Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Emotional Attachment Sucks

Yesterday I wrote about a difficult discussion that I need to have with a friend.  The short version is that she was in a car accident on her way to go on a hike we'd finally planned.  She left me a voice message telling me this, mentioning that she was OK, her car was not, and that she "the pain was setting in".  She wouldn't be able to go on the hike we'd finally planned.

I was disappointed, but the kicker is that she blew me off for five days when I tried to get in touch with her to check in.  And when she got in touch, via text message, it was just a casual New Years' greeting.

Needless to say, I feel less important to her than I did already.

I was already feeling unimportant to my friend.  We used to see each other a couple of times a month for lunch.  We'd get together for Pagan holidays.  We went to see Shakespeare together.  But two years ago she moved to Boston, and now I'm lucky to see her a couple times a year.  When she visits I always feel like I'm being squeezed into her schedule.  We'll talk about how we should have lunch and it turns into coffee; we'll talk about going on a hike and it turns into a short walk on the beach.  It seems like she's always running to the next engagement with the next friend.

I should have talked to her about this before now.  I know this.  But I told myself that my feelings were my problem; my friend wasn't responsible for them.  No, it's not good for me or my relationship with my friend, and it's not good for me.  But old habits die hard.

Then, the blow-off.  I tried three different methods of getting in touch with my friend to make sure she was OK after the car accident.  I tried to be clear that my only need was to know she was OK.  There was no response until 5 days later.

Now, I'm feeling worse than just unimportant.  I feel like I don't really matter to her at all.  She has other friends, right?  A lot of other friends.  She's one of my closest friends here in California, but maybe I rank toward the bottom of her own list.

I clearly need to tell her how I feel, but I'm not sure how to do it without getting triggered.  Without triggering her for that matter.  She's told me before that she feels like she's "never enough" for a lot of the people she's close to.  Possibly this is because she has a lot of friends and overcommits to spend time with them.  As for me, I feel like I'm "never enough" to a lot of people.  I probably need to put myself out there more.

My problem is that I'm not someone who attaches easily to other people.  I have friendships, of course, but not a lot of deep ones.  I feel like there aren't too many people who really get me.  Maybe this is why when I attach pretty deeply when I do attach,.  The upside of this is I'm still close to a few of my best friends from high school, middle school, even elementary school (the downside is that most of these folks live in out of state).

I feel like most people don't attach the way I do.  My closest friends from college?  I was deeply attached to them, but they drifted away one by one, in spite of our promises to keep our friendships alive.  Close friends from my grad school programs?  Same deal -- and unlike my friends from college, who are scattered all over the country, most of my classmates live within a twenty mile radius.  The friends I still have from grad school were in other programs, but two of them -- the two closest -- have left the state.  Of course, they promised that they'd call and email and skype.  And of course, in spite of these promises, these things never quite happen.

Why do people do that?  Everyone knows that the chances aren't in favor of sustaining a long-distance friendship.  Why can't we just be honest about that up front?

For that matter, what the hell is the deal with people who say they want to make plans, and then don't?  Or they say that they'll call or write.  Or they ask me to call them and don't call back.  If you don't fucking want to make plans, don't fucking tell me you want to make plans.  Jebus, people!

I even had a friend who had once been close enough that I brought this up with her.  We'd run into each other at an alumni event and she asked me to have dinner with her (and since she'd blown me off so many times I was surprised by this).  We had a nice conversation at dinner, and then there came the inevitable "We should hang out some time!  Call me!".  And I said, "If I do, will you call me back?".  She looked shocked.  "What do you mean, will I call you back?"

I explained that every time she asked me to get in touch, she didn't respond.  For that matter, she never initiated contact.  She had no idea she was doing this, and promised that if I called or texted she'd get back to me.  We'd make plans!

We didn't make plans.  I didn't try to contact her again.  And I won't.

But back to my current situation.  How do I have this discussion with my friend?  Part of me wants to take the initiative, but part of me feels that if I tried to contact her three times and she blew me off, maybe I should give her a chance to contact me.  Or maybe I'll give it a few days, or at least until I'm not feeling as pissy about the whole thing.

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