Friday, September 17, 2004
The dictionary definition:
Friendship
\Friend"ship\, N. [AS. fre['o]ndscipe. See Friend, and -ship.] 1. The state of being friends; friendly relation, or attachment, to a person, or between persons; affection arising from mutual esteem and good will; friendliness; amity; good will.
Note the word MUTUAL. It's a 50/50 thing, both parties putting the same amount of effort into something worth keeping. If only one person is putting in an effort it's not friendship it's a sham, a farce!
Personally I have few people I call friends. A few people who I can talk to who understand me and I hope to understand them. And I hate that I had to leave them behind. I would gladly move back to a city that I hate just so that I could be closer to them again.
"J" on the other hand had a few more. We moved back here so that my husband could be closer to most of his friends, and our families. Now what it looks like is that people we thought were friends here really aren't. And what's most surprising is that someone who's openly loud, crass, lazy, childish, and generally a thorn in my side (because he didn't agree that J should marry me) has been the better of all J's friends here. Which is still not saying much at all. It is so hard to sit here and watch while my husband wonders why the men he chose to stand up with him, don't call, don't invite him to do anything, or even let him know that they might think about him sometimes. I sit here and wonder if maybe I had done something to turn them off to him? Or if they even felt his friendship was worth it? Is this their way of saying "we don't want you around"?
It's tiring enough watching someone constantly putting out the hand of friendship only to watch as he rests the people he calls "friends" seem to forget him. I can't imagin how lonely he must feel believeing no one thinks he a worth while friend. He calls, writes, and will waste precious gas going to someone else's place. I don't remember the last time his "friends" called him or took him up on offers for dinner, or even just showed up because they felt like it. However I do remember being told myself by these same people that I don't do any of that. Bit hypocritical hey? They're not my friends - my friends don't treat me like that so why should I call? . I also remember being told not to be affectionate with my brand new husband at one man's place, only to have the same man flaunting his mistress who was not his fiancee (and one of my own bridesmaids) infront of the same people we made "uncomfortable", like he didn't care how much his actions had really just hurt someone, and embarassed someone else who calls him BEST friend.
If any my husbands "friends" ever read this, do him a favor either cut him loose or get off your lazy asses and make him feel like you are the friends he thinks you are.
posted by Turnoc's Lady @ 12:49 AM,
1 Comments:
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At 5:24 PM, September 20, 2004,
briddums said...
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Wowsers. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been actually insulted by someone. I mean sure, people hurl insults at me all day long, but they’re usually either things that I acknowledge and have dealt with, or else they’re the standard fun mocking. Those are easy to deal with. But a personal attack on myself… cool! Very fun! I decided to post this reply on LJ as well.
Now, I could make rude comments back towards you, but I’ll try and avoid those. One or two may slip through though ;) For example, the “I have few friends”… that left a hole I could drive a semi through. Heck, I could walk through it if I turned sideways and shuffled. But I digress.
Hmm… lack of calling / emailing / msn’ing (do you even have msn at home?). I’ll just skip that entirely, as it’ll just be a bunch of finger-pointing and chest-thumping. People will tend to focus on the argument rather than the reasons for the argument, and nothing gets solved. Do either of us contact each other enough? No. ‘Nuff said. He wonders why we don’t call? Hmm… I’ll answer that one for myself within the next couple of paragraphs. (And yes, you will be pissed off at me afterwards, so allow the slow burning anger to start warming up).
“They’re not my friends”. Shocking. Never saw that one coming. Don’t refer to us as friends then, refer to us as J’s friends, or as My Husband’s Friends. Do so in real life, as well as in journals. Glad that’s cleared up.
Ahh… the infamous “uncomfortable” gaming incident. This comes up way too often, so I figure I’ll take a moment and give the list of standard household rules. Acceptable behaviour includes: cuddling, chaste kisses / pecks, holding hands, occasional gropes, flashing the entire table, sexual innuendo’s that most people can hear. Unacceptable behaviour includes: lap dances, hand jobs, flashing only one person so no-one else can enjoy it, deep french kisses, or any other act or behaviour that distracts more than one person from the game. If people come to me and say it makes them uncomfortable, I’ll ask you to stop. If anything I do makes people uncomfortable, they can either talk to me about it (what reasonable adults do), or just stop showing up.
“Mistress who was not his fiancee”. That’s kinda overkill, since mistress (the one you’re using) is defined as: A woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a usually married man who is not her husband and from whom she generally receives material support. Hence, yer really stating the same thing twice. Which is just an aside, since I think that’s a rude and insulting label to put one someone. I think much too highly of all my woman friends to call any of them something like that.
So, reasons for lack of communication. For the next few paragrapsh, let’s assume that “we” applies to L & I. “you” applies to Jon-jon & you. Lets start with the easy one. We head out to O’s place probably every few weeks. Whenever we show up, we kick on yer window and wave hi if yer home, or else head upstairs. How many times does Jonnie-boy come home, see our car and not bothering heading upstairs? More than once. How many times does he actually come upstairs and stay for more than 15 – 20 minutes? No more than a few. Right… he’s so excitied to visit with us, that we can’t help but return the enthusiams.
Reason #2. You’re poor. We’re not. It’s a fact which we have to look at. I call and say we’re heading to a movie… Jon declines because you don’t have the cash for it. I call and say we’re hitting a restaurant and then mini-golf. Jon declines because you don’t have the cash for it. I call and say we’re heading down to the beach, Jon declines because you can’t afford the gas money to drive to riverside. Let’s be honest here… if people keep stating they can’t do the same things that we’re doing because they can’t afford it, then eventually we’ll stop calling. If we do something that you actually can afford to do, then we may call. But more often than not, I hear “we can’t afford it”. Why call and rub in your face the fact that we’re doing something you can’t?
Reason #3. Lack of communication. Not just since y’all moved back up here. I lived in Van. Jonnie and I hung out. All was fun and good. I moved back to ‘loops. Phone calls still occurred, emails ran rampant. John started up a gaming group, and suddenly realized that Kris still lived down there. Emails started flagging… phone calls became less. He had a social group down there separate from the one up here. Not a big surprise. Fast-forward two years, and you decide to move back to the ‘loops. For the past few years, I’ve heard from him maybe once a month… you think you can move up here, and suddenly all of that will change overnight? Of course not. It started changing… we started hanging out more… then Reason #4 kicked in and killed it. But it takes time to rekindle friendships, so the first year it was expected that we wouldn’t see you as much.
Here’s a side note before I get to reason #4. Back when I was living in Van, I planned on staying there. I asked john about rooming together… he said No, because he wanted to live by himself for a while. Then you come down, hook up with him, and he moves out with you, not by himself. *meh*, no biggie. Later on, I talk about the fact that L & I might be hitting van, wanna split a place? The reply was nope, not a chance. We could never live with friends. Not even a split-level, it’d be too difficult. Hmm… a month later you’ve moved in with K&J. You come up here and get a split-level with O. You have K2 move in with you, and you’re taking him to the new place. Stab someone with a dagger and twist it a few times, and desires for friendship tend to drop.
I’m sure that you’re thinking that those reasons aren’t big ones. They can be gotten over, they can be fixed. Or maybe you’re thinking “what a hypocrit”. Hell, you may even be thinking I’m the biggest asshole this side of the rockies. What the heck, I can’t change what you think. But here’s reason #3. And you know what? This is the big one. It’s probably the biggest reason I can think of for downgrading the friendship (from my point of view). I even betcha that if yer hubbie thought about it, he could trace the time I stopped calling at all nerely to this point.
A year~ish ago, Mr Nap came over for a visit. It was a short one, he was killing time until he had to pick you up. Actually, that’s what most of his visits were, but hey – visit when you can, who cares about circumstances (seriously). We were talking about wives and stuff, and you came up. We’d also been talking about the fact that we hadn’t been seeing each other as much as either of us had hoped (yes, we did recognize the problem). A few facts came up…
John liked to take you out when he went to visit friends. He knew you didn’t have any friends up here. Not a problem, I do the same with L. I asked why you both didn’t come over more often. He said that you preferred to make friends with people in the same stage as life. Confused, I pressed for details. Turns out that you were only wanting to make couple friends with other couples who either were trying to have a baby, or else had a young child already.
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John doesn’t want to come over here because he doesn’t want to leave you home alone, and you don’t want to come over because we don’t want to have a child yet!!?! You have no friends up here, and you start being picky about people who offer you friendship? Sod off. You guys don’t want to be “couple” friends, and it appears that he doesn’t want to be single friends either. If I hear “we don’t want to be friends”, well guess what – I stop trying to be a friend. I do think of calling him once in a while. And then I think fuck it, I’m not the type of person they want to be friends with. Again, ‘nuff said.