Friendly Lessons
By: Red Velvet
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately about the importance (and awesomeness) of having a group of best friends. I’ve written about the same thing myself on here and how grateful I am to have the ones I currently do. But it got me thinking about my high school days and all the “bad” friends I had to go through before finding people I really connected with. It even crossed my mind while out to dinner with my best friends last week. It’s funny to think but I probably wouldn’t have these girls in my life if it weren’t for those awful experiences. They taught me a lot about myself and who I should consider a friend, much less a “best friend”.
My first experience with a friendship ending wasn’t about me so much. It was about two girls I had also gone to grammar school with and for reasons I don’t even remember, one person didn’t like the other anymore. I, being in the middle, had to choose a side. So I did… and I’m still friends with that person to this day. I can’t say I regret the choice, all things considered, but it probably could’ve been (and should’ve been) handled a lot differently.
Lesson learned: While it all worked out, real friends wouldn’t make you choose between them.
My next experience was an interesting one. During my freshmen year, I became friends with a girl named C. She had a lot of self-esteem issues and often tried to buy friendships (with compliments, presents, the works). At the time, I didn’t see any of that. I thought she was really nice and I didn’t understand why no one liked her. It wasn’t until months later that I figured out why - when I realized how alienated I was from the rest of my friends. She was extremely needy. If I didn’t call or wanted to eat lunch with a group of friends versus alone with her, she would throw the biggest fits and demand my full attention. Almost like a jealous boyfriend. It quickly made me angry because no one should dictate who I could speak to or hang out with. I ended up slowly but surely disengaging myself from her and my life went back to normal. It’s funny because later some other friends made the same mistake I did and history repeated itself. To this day, the few of us from high school that still keep in touch still joke about being sucked into the C vortex (quickly followed by comments about how dumb we were).
Lesson learned: If someone is so dependent on you that you risk losing all your friends, WARNING: sign something is wrong! (This could apply to friendships or otherwise).
Now this one’s a doozy - the mother of all possible friendship drama. One of my best friends during high school (let’s go with H) was someone I had met in 6th grade and even though we had known each other for years, I often wondered if she didn’t like me. It was this nagging, unrelentless feeling I couldn’t shake. But being the people pleaser that I am, I constantly tried to find ways to show I was a good friend. This girl had troubles though. I mean, troubles with a capital T. Her father had an affair (and a baby) with a coworker. H started meeting up with much older men she found online. She was cutting herself and acting out. Eventually her parents had her institutionalized for a period of time, the summer before our senior year started. And while all this was going down, my three other best friends and I were there for her but nothing we did seem to help.
About halfway through our senior year the school decided to let her graduate early, so we threw her a going away party. I will never forget this moment. A bunch of us were sitting around talking when a close friend turned to me and said - you know H hates you, right? I remember feeling stunned for a second, seeing the “oh shit” looks on my best friends’ faces and I said… I know. It wasn’t a lie, deep down I always had. But that moment opened up the flood gates. I found out the entire class knew that H hated me. There had been hangouts without me because she’d refuse to go if I was present (they caved due to her “fragile” mental state). But the worst part was the blatant lying. They knew I worried about her hating me and they’d always tells me that she didn’t. I went from taking the situation well, to angry and yelling, to lots and lots of crying. I didn’t talk to them for days. And while I wasn’t talking to them, they all turned on H about how she had treated me (a little too late if you ask me). But H didn’t express any remorse. Instead she sent me emails about how I was ugly and fake and that our friends were only taking my side now because she was leaving and they were stuck with me. It was email after email like this, except for one.
In one email she admitted that any time anything bad happened in her life (including her father’s affair), she’d blame me and didn’t know why. Her admission wasn’t only non-sensical but it didn’t make anything better. I still think of that time as one of the biggest betrayals (and biggest plummets in my self-esteem) I have ever experienced.
However - I chose to forgive my best friends and move on. It didn’t happen overnight but it eventually felt like we had mended things (I say “felt” because fast forward to the the last month of senior year and two of those “best friends,” who also happened to be twins, decided to cut themselves off from the entire class, including us.) By graduation, I was left with a best friend I had known since I was 7 and a few other really close friends (some I lost touch with, some I see from time to time and one girl - well, I was a bridesmaid in her wedding last year).
Lesson learned: Trust my instincts. You can’t make someone a friend through sheer will or just by being super nice. Real friendships develop over time and are based on honesty. (Also, don’t call 10 different people your best friends. Believe me when I say that usually a very, very small group of people will fit this bill.)
Needless to say, the last experience was a major turning point. A person isn’t your best friend just because you like the same music or watch the same TV shows. It’s about something much deeper. It seems so obvious now but when you’re young, you don’t realize that. And everyone makes that mistake. Friendships take time. When I met my best friends in college, I didn’t dare put that label on them or say it out loud until much later (but believe me when I say I’ve never felt so certain about friendships in my life). Mostly, I learned about me though. What I’m capable of handling, my capacity to forgive, the kind of people I want in my life. Because despite everything, I still believe it’s important for a woman to have a core group of girls. And while that last experience could’ve easily made me afraid (or lead me to think most women are catty), it didn’t (case in point: here). It just made me more determined to find the right friends for me.
