as well, and sometimes it still bothers me. But at the end of the day, I know having them in my life was significantly worse than living a life without them.

January 27, 2016 at 7:50 pm #94000

Anonymous
Guest

Dear J:

Just because you are not perfect- and nobody is- does not mean you should accept any and all imperfections in others. You are trying to improve your health, your spending habits… Keep out of your life those who do not promote your own well being. The shame you mentioned is a very painful experience and I know it too well. I hope you proceed to heal that shame and when you do, you will feel and believe and know that you deserve better than that “friend”-

Heal that shame.

anita

January 28, 2016 at 9:12 am #94049

Joe
Participant

Dina and Anita

Thank you for your insight, and for helping me to confirm what I long suspected. You’re right – this person made me feel bad about myself. Didn’t even offer me any kind of explanation when I gave him the chance to tell me any grievance he had, so that says it all.

It doesn’t feel especially good that this friendship has ended but good riddance to old baggage, as they say. This is supposed to be my year to make changes, “Year of Joe” (besides this falling out, year of Joe has actually gotten off to a pretty good start!)

Thanks again 😀

Joe

January 28, 2016 at 9:18 am #94051

Dina
Participant

Anytime! Glad we could help 🙂

January 28, 2016 at 11:25 am #94072

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Joe:

You are welcome and I am rooting all the way for The Year of Joe!!! Please do post again!

anita

January 28, 2016 at 2:07 pm #94110

Joe
Participant

Thanks! I hope this year will be The Year of Dina and The Year of Anita too!

January 28, 2016 at 2:08 pm #94113

Dina
Participant

Aww sweet. Thank you J 🙂

Also Anita — I have no idea if there is a way I can say this to you outside of forums, but I wanted you to know that I think what you do is incredible. You have helped so many people here. You are a kind soul.

January 29, 2016 at 10:49 am #94228

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Joe:

Thank you, The Year of Anita and The Year of Dina and The Year of Joe, I like that very much!

* Dear Dina: Thank you so very much, I greatly appreciate your words and sentiment!!!

anita

February 1, 2016 at 4:27 pm #94620

Joe
Participant

Without wanting to start a new forum topic, I’m just going to write this here because it’s related to this subject anyway.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about previous friendships that are now lost in the mists of time. I know, dwelling on this is absolutely crazy and stupid but I can’t help but think a lot about old friends I haven’t been in contact for a while.

There are times in my life where suddenly I just keep thinking about people I used to know – wondering what these people are up to now, should I try and get in touch with them again, do they still remember me? I ask myself – why is it that I have to be the one who remembers things and never forgets?

This new rational, new and improved version of me is telling me I am an idiot for thinking these things – I should just leave ancient history in the past and move on with my life. They have probably forgotten about me and they are living their lives doing whatever it is they are doing. But another part of me wants to seek these people out. I have ended the friendship I described in this topic and one of the points I made was that I felt the friendship was based on nostalgia. Why am I diving head first into more nostalgia?

For what? Some kind of closure? Some kind of hope that we can just pick up the friendship and resume where we left it after all these years? Some kind of resolution, some kind of validation?

A lot of these people didn’t even give a crap then, what hope in hell have I got of them giving a crap now? They fell by the wayside when school finished – they didn’t bother staying in touch or just never answered any of my calls. They always flaked on me at the last minute when we arranged to meet up. Even a few years afterwards they always made suggestions that we should meet up – I’d follow them up on their suggestion but something always cropped up and they were always too busy. I guess I deluded myself that we were good friends back then. It still hurts that even though we all left secondary school 8 years ago, most of them are still in touch and still close friends.

Is this just my subconscious seeking out the same disappointments and flaws in people? Are we doomed to seek out the same kind of personalities in our friendships throughout our entire life? Are all my friendships doomed?

But my burning question is – why am I thinking about my old friends so much?

February 1, 2016 at 4:31 pm #94621

Joe
Participant

Sometimes just writing about my problems – even after I hit the send button, I receive an insight – am I seeking the old and the familiar because this current friendship is buggered beyond repair and I don’t want to face the uncertain unknown emptiness that friendship has now left?

I would appreciate anybodies insights on this one 😀 Thanks in advance

February 1, 2016 at 6:42 pm #94631

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Joe:

This is what I thought/ felt as I read your post before last: seeking the old friends, associates… seeking the past, wanting to crawl into the past like a safety nest, a security blanket. There are no retroactive worries- the worries before those old times are gone and we no longer worry about what was, so what was is safe there, and we want to go… there.

What will be, that is where are worries are about now. We don’t want to go there. We want safety.

In your last post you wrote about the old and familiar and not wanting to face the uncertain, so we concur, I think.

It is interesting, looking back in time we know, for example that we cant die then (We already lived through it) but looking into the future, well … we don’t even know that we will have it.

I have greater insight myself into this, thank you Joe (and I hope you keep the user name and that the other person if he/ she continues to post will get another user name and by the way, it amazes me that it is even possible to choose one that is already in use!)

anita

February 2, 2016 at 8:03 am #94694

Anonymous
Guest

,,,

February 2, 2016 at 2:52 pm #94757

Joe
Participant

Anita

I am not sure if I have ever said this before, or if I have said this enough times but I wanted to say thankyou. Thankyou for everything you have done here.

I have been on this forum for half a year, I have opened up about my problems and you have always responded with patience and objectivity. You have helped me to gain fresh insight and perspective on some of the things going on with my life, and to see things as they really are. Even writing about these things is a huge help – I sometimes arrive at the answer by myself after writing about what I need advice and insight into but you confirm what I have suspected to be the case with some of my problems (I guess I need to learn to trust my own spidey senses more!)

It’s almost like you have helped me to discover parts of a jigsaw puzzle – I don’t think it is nowhere near complete but it’s building up. I’m not sure what the final image is going to look like but I think it is starting to look like a blueprint…A map with directions on where I need to go with my life…Things are making so much sense now…

I guess regarding the past comments I have made on this topic about the idea of seeking out the past – it’s been 8 years since I left secondary school and I still haven’t left. I guess some people just never really leave high school. That was the first time in my life I ever felt real rejection when my friends just buggered off from my life and maybe I never quite healed from that. I changed myself a lot in those 8 years in a desperate bid to shake off the identity I had back in school. Maybe I changed myself not for my own benefit but maybe I had the idea that if I changed and became this completely different person my friends would love that version of me even more. On a few occasions when these people did pop up out of the blue again, they remarked about how much I had changed and that gave me a huge ego boost – I was finally winning their approval for once. The novelty soon wore off and these people ended up disappointing me again. I can’t keep fooling myself like this.

Anita I want you to know I am feeling so happy and great about myself these days – for the first time in ages. You have helped me to identify and confirm what is false in my life and what no longer serves me. These past few months here on TinyBuddha have been a real eye-opener.

And I’m making many changes right now – not to win approval from anybody else, not even people from school. I want to be the best version of myself just for myself. I am concentrating on my goals and plans now – it took a while to get back up from being emotionally wounded when I lost that job last spring but I still want to go back out there and travel.

I once again say thankyou Anita – you are an incredible human being and what you do is incredible. I wouldn’t be as cheerful and optimistic as I am now without your advice and insight.

Forever grateful and in your debt

Joe

February 3, 2016 at 9:00 am #94806

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Joe:

I just printed your post above so that I have a hard copy of this. I never received such an appreciation before. I am stunned. I did receive appreciation of the forum, and that made me smile. Here I am stunned. It is going to take me time to get …un- stunned. What I do know this moment is that what you wrote is very meaningful to me and very positive.. very meaningful to me and it will take me time to process it. Thank you so much for writing this to me! I am very grateful to you for doing this.

And please, do post again and again… This Healing Path, as I refer to it, is not a linear process and i would like to read your posts during any time in this process of fitting in the jigsaw puzzle pieces, as you referred to it. I will respond to you every time and am so glad that you are here!

anita
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