A few weeks ago I posted a quick question on this...but here is why:
In October I posted about my friend T here.
It took me four months to respond to T regarding her email in October. Not maliciously waiting so long, but honestly I didn't know what to say as it caught me off guard. Was I ready to see or talk to someone again? I wasn't and until I decided, I couldn't respond. When I did, it was short and told her I couldn't commit to catching up within the next four months since I was busy; I didn't hear back from her until two week ago.
Part of not wanting to hear from someone after so much time is that you worry that they will tell you things you don't want to hear...such as gotten married, had children, traveled the world, etc...when your life has been on hold for 5 years. Also they were not supportive of you when you went through something so traumatic so what kind of friend were they really?
But you also have to wonder...after all this time why are they reaching out NOW?
I dreaded opening the email. But when I did, I smiled and laughed. Turns out T recently got divorced.
Now it makes sense...she might be sad and lonely and confused...and either is trying to get a life back...or maybe I am the only person she knows that would understand what she is going through.
I have been waiting for this for 5 years. Sure, I wasn't married...but when you are with someone for 4 years and live together - we didn't have a legal document, but it wasn't just a small breakup either. For me it was very traumatic. After the breakup it was the worst 4 years of my life...and actually 2 of those years were a complete blurr of nothing. When I think of my age, I tend to think I am two years younger; 2 years I was in a fog and didn't do anything. I barely remember it. I think my mind just fogged up so it could protect me. Anyway, no one understood what I went through. I didn't know anyone that got a divorce, I didn't know anyone that was in something similar to me when it didn't work out. Sure, I was 'young' at 27 but people didn't get it and told me my emotions were over reacting.
Well, now my time has come. People are starting to separate/divorce and they are miserable. I don't like to see people unhappy...and I am not glad for their sad stories...but I am happy people will now understand what I went through and maybe regret things they did or said to me.
It took me a long time to get to where I am now and I can't let people that are no longer my friends bring me down. I will try to be as supportive as possible for my few current friends and I give my perspective when people ask it.
Last year I met up with this other girl who defriended me three years ago. I met her at Starbucks and I listened to her for 2 1/2 hours talk about herself. At no point did she apologize to me for what happened. I am not saying I wasn't at fault at all...I was miserable and it was hard to be around...but she was an adult and could have handled it better. She wasn't the person that reached out either, she had this other girl do it. When we met, she told me that she thought of me daily in the year we weren't friends and often wondered about me. She also got married to someone that was a 'forbidden' boyfriend that she rarely saw. Hmm, I know if I was getting married and I missed someone - I'd let them know about that kind of news before it happened. Not really permanent friend material in my book. I walked away no different; we wouldn't be friends again and I didn't miss her. With that experience behind me, I can't think that this meeting with T will be any different. I am so torn if it is worth it or not to see her; I don't want to mislead her thinking we'll be BFFs or even just friends again.
I will make this T girl happy and meet up with her one day after work - on my schedule - but I am not looking to be friends with her again nor am I delusional that we would ever be friends like we were when we were 18 - 25. I will go and listen to her, she probably just needs to talk about what she is going through and then we'll go our separate ways.
I think its funny that so many people have reached out to me in the last few years by realizing what a great person I am after the fact they de-friended me.
Why do I have such bad luck when it comes to friends & guys? All I want is some decent/good friends and a fantastic fh.
I'll post about our meeting very soon.
-Don't know you, but I was looking through Google about any new stuff on being de-friended since Google changed it's profile and so I read your blog post herein and you sound "down right awesome." -"For whatever it was worth, you could be called, 'Miss Awesomeness.' "
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