Ok ya'll, it's time for me to go on a rant again. (I know, it's been a minute since my last post.)
Have you ever heard this song before? I love it. The lyrics aren't necessarily 100% my views on things, but it suits how I've been feeling lately and for some odd reason it makes me feel better, calmer somehow.
Anyway, on to my rant!
I am starting to think that my friends aren't my friends at all. This thought both scares me and hurts me. Now, I've always been a social butterfly, floating from one group of people to the next, never really satisfied content to settle for just one group, always craving new people, places, experiences. But there are certain groups that I always go back to, groups that I've considered my friends for a decade or more, and one of those groups in particular I have always considered family.
Now for this rant we are going to call this group of people the Crew. The Crew is a very tight knit circle of friends that all lived in the same apartment building. They ate, slept, and breathed each other daily for several years. I was a main component in the Crew because I was how most of them met each other. I was invited to every party, they called or stopped to see me every day, but somewhere I fell into another group, a bad group, and it caused me to pull away from the Crew because I didn't like to see their disapproval in things I was doing. I wound up estranged from the group for many years. It was only in the last few years that they have started to include me again once in a while. But they still don't treat me like they used to. I can go weeks or more without hearing from any of them while they are all still getting together all the time. None of them make a point to invite me to things anymore, it's more like they'll invite me if they know I already know what's going on and think I might be upset.
Meanwhile, since I am not feeling like they consider me a friend, I still talk to friends that I kept over time from the bad group. Now, while I am not going to become what I used to be, I understand why the Crew doesn't like me being around the bad group people, but what they don't understand is that it's the bad people and not themselves that call me every day, asking me to hangout, wanting to know how my day was.
Well, one night while having a party at a girlfriend in the Crew's house, she got in my face, intoxicated, and told me that my bad friends weren't really my friends, that they wouldn't be there for me in the end. But that she was my true friend and that when all the bad people were gone, she would still be here. This made me want to laugh. Not even a couple years before this she had gotten married... to a guy she met because of me....... and they had 3 different disasters in the 24 hours before the wedding, disasters that I came to the rescue and got them through. But months later she was complaining about a girl that she had as a bridesmaid and I asked her why she never asked me to be one. I mean, I had expected her to. I was one of the first friends she made when she moved here, I got her and her brother an apartment in my building, her whole family considered me a part of the family and she called me her sister, I introduced her to her husband, and I got her a job with me. Do you know what her answer was? She told me flat out, "To be honest I never even thought of you dude." Wow. I didn't know whether to be furious or cry. So when she got in my face at her party, instead of laughing at her, I just stared at her and said, "Are you serious dude? You're my true friend? At least my bad people friends call me everyday just to see how I am. When I asked you why you never asked me to be a bridesmaid, you said you never even thought of me. But yeah! You're my true friend!" And I walked out. We didn't talk for a while after that, but eventually we both just let the fight disappear and went back to our once every three months friendship.
Now here we are, a few years later, and not a damn thing has changed. The Crew and my girlfriend still claim to be my true friends yet barely ever get a hold of me. And I'm tired of feeling lonely and missing them when it's clear that they don't miss me. But now to make it all worse, my bad people friends are starting to act the same way, hardly getting a hold of me, not inviting me to things, and going on with their lives without me. At first I thought that it was going to upset me, make me feel even more alone, but the truth is: I'm over people. I over people with their righteous attitudes, people with their condescension, people with their fake friendships. Somewhere in the last two months of working from home I realized that I not only put up with a TON of bullshit from people just because I don't want to be alone, I let people bully me into doing things their way when I know in my gut that it's not going to end well, and I am ALWAYS the one that nobody calls when they have a good day or good news. I am the person they call when all hell is breaking lose and they need Captain Save-A-Ho. I am so thrilled that they are coming to me and thinking of me that I immediately swoop in a find a way to save the day for them..... and then I don't hear from them again until the next time. I save them with my own personal funds or ideas, sometimes even when I can't afford to. I do anything and everything to find them a solution and make it all better, and then I get dropped all over again. And I am such a glutton for punishment that I keep coming back for more!! I've done it all my life. I don't know why I feel the need to save everyone, but I do. I feel like I have to help others out so that when I need help, Karma will send someone to me.
But only in the last few months have I started to feel like I can't do it anymore. I am feeling more alone than ever, but I don't just wants regular friends, I NEED a best friend. All my life I have had a best friend, a best girl friend I should say. I mostly hangout with a lot of guys, but I always have one best friend and it's always a girl. We become as close as sisters, one got so close we called each other wife, but some how, some day, we just don't talk anymore. I just wake up one morning and it's over, they're gone. And , in time, I find a new girl friend. But for a last 7 years I have been without one. I have found a few qualified candidates, but they just never seem to pan out. And I've had hubby to talk to, and he is my best friend, but I need a best girl friend. Some one I can talk to about girl things that he doesn't want to hear. Someone to go shopping with, have coffee with, watch a movie with. Someone who will be there for me through anything and will be around to grow old with. I need this so much that I find myself crying out of the blue because I can feel them missing in my life. It's those moments that I feel alone. It's those moments that I can't take anymore. But I just don't have the strength to search for them anymore. I don't have the energy to put into someone new only to find out that they aren't who I thought they might be. But then again, I can't meet anyone while hermiting in my house.
So what's a girl to do? Well, for now I'm content to hermit. I'm convincing myself that it is my choice that nobody is calling, that I chose to walk away from them, and for now it's working. But every once in a while it creeps up and gets me from behind and I cry all over again.
If you are wondering what the hell this has to do with the Everlast song, here it is: I Get By, I Barely Get By. I can survive this, but some days I expect it to kill me first. I won't give up, but it's tough and I could get hurt, but I'll Get By.
