Since I'm having trouble focusing today, I'll make another post.
Have you ever broke up with someone you were dating? probably. What about a friend?
I met this women at Earth Day a few years ago. I was running a table for my department at the university Earth Day in dissertation town. The women is about 10-20 years older than me and we were in dissertation town because our husbands brought us there and we were both from the same state. She got really excited and we talked about how much we miss home state and how sucky dissertation state is. She said we should get together and she wanted my phone number. I think she could tell I was apprehensive so she said something and I offered up my e-mail address.
She was a lot of fun. We would go for walks, go to movies, go to breakfast, ect and it was nice to have another friend. I soon noticed that it was always a pain to organize an event with her and that she never seemed happy to have an hour or two with me but that we had to spend the whole day together. She was unemployed and had few friends in town. Then we were out to lunch and I was talking about finding a rugby team in the new town my husband and I were planning on moving to. I mentioned that it was going to be tough to find one near by and it upset me. She didn't understand this and said there were more important things than rugby. Sure this sounds like a logical statement yet if you knew me at all you would know this statement does not describe who I am. So combine the facts that my new friend did not understand me and how difficult and sensitive she was I decided I didn't want to be her friend anymore*. Being the direct person I am I didn't want to be passive aggressive (?) and just ignore her so I decided to write her an e-mail (passive aggressive?). E-mail seemed good since I could sit down and fully explain myself. All I remember stating was that I had a lot of fun with her but was too busy for new friends, i.e. it's not you it's me. Of course she was offensive and said that I should learn how to balance my life better. Um, have you been a graduate student before? and I did balance work with fun-fun with my husband and fun playing rugby and hanging out with my rugby friends, plus I had friends in the dept. I hung out with and exercised with. Anyway a few e-mails back and forth and we went our separate ways, on pretty good terms I though.
I still get lots of e-mails that are mass forwards from her and have thought about blocking her but didn't want to be rude.
Then, this week I got a voice mail from her. She said she was curious how I was doing and told me some about her life and said she wanted to chat and catch up. A few days later I got another mass e-mail from her and sent a short reply about her voice message. I was polite and said thanks for calling and that yes I've moved. GET THIS. She replies back saying she wants to come visit me! visit me, the x-friend. I haven't responded and don't plan to. But is this women dense? or did I lead her on by e-mailing her?
*I don't go around dumping friends. This was my first time. I swear, I'm faithful.
It is also ironic that I feel like I'm in her footsteps now. It's hard to meet people when you don't work outside of the home. I understand her loneliness. Do I have no friends now, in the midwest (except EcoGeoFemme) because I dumped this other friend. Have I no heart?
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3 comments:
i had to break up with a friend once, and it is hard. but that is not why you have no friends, cuz you do have friends! it's just hard to make friends when you move...
Hmm...I've never broken up with a friend before and have actually never thought about it that way. Most of my friendships that end are because we just slowly drift apart and lose touch. This person sounds unusually clingy and co-dependent!
I just saw a great article about this at that break up service Web site. I'm not sure what the address is, but it totally helped me understand why this is sometimes a good thing, a great thing!
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