Years ago when I lived in a super cute NYC sized apt, in a sweet lil' artist colony Venice courtyard building, I met one of my earlier LA friends.
I had a coveted 2nd floor apt, (there were only 3, to the buliding 12 units), was outside on terrace painting a table, and a small voice said, hi, i'm so and so, want me to help... and then we were just always friends...years past filled with new friends and snips and quips, laughter and disagreements, but mostly laughs, y'know the usual friend stuff.
while our friendship had drifted, we went to dinner a few days after I'd tested for the sitcom i'd eventually do. i'm kept mum about auditioning ..(as and actor to cope you just realize, fuck it, until i'm on the set holding the script w/ a year pick up, or this movie is a GO... none of this is real)i digress, such a lazy writer i am...
ok back on point. after that night, and major events, ie getting the job, a network pick up, starting, working, dad dying, general life.. despite trying to get in touch on my part for like y'now 6-9 months, i never ever heard from her again...
cut to like last fall-
a random text from her (after 7 yrs)... sorry your brother died. (fair enough, me too.)
i sent one back... thanks.
followed a few months later by an email invite to a holiday party. (weird, what's in it for me?)
so like a big girl whose been through therapy:
i sent her an email saying- i really loved our friendship, I'm as shocked as anyone we're no longer friends, buti don't feel comfortable going to party. Acknowledged she had every right to not need/want my friendship way back when for valid reasons, behaviours i had, and have thankfully have grown out of.
her email- "can we just be friends now.... i just thought you wanted a new life and friends"
OK- that's when the bullshit meter when up, hold up lady, me reaching out in the void isn't act of someone desperate to moving on to a new life and friends.
i don't change when i get work. Even work on a great comedy proving groud of a money pile sitcom gig, I'm practical gal. that is the life of the artist, the ups and downs... (-although my friends did have to tell me to talk in door voice, and every sentence doesn't need a button.) (shame spiral)
it's like just say YOU wanted a different life w/o me in it.. that's fair enough and the truth. i'd buy and forgive that for a dollar.
i write back with an email signed 'your would be friend'... 'i just needed a small convo re past... and i have acknowledge my foibles to you... just need to know why you split just when things got good for me, and resurface when you perceive things to be....?'
I never heard back from her.
that's an OK thing, it shows me who my tribe is. Deart god, it's me margret- why do girl friendships have it this rough? xx True
2 sides to every story btw, to be sure.
I reconnected with several friends recently, and it's been all good. In some cases, I just realized I shouldn't have stayed away in the first place. Maybe your friend's come to a similar realization?
ReplyDeleteHer behavior suggests you read it right, but it's hard to say, sometimes.
Look here...F--K a sometiming ass friend,i hate them kind,cuz i have alot of them fools in my life....they want to be kool when they're ready to be kool...but for real i just have been chilling by myself,i'll be alone before i start back with a your my friend now,who you is later motherf--ker!!!!!
ReplyDeletewow as a possible sometimey friend what's with all the negativity guy?
ReplyDeleteAnyway yeah I think we've all been there at some point in our lives with at least 1 friend. People lose touch people change and/or in the end people can just be shady. It's a rough life, but its living and I guess that's all we get out of the deal a chance to have lived
You're right, there's two sides to every story. You mention behaviors you had to grow out of. Okay. Is it fair to say this woman was your friend during lean times professional/personal? Now she wants to reconnect because she views you to have fallen upon lean times again. She sounds like a person who needs to be needed.
ReplyDeleteIt seems your former friend needs you more than you need her. You should ask yourself this simple question...Did her friendship enhance the quality of your life?
IMHO, I only maintain friends/acquaintances that enhance my life. Life is too short to waste on negative energies.
i wouldn't call it lean times, then or now, just less glamorous times... @ seejer,
ReplyDeletethat's why i said 'what's in it for me now? i don't mean what do i get physically, but do i have space spiritually and energetically to let some one in if they don't enhance my life... NO.not so mucho.
Ben Franklin said, "How we delight in our friends follies." If the opposite is considered then: "How we are pained at our friends success." There is limited amount of good things available in the world, and if you are getting something good, then I am being deprived. Very few people in one's life are genuinely happy when blessings fall on you. Family can be the worse: Cain and Abel. The jeoulously, spite and hostile envy of those around you needs to be anticipated. You must know associates are going to hate you. I can hear my frenemies praying to the devil for my failure.
ReplyDeleteAs for myself I hope the others do well around me so they can throw me a bone. I hope they do well so the have a sofa to crash on.
I don't understand. The time when the two of you drifted apart seems, from your description, to include good times & bad...So it doesn't seem like she's a fair-weather (or a bad-weather) one...It just seems like as you got older, you both lost touch & now she wants to reconnect...I don't think this is an evil ploy on her part or an attempt to bring you down....Maybe I'm missing something (I probably am b/c I don't know the whole story), but people mature and change, and a 10-year friendship doesn't look the same as a 2-year one.
ReplyDelete