December 19, 2009
08:39
I have been very sick. Kind of upset by present situation. The girl was different last time I talked to her. Might have been last Wednesday. Sometimes when I feel like calling her, I don't, because the thought of speaking to her makes me queasy. Because there have been times, quite a few of them, where I was blindsided. One time we went to see The Hangover, and i enjoyed that, and I later found out that she was lying to me during that time, and she was fucking her ex. And lying to me, and I never gave her a reason to lie. I don't think I did. I always tried to be accepting, of whatever that situation was.
I don't really like hearing about that movie now.
I called her last week. I didn't really want to, felt nervous. Because of past experience. But I felt like I should remind her to register for classes. Like, that's what I should do especially since I had no particular reason to dislike her at the time. She was being really nice to me lately. I saw the call as my duty somewhat. Figured it would be a nice gesture, even if she had remembered to register.
She had to go after I told her, and I didn't much feel like talking, but I answered when she called back in a few, when she said she would. I was lying in my car, trying to get some sleep in.
She mentioned my new friends, said how things seemed to be going really well for me. I said she sounded like a school guidance counselor, which upset her. It was still teetering on the brink where a joke could save or exacerbate the situation. I made some wisecracks, like "what do you have against guidance counselors" but she wasn't having any of it. And she said I was mean, and I didn't understand. Things seemed different than usual. She seemed more on edge.
I made another comment about a friend that she felt was being a bitch toward her. I mentioned how my buddy Lauren got along with the friend, and that maybe it wasn't my friend who was doing the hating. I said it teasingly, and she was upset by it. I could understand why she took it that way.
But then she kept going on about it. I didn't know how to apologize. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate for me to. I was somewhat overwhelmed.
I tried to explain it, so that she wouldn't take it as if I was pointing out a detriment in her personality. I told her it might just be something to consider, and then all of her insecurities came out, and she said "you think I haven't?". And I didn't know.
And I tried to tell her, that I didn't mean it as an attack. I told her I didn't care if the hostility she perceived from females was from her or them. That it didn't matter to me. She said something like "so you're saying I'm fucked up?" And I said yes, I've experienced that firsthand. I know she's messed up. I wouldn't expect her to be surprised if I said the same about myself.
Throughout this, she kept saying "you're so mean. you're mean." She said, "I don't know anyone who's as mean to me as you are. Actually, I don't think anyone else is mean to me." And that remark kind of plowed my face in. After I'd seen how she's been treated by her ex. I began to feel battered, and I felt that there was no way for me to ever defend myself, because I was being violently typecast into my role as the aggressor.
I felt alone, too, in that moment of being told no one else is as mean to her. I thought of how she hasn't treated other people the way she's treated me. She keeps her exes around, who pathetically cling to her, too. She is surrounded by people who either love the abuse or never experience it.
The word "abuse", there, it popped up instinctually. I am not trying to refer to her as an abuser.
Nonetheless, in the moment of being called mean, over and over and over, again. I felt abused. I felt beaten down. I felt manipulated.
I tried to escape.
"I'm going to just let you say what you need to say."
Nothing I said was the right thing. Nothing I said even approached the right thing. Everything I said was treated as hostile and cruel.
"Wow, that's a condescending thing to say," she replied.
I asked what I was supposed to do, trying hard to phrase it in a way that didn't sound totally broken down and submissive, and failing.
She said I could apologize, or just back off. I told her I tried to back off by not saying anything.
"You didn't not say anything. You kept talking." That is most likely a paraphrase, but it is what she said.
So I stopped saying anything. And as I sat there, I began to drown. The world outside was shut down by a wave of accusations. of meanness. She kept saying she didn't know why she was my friend. I'm so mean. I was becoming firmly rooted in the attack, and then she pulled me out, by my head's crown, to say "Now that you've completely ruined my day, I'm going to go."
I hung up.
We haven't spoken since. I took her off my Facebook list after much trepidation. Last time I took her off because we were on bad terms, she accused me of� whatever. Like it was a hostile act. I was just protecting myself.
So taking her off again worried me, because even though we haven't spoken since, I can hear her coming back, to keep me in her throes. To keep me under control. To tell me I'm a bad friend.
She hasn't been back yet.
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