Valentine’s Day and friend love

For about the last three weeks, there have been Valentine’s Day blog posts everywhere. I’m not hating on those posts, but I couldn’t write one. I’ve already written about what I think about love and Valentine’s Day, and I don’t have any original ideas about what you can do to celebrate it. I wanted to write about another kind of love, friend love, and how it hurts when it ends.

However, in case you were wondering, my boyfriend and I are going to have an at-home spa to celebrate the day of love.

 Friends lost

 These last couple of years I’ve had to say goodbye to several friends, which sucks. There was one year when three of my best friends, friends that I’ve known since school, left town. One came back, thankfully.

I’ve also made many new friends, but you always have a stronger bond with the friends that you grew up with.

These are the people who were there for your firsts, like your first love, first heart-break, first drink (they were probably the ones giving it to you…), the first day of university, the list goes on and on.

Notable awful friend

I’ve also lost friends for the better. You know those crazy, manipulative ‘friends’ – yeah, it’s better to let those go. I have enough crazy in my life, thank you very much.

In school, I had a so-called ‘friend’ who was super competitive. It’s like she had to be better than me at everything – academics, boyfriends, money, social life, looks, etc. Not to mention how she gave me backhanded compliments, and sometimes just outright insulted me.

Life was so much better when I let her go.

When friends come back

One of my friends from school moved to Canada a few years back. After about five years, she came to South Africa with her parents to visit her grandparents.

I was so excited! She stayed with me for about three days and I thought we wouldn’t have enough time to catch up.

That was not the case. After not seeing each other for that long, we were like strangers. We caught up on all the important things in like two hours. There was nothing to talk about, except for the ‘good old times’. It’s sad when you think about it.

The most recent friend breakup

I mentioned it in a previous post, that I’m going through a friend breakup.

So, this friend and I had been friends since we were sixteen – so we were friends for about 13 years. We basically grew up in front of each other.

Our friendship crumbled because of some guy – who she is married to now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When they started dating, they were the odd couple because she’s super sweet and innocent and he isn’t. After a couple of months, they broke up.

Two months after the break-up they got back together, but this time the guy’s entire personality and morals changed to fit hers. This to me was a huge red flag, but I thought it would sort itself out since you can’t lie to yourself forever.

However, not long after their reunion, they got engaged, and this was when I decided to intervene.

I wrote her a three-page essay on the things that they need to discuss, and what she needs to consider before they get married. I also mentioned the fact about him changing himself so much for her, and that it’s not sustainable.

She took it quite well, and we were still friends after that.

The wedding

She told me that I wasn’t invited to the wedding because it would be a small ceremony with only family. It upset me about it since I was the reason why the two of them met in the first place (unfortunately) but I could live with it.

But the plot thickens.

Then I found out from another mutual friend that it would not only be family, but some friends as well.

I’m pissed off because she lied to me in my face.

If she had just talked to me, like a civilised person, and said, “We’re afraid to invite you to the wedding because you might object,” then I would have understood, and said, “Okay, valid point”.

I could have worked with that. I can’t work with you just lying to my face – that shit is infuriating.

It was the end

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that our friendship had been dead for quite some time.

She didn’t tell me when they started dating, or when they got engaged – I had to find out on social media. So obviously, she didn’t think I was important enough to share that information with.

Also, we don’t have the same interests anymore. I just want more in life than working and going on holiday.

So, I just stopped trying. Since they started dating, I was always the one initiating hangouts. Again, I feel unimportant to her.

I will admit that I wasn’t always a good friend to her. I also made mistakes, but damn, some things are devastating.

It’s sad because we’ve been friends for so long. But what’s sadder is, I don’t even think she knows we’re not friends anymore. She’s probably going to hit me up in a couple of months and then I’ll have to be like, ‘Bitch, we are not friends’.

Lastly

I’m hoping to make a lot more friends this year since I’m studying again and all. But I also want to cherish my old friends. I love them because they’re weird and not afraid to let their weirdness shine.

Do you have any stories about friendships that ended? What did you learn from it? Tell your story in the comments.

Meh.

Michelle

P.S. If you’d like to contact me, feel free to comment below, send an email to thatmichelleperson@gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter @M_ClutterBox.