With You, I Never Have A Chance

Stand By Me – Oasis

Over the last couple of weeks, one small incident has ballooned into this enormous and ridiculous…thing. In dealing with it, I’ve experienced anger, complacence, confusion, disappointment, anxiety, disgust, desperation, frustration, resignation, vindication, regret, relief and finally, bliss.

And all because a friend didn’t meet me for lunch.

That’s oversimplifiying it, and the fact is that I wasn’t even that mad at Michelle for missing lunch and not calling me that day. It happens, especially with her. What set me off was that before Thursday night, she hadn’t called me. I addressed this in my last post and I’d only become crazier about it since then. Articulation did not help things. Here’s few highlights from the last week and a bit.

* On Monday, after class, from 9:00 to about 9:30 at night, I just walked around campus listening to Plans and thinking about it. I was just…taking my bar of misery soap and running it over my body and getting a nice misery lather going. It was awful. As awful as that metaphor. I was thinking of how down I was and the people I could count on to be there for me these situations and I was like, Is Michelle still one of those people? Was she ever?

* Tuesday night, I needed help. Serious help. My apologies now to Shirley and Tanya. It must have been about two in the morning when I messaged Shirley. Her status read “Busy” and without any consideration as to what that might mean, I fired away. I should tell you that what inspired this latest cry for help was an e-mail I received from Michelle. It wasn’t so much a personal, heartfelt message as it was a group e-mail telling each person how much they owed for the presents that were purchased for a birthday party last week. My contribution added up to $50 apparently, which stung at first, but then I realized that it was a small price to pay to not feel guilty about blowing them off. Still, when you’re mad at someone and the first thing you hear from them in a week is, “Hey, you owe $50,” that’s not helping things.

I talk Shirley’s ear off for about an hour and she helps as much as she can, but it’s obvious that I’m stuck in one of those loops where as soon as we finish talking about one thing, I start complaining about something we already discussed ten minutes ago. I hate when people do that. I hate when I do that. I wished Shirley good night and then continued a conversation I’d started with Tanya, The Ice Queen.

Normally, I would never go to her for personal stuff, but again, I was losing it and I thought it would help to talk to someone who was familiar with both parties. Most surprisingly, was how sympathetic she was to my plight. In fact, when I asked her what she thought I should do, she said that I shouldn’t call back and that I should wait her out. I couldn’t help but laugh. For the first couple of years of university, I have been running to Michelle every time I had a problem with Tanya and now, there I was talking to Tanya about Michelle. Wild. It definitely settled me down and by the end, I was reminded that despite all the things I say about her, she should be and is a friend of mine.

* Wednesday afternoon, things got out of control. I decided to look for Chris in the Sidney Smith study area so I could give him the money for the presents. Instead, I find Tanya, Ping and, yes, Michelle. My first instinct was to turn back, find Chris and give him the money directly. But I knew I could give it to Tanya and she’d take care of it and…and I wanted to see if Michelle even knew that I was mad. I walk up to them, I say “Hello Tanya, hello Ping. Happy belated birthday.” I look at Michelle for maybe a half second. I give Tanya the money and then, like Batman, I’m gone. I walk off. I don’t look back once, which is a lot tougher than I expected it to be. I’m not gonna lie. I wanted her to come after me. I wanted her to run out in the cold and grab me by the arm and say, “What’s wrong?” She did no such thing. I was PISSED. Will was there with me. Our conversation for the next hour went something like this:

Will: What was that about?
Me: How could she not notice I was mad? Did she not notice? How could she not notice?
Will: Yeah…where do you want to eat?
Me: How could she not notice? What the f…that was an obvious snub. How could she not notice?
Will: Did you read the latest issue of Infinite Crisis?
Me: HOW COULD SHE NOT NOTICE?!?

Lather, rinse and repeat. I don’t even know why I did it. I swear I’ve never, ever intentionally snubbed anyone before in my life. To do it to such a close friend was absurd. I don’t know what I was doing.

*****

By the time Thursday rolled around, I was a wreck. I was genuinely contemplating never speaking to her again. I figured that if she didn’t call, she didn’t care and if she didn’t care, I could easily feel the same way. But I got to thinking, if this friendship really means that much to me and if I’m so in the right, then what do I have to lose by calling her? Why was I pretending that I had pride that needed to be swallowed? I’m too dumb to be proud. I called her from work. I did the whole “speaking about the problem in the third person asking her for advice” thing. I told her how my friend was driving me crazy because she isn’t calling me and everyone I talk to says that she should screw off and I essentially said everything to her that I wrote on this website. I capped it off by asking her, “What would you do?” She asks me if there’s a chance that I can forget about it and forgive this person. I get even more upset. I’m outside of a Timothy’s, barking into my cell phone and waving my arms frantically. I’m not yelling, but I’m speaking in a clearly aggravated tone and by the end of the conversation, nothing is resolved. We agree to meet on Monday. “I can’t leave you like this,” she says. “There isn’t much we can do about that now,” I say.

She tells me that she was scared to call me, because she knew I’d be mad. Scared? Of me? The only reason I was mad was because she didn’t call! Hell, I’m the one who was scared. I was scared that I would talk to her and my fear that we had drifted apart would be realized. I didn’t want to have to deal with that. The only good thing that came out of the conversation was my discovery that my snub really hurt her. That made me feel good. However, then I felt bad about feeling good. I felt like Gob when he got the baseball glove from Sitwell. It was confusing.

I couldn’t wait for Monday to come. Neither could she. When I get home, there’s an e-mail from her waiting for me.

To be honest with you, this whole ordeal has really gotten to me…I just hate talking on the phone…Had you not called today, I would never have called you…If your intention was to hurt me, mission accomplished…And to those bitches who said to drop me. FUCK THEM…The only people that can fix this type of stuff between you and me, is YOU and ME. (That’s the gist of it)

Then an msn message asking if I’m home. I ask her if she wants to talk right now and she tells me she does. Reluctantly, I decide to call, realizing what a pain in the ass it is for her to talk on the phone. The gesture is not lost on me. We talk for a while. She tells me that she was talking to her boyfriend about it, crying about it. I am a fool. How could I do this? Why would I want someone I care about to feel like this? She reminds me of a time when I was supposed to meet up with her and I made alternate plans. Not to make a point or anything, but just as a matter of fact. I confess that I thought we’d be spending more time together this year, and she says that on that last day we hung out, that perfect day, she thought the exact same thing. I tell her she doesn’t have to say that, but in my head I’m glad that she did. She says that she was worried because this wasn’t the first time that she’d lost a friendship due to negligence. I assure her that we would still be friends, I just would never have spoken to her again. We laugh and after all the heavy stuff is out of the way, we’re back joking around and making plans to get together. We even joke about the snubbing. I tell her that I’d never done it before and I ask her if it was effective and she says that it was. I apologize again. In the end, we decide she’s going to work on maintaining her friendships and I’m going to work on not being such a spaz/drama queen/vagina.

I still can’t believe she cried about it. Now that it’s over, I can’t believe we even fought for a second. I suppose that’s how a fight should end between friends. With a mixture of disbelief and relief. I don’t take back any of the stuff I wrote though. I was freaking. Mostly because her and I have rarely had even the slightest disagreement, so to suddenly be genuinely mad at her, even over a minor incident, was bizarre. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I figured I could do it on my own, like I usually do, but that was foolish and selfish. I forgot that there was another person involved and worse, how important that person is to my existence. I love Michelle, and after this I feel more confident about that than ever.

Anger is exhausting. Forgiveness is hard. I can’t wait for Monday to come.

She was supposed to meet Brad Michaelson in a dark bedroom. She picked the wrong one. She didn’t even know I was at the party.
Oh my God.
Great story, huh?
That girl was vile to you.
Interesting post script to that story – you know who wound up with Brad in that dark bedroom?
Your mother?
Alan Harris.
Chess team Alan Harris?
The two moved to Idaho shortly after graduation. They raise sheep.
That’s frightening.
Takes different strokes to move the world.
In light of this, I don’t see how you can romanticize your relationship with Caitlin. She broke your heart and inadvertently drove men to deviant lifestyles.