I ended up running into one of the Neighborhood Badasses tonight at the Mexican Gut Grenade Palace and we all piled into a booth and managed to get the kids fed and discuss the daily dish before rushing off to tae kwon do. As it turns out, apparently one of the NB's has managed to get on everyone's shitlist (except mine, because I am totally clueless about all this drama since I prefer to stay on the periphery of the group...you get party invites but don't have to deal with all the politics and such) because she is what my friend Mer and I call A Flaky Friend.
You know who they are. You probably have one. The friend that you make plans with, sometimes even rearranging things multiple times to accomodate their lives, and then they bail out? The friend who promises to go in with the group on the cost of a gift but never coughs up their share? The friend that promises to call and then you run into them a week later and they have ten zillion excuses why they never called?
I have one of these friends too. It's maddening. You invest all this time and energy into the friendship and end up feeling drained, frustrated, and just fed up. And then the question is - when is enough really enough?
My life, especially in the past year, has gotten so busy and crazy that I don't have a lot of time to invest in tons of friendships. I have never been the type of person that has lots of friends - I prefer quality to quantity. And I have found that my tolerance for bullshit of any form or fashion has waned considerably.
My Flaky Friend and I ended up having a big falling out right before Christmas. Flaky Friend had made several promises to me, and didn't make good on a single one of them, which led to the fight. Then Flaky Friend reappeared right after New Year's acting like nothing had ever happened. We had a long discussion about what had happened and I got the usual long litany about how Flaky Friend's life was so complicated, blah blah blah. And I got to thinking - this is a pattern with Flaky Friend that seems to happen about once or twice a year.
And you know, I'm kind of over it. Maybe I expected too much from our friendship. Maybe I'm too demanding. But none of my other friends act this way. Even my friends who aren't really close friends don't act that way. But I wanted to give Flaky Friend a chance.
And then there was today. Flaky Friend had said last week that they would call so we could make lunch plans for this week. Flaky Friend never called. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I wasn't. Disappointed, but not surprised.
So tonight, when I found myself giving Heather advice about what to do with the other NB who is her Flaky Friend, I ended up climbing into my car and wondering...why can't I take my own advice? Why can't I just write Flaky Friend off? Why can't I accept Flaky Friend for who they are? Why can't I lower my expectations for this friendship?
Friendship was so much easier when I was five.
5 comments:
Sorry to hear that.
Never fear. I'll continue to stalk you and leave random messages on your phone. :)
no, it wasn't. don't you remember how girls form gangs and one week you're in the gang and the next week you're at their mercy because you smell or your socks are weird or your hair isn't curly?
i wrote off several flaky friends last year. as a result, my only friends are people i know from the web--who don't live here. which is tough. because the last time i tried to have a drink with gretchen, i poured bourbon all over my laptop. that didn't go so well.
I have a fear that I am a flaky friend. It's entirely possible she knows what her MO is and is trying to change it, but that takes a long long time. And it could be completely coincidental. Some things really can be taken at face value.
Good luck. I am glad you haven't written Flaky Friend off yet. I hold out hope.
Dear Liz,
Do you like me?
Yes No
Circle one.
g-man - that was hilarious.
BM - I'm so with you. I wrote off a friend in the last couple of weeks (different issue - I asked him to keep a secret and he wrote a magazine article about the secret - rat bastard)and I couldn't believe that I had to deal with this shit as an adult as I thought it was supposed to be over about 20 years ago. I'm getting to the point where I'm content with a few very good friends and detached from intimacy and expectations with everyone else. When does this crap end?
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