Tuesday - A Silent Goodbye

[ninanevermore]

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about my unlikely friendship with Patty, and how I have decided to end it. The decision makes me feel guilty and relieved at the same time.

Dumping a friends is so much more complicated than dumping a lover. As the Paul Simon songs says, there must be 50 ways to do it (though he only offers up a couple of them). You have a wealth of stock lines to use, kind of like the opposite of pick up lines. You can say, "This is not working out. It's not you, it's me. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. We can still be friends." At least, those were the ones used on me when I was on the receiving end.

That "still be friends" part is a lie in most cases, or at least an exaggeration. You don't mean, "Let's actually be friends." You don't mean, "Lets talk on the phone everyday and go places together and spend holidays together." You don't mean, "Let's catch a movie or meet up for drinks and talk about our new love interests." If you're like most people, you mean, "Let's not be enemies." You mean, "Let's not trash each other's property and reputation and lets be polite if we meet up in a public place instead of screaming insults and throwing things at each other." Friendship may be possible in the distant future, but not while the wounds are still open and bleeding (noblwish, you are the exception to this rule, and I have always found you freakish in this way).

But when you are dumping a friend, the speech would have to be along the lines of, "This is not working out for me. I just don't like you very much. I don't like you at all, really. We had some fun, but it's grown tiresome. You take up more resources than I'm willing to give at this point in my life, and you don't give me anything back. I hope you have a nice life, I just don't want to be a part of it."

I should give this speech. I have practiced it in my head dozens of times. Instead, I say nothing. By saying nothing, I mean I have quit answering her phone calls.

Cowardly? You bet. I won't deny it. But the only way to deal with a person who won't take no for an answer is to stop saying no and simply stop answering all together.

I've tried saying no to her over the years. When I did, I still ended up lending her money she never repaid, loaning her clothes she never returned, going out drinking when I was exhausted, and driving her to visit her boyfriend in jail on a Wednesday night in another town when I was 8 months pregnant and had to work the next day, to name a few things. Saying no leads to tears, to begging and pleading. "Please? You're the only person I can think of? Please? I have nowhere else to turn. Please? I really need this. Please? Please?" Almost without fail, I ended up saying yes to make her shut up.

It only took me 7 years to feel exploited enough to call it quits. As wimpy as I am, it's amazing I wasn't a slut back in high school.

No doubt, there will be a message waiting on my answering machine when I come home tonight. I will check the caller ID and see who it is from. When I see it's from Patty, I will rewind it without listening to it.

I will hate myself a little, but not as much as you might think.

Comments

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

She will find someone new to cling to, eventually. It's how her kind survives. :P