Because I have spent like 99.999999% of my life single, I have to admit that I feel like I value my friendships more than many of my girlfriends do. Instead of having someone to come home to and tell my worries to, my exciting news to, my daily office drama to, I come home to my sink full of dirty dishes and 4 nights a week, my dog. While my dog lets me have control over the t.v., she never really provides the feedback I sometimes want. Because of that, my friends have always filled that position. They have been the ones I call (or email or IM) with exciting news or sad news or drama. When I Friday night rolls around, I go to call my friends. When, really whenever I feel like talking or gossiping I turn to my friends. Whenever I feel like not being alone, even it just means getting frozen yogurt or watching t.v., I turn to my friends.
Over time, I've learned that many of my girlfriends (not all, but 2 imparticular) value their relationships with their bf's/fiance's/husband's more than their friendships with their girlfriends; friends are more an accessory relationship that they wear only on the right occasion, under the right circumstances. Friends are not a staple item in their wardrobe of relationships. While I can't completely understand, and I will fully admit that there is probably some jealously involved, I have to admit that I hope I never become one of those people that would wear my friends like a funky bracelet or a cool, but completely uncomfortable, pair of shoes. I never want to be one of those people that just because they have found 'the one' they decide that their friendships are just for special occasions.
One of the things I have always found so interesting about the mentality of these type of people is that, when all of the sudden that funky bracelet is all the rage (i.e. they breakup with 'the one' and realize they have pretty much shut you out of their lives) they are the ones that get pissed off that you have a life, and frankly a life that doesn't involve them anymore. A few years back, when I was still in college, spring break was a time to look forward to. A time to get away from it all, relax, sit back and have fun. As I said, I have been single for like 99.99999% of my life but one of my girlfriends has almost always had a bf. For many, many years it was the same guy. Frankly, the guy was, as I describe him to people besides my friend, " a fucking abusive slime ball who couldn't man up and get on with his life". Did I just say that? It's true. He was a verbally abusive, former drug addict, alcoholic who worked a minimum wage job because he was a slacker who stole shit and then sold it on eBay. Needless to say I was ecstatic the day they finally broke up. Unfortunately for me, it happened to be a few weeks from spring break. A few weeks from a spring break that had already made plans for because my friend couldn't bare leaving her bf to go on a trip with her friend. So I made plans alone. However, when they broke up, she started making plans for spring break, for trips for us to go on and people for us to go visit. She never once stopped to ask me if I already had plans. She had just assumed that because, all of the sudden, because she was single, I was at her beckon call to do whatever she wanted to do for vacation. When I stopped her mid-sentence to tell her I already had plans for most of the break, but could meet her at a mutual friends house in Sac for a few days, she went silent. What else was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to change my plans around to suit her needs? Was I a horrible friend for saying "Actually, I already have plans but let's work with what I already have planned so we can hang out for a few days"? While she would always just deny being mad at my over this event, I always secretly wonder how pissed she was. By the way she acted I always suspected that saying I already had plans for spring break was tantamount to saying I had killed her cat, burned her house down and slept with her heart's desire. I never understood the anger she showed me that day. Was I really a horrible friend who wasn't standing by her friend who had just broken up with her bf? Or was it that she was pissed because I wasn't going to play her little relationship games with her, that I wasn't going to say how high when she told me to jump? How high should you jump to keep a friend, or a lover for that matter, happy? When should you say 'I'm not jumping anymore'?
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
I hope I'm never this kind of girl...
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2 comments:
Okay well I'm just going to go ahead and decide I am not one of those people. Sure to an extent I am but I'm ultra confident this blog isn't about me at all. The funny thing is, even though I'm married, or I was with Rob for ummmm 3ish years before we got married I was never really this way. You know I have to say this Ging, I think a big part of how you are with your friends depends on the guy you choose to be with also. Rob has never let me give up my friends because he wouldn't give up his. Because of this I am often left alone and needing to call my friends. However Rob also knows how to drive me just the right amount of crazy that sometimes I just have to leave his ass and go do something, even if it is going to the damn grocery store. Anyway its always amused me when I was in relationships at the same time as my friends (even still now) and somehow I can make time for them and they can't for me. I'm always super annoyed when they can't come to superbowl or a single bbq because they have adopted this theory that they have to follow their men where ever they go. No I can't go because my boyfriend/husband wants to go here. THAT DRIVES ME FUCKING NUTS GINGER. Example. Cinco De Mayo is coming up. Rob and I and I'm sure a few people are going to go wandering around Reno until we find tacos (and corn for me). After that he invited me to his friends house to watch something or other, and I said, No, you can go but I don't want to. That doesn't mean he can't go, it means I'm not going to follow him somewhere I know I won't have fun. I'll bug you or my cousin instead and that will be fine. Often he goes to Bulleys with his friends and I don't go, the only time I come is when I am starving and have a giant craving for Bully's ranch (yeah yeah I"m weird). My whole point here, is that it seems the majority of the people in my life would just tag along with their guy either to keep an eye on them, or to make them happy because they can follow them around like a puppy. For me though, I use that time to cook something strange AND EAT IT ALL, or bug you to go eat with me or whatever. Or have you noticed that I'll just write you and say dude we need Thai or this or that and then WE ACTUALLY GO GET IT..BY OURSELVES! I barely remember the last time a friend of mine just said hey lets go eat and leave the guys at home to fend for themselves. But again this goes back to the guy you choose. I know I can leave Rob at home just fine and he will make wings or ramen or something. I know that if I want to go somewhere he doesn't then I can go and its fine and he won't ask me a zillion questions later. All he will ask is, "did you have fun." Sooooooo since I basically just wrote a mini blog here in response, I really just feel some women need to pick their guys better or they need to not change who they are for their guys. When my friends come over sometimes Rob hangs out but a lot of time like a giddy little kid he takes advantage of that time to go play video games in a whole other room. Plus I think you can tell from hanging out with us, I haven't changed who I am, in fact he's the only guy I'm just plain me around. Hence the fact that I'm sitting here with tissue up my nose, in my undies picking a zit on my back and playing with the toe jam in my toes while telling how much I wish I could have a milkshake. see, Totally me.
Oh yeah, and the previous comment/slash mini blog wasn't a dig on my friends since its really only friend singular who acts this way now, since other friend pulled her head out of her ass and is now awesome and has a fuck you attitude toward her husband! But I've had other semi friends or friends of friends who have behaved this way....I can think of one in particular who only hung out with us because her fiance had this really lame thing to do and she felt like she could spend a few hours with us, not with out checking her phone 4339t9u times!
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