I have been blessed with amazing friends and family. They are there for me unconditionally and love me no matter how badly I screw up. They also call me out on my crap and help me get back on track when I've lost my way. No matter what I go through, my friends and family are always there and always supportive. They don't talk behind my back and they don't try to make me feel bad about things that are not my fault or that I have no control over. If I screw up, they set me straight but they never stop loving me. I don't always like what they have to say to me, but I know it's said with the best of intentions. And I'd rather they be honest with me than stroke my ego and let me be led astray. I used to watch 'American Idol' purely for the terrible auditions in the early rounds. It fascinated me how these people totally believed they were fantastic, Whitney-esque singers. In one episode, a girl auditioned and compared herself to the greats but proceeded to fail miserably at actually singing a note. She was a bit tone deaf, actually. When she didn't make it to the next round, she emerged from the audition room crying and telling the cameras that her entire family and all of her friends told her she could sing amazingly well so she knew how good she was. I wanted to reach into the TV and slap her friends as they were sitting there consoling her. This chick was devoting her entire life to something she could not do and would never be able to do, yet they were joining in the delusion instead of being straight with her and telling her she couldn't sing. I highly doubt everyone she knew was also tone deaf, but no one spoke up. That's not real friendship to me. Friendship is a commitment in a lot of ways, that is if you're a good friend. Good friends are there to ride the highs but they're also there to help you through the lows. As Oprah once said, Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down". Anyone who scoffs at the notion of going from the limo to the bus isn't really a true friend. The same friend who was mentioned in the last post put up a status update today that thanked the people who have been supporting her during her difficulties, while calling out the ones who have gone ghost. I wasn't exactly surprised to read it since she told me last night that she'd reached out to someone she thought would always be there for her but had not heard back from them. I don't understand the mentality of abandoning someone in their time of need to begin with, but it's especially odd that someone would do this to her. She's a great friend and I would bet money she's been there for this person in the past. But now when the roles are reversed, she's left standing in the cold. Fortunately, she ended the FB post by putting the people who have not been there on blast, saying she was no longer going to go out of her way to keep in touch with them. And good for her. If someone can't even bother to lift a finger for a few minutes and send something supportive, then you don't need them. And nothing shows you who your friends are like the tough times.
I have no problem cutting people out of my life when the need arises. But you have to really, really do something that pisses me off beyond belief in order for me to take those steps. I don't just cut off people for the sake of it. But I don't look back once I do. Once I completely sever ties, I am done and I rarely give another thought to the person. The toughest thing about the end of my engagement wasn't the loss of the relationship, it was the loss of the friendship. We'd been friends for almost a decade and were quite close for a lot of those years. We didn't keep in touch as often for the last year of our friendship, but picked up where we'd left off when we both ended up back in the same place. Then it slowly escalated to a romantic relationship. And I thought it was fantastic, I was dating one of my best friends. The first months of our relationship were awesome because we were so close. But as she began to pull away, we started to get back to the friendly zone instead of the romantic one. I still had romantic feelings towards her but, in hindsight, I think she was trying to put me back in the friend box so it would be easier to ditch me when the time came. The trouble with that is she knew that time was coming, and I had no clue. After it ended, I tried to hold on to the friendship because I didn't understand why it was over. And because I always thought that we'd remain friends should the romance not work out, we'd even talked about that before. Even with the abrupt ending, I wanted to stay friends. But everyone in my life was telling me to sever all ties. Some knew she had been cheating, some didn't, but all agreed that the entire thing had to end. I half listened. I still kept in contact with her, but it was basic 'hey, how ya doin' kinda stuff. Once I found out why we had ended, my view changed. But not enough to cut her loose. It just pissed me off and made me want an explanation. An explanation she never gave. We still lingered, and even slept together once, after that. It was weird because she never actually said she wanted to come back, but she didn't sever ties either. I don't know if she was hoping the friendship would survive or if something else was going on. I think had she not cheated in the way she did, sleeping with a married man for years, we may have been able to salvage something. If she'd gone out and slept with some random dude a couple times, then it wouldn't have been as awful. But I firmly believe she broke up an entire family. And it wasn't like she just stumbled into something with this guy who happened to be married and he left his wife. It was like a slow, methodical dismantling of this dude's family, over the course of years. She knew from the gate he was married, she pursued him anyway and she wasn't happy until she got him to leave his wife for her. I've dated a ton of people with a ton of different dating histories, but I want no part in being friends with someone who can so easily add the title of 'homewrecker' to her resume. It's like she had no conscience when it came to doing it. There were many times during those years that she could have walked away and refused to be the other woman, but she never did. Life is a choice and her choice was to sleep with a married man. Nearly a decade after our end, she's still with him (they've never married though) and they have a kid together. He had three kids with his wife, all of whom she rarely hangs out with because they don't like her. In the end, she showed her true colors and now it is what it is. I let go of the friendship after I got all the details of the relationship. And I've not re-opened that door since. I've run into her or her family on a few occasions, but nothing's ever come of it. And I never want anything to come of it. I'm content with it being completely over.
So what's the moral o' the story? That you gotta pick your friends carefully, I guess. Sometimes you feel like people will no doubt be there when you're in need, only to find out that they have better things to do. Sometimes you don't find out who is there for the long haul and who's not until everything comes crashing down. Some people are just hangers on, they want to get what they can from you and party right along while you're on top of the world, but they quickly make their exit when you have nothing left to give. And it sucks that there are people like that in the world. But I believe they'll get what's coming to them in the end. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh (and who laugh at your bad jokes), people you share the stupidest inside jokes with, people who expect you to be there during the bad times. Because anyone who doesn't expect your support when the going gets tough likely does not expect to lend you theirs during tough times either. Great friends do not keep score. They understand that life is a journey and that the people you love should only make it a better one. Surround yourself with people who will tell you that your singing sounds like a cat being hit by car being driven by another cat who just got hit by another car. Because anyone less just isn't worth it.
