literally walked by her. In the moment I saw her in the mall, I thought" ugh, I don't know what to say to her after hi". Never mind the fact that in the time we last spoke ( 5 years ago) I started a new career, got married, had a baby and bought a house. What went through my mind was why we stopped being friends, and I have to be honest, it was a mix of her personality and my embarassment that caused me to keep walking.
Without going into details, there are friendships that you have that are one sided- the 'friend' always brings the conversation back to herself, doesn't ask about you .. and sometimes that friend is materialistic, phony and just plain unaware of what it takes to be a friend. You meet at a time in your life (college) where your goals are the same( college and having fun). After college, your differences seem to be very clear, making it difficult- at least on your part- to maintain an authenthic friendship. I say authentic because I've had my share of friendships that were inauthentic, and once you reach a certain age- you just don't have time for that. So I never interupted the natural drifting of our friendship...just let it take its course as we had different interests and the things that we did have in common ( being from the same area) didn't really matter anymore.
Then comes a defining moment, where I knew if I didn't do something- that would be it, we wouldn't stay friends. In this case, it would be not attending her bridal shower. And once again, I just let it happen. It was wrong, the etiquette gods would 'tsk tsk' me. I came up with excuses why I couldn't go ( didn't have the address) or didn't want to go ( the invite was last minute. hmph- how dare she !?)- while both true, I could have gone if I really wanted to. It was done. By the way, I totally got that back when a friend of mine just didn't show up to my own wedding. And hasn't called since. 4 years ago.
Then I have moments like today when I see CollegeFriend and think " now, Jessica WHY did you do that - because if you were to go say hello, it would be really awkward" My whole life I have put myself in awkward situations, or done things when I look back I think " what were you thinking?" i.e borrowing a my college roommates sweater to go away on a weekend trip. Without asking. WHY did I think that was OK? And wouldn't she see me wearing it when she saw the pictures from said weekend? I just can't for the life of me figure out why I did that. Or when I changed jobs within the same company. Without asking my boss I just came in early so I could leave early. He was like " huh" and I had to agree... why did I think that was OK ? So this feeling of awkwardness is not a new feeling for me. I put myself in those situations a lot, and I hate being in them, but I do it over and over.
So I walked right by, almost stopping , but thinking 5 steps ahead, like in a chess game. This is not a friendship I want to resume. We don't have anything in common anymore other than we went to the same college. I wouldn't look foward to having coffee with her- besides the obvious I don't even like coffee, I wouldn't look foward to hearing about CollegeFriend, CollegeFriend, CollegeFriend. It made me kind of sad, because at one time in my life, we did have a lot of fun together.
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1 comment:
was it Andrea Slutmaso?
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