In Part 3, I talked about my college friends and how much I enjoyed them until they started alienating me and I started alienating them back.
I know from experience it's stupid to immediately and fully reconcile with friends who keep hurting you. It hurts more every time. It's far better to distance yourself from them until, when you do reconcile, you don't reconcile as friends but as people.
Still, I felt really mean one day when I passed by my friend (the one who found other friends; let's call her J), who was coming back from yet another dinner she went to without me. She obviously wanted to talk to me. She turned to me a little, and appeared to expect me to come to her, but I kept walking. She looked hurt. Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do, and it does help you feel better eventually, but in the midst of doing it, you might feel guilty. Maybe I am guilty, but I feel reasonably justified right now. I mean, she's not a bad person, but she's not a terribly good person, either. She did one thing in particular that really bugged me, but it's another post entirely.
Speaking of people I alienated -- there was also (yes, also; is there no end to the list?) my old cafeteria friend. Let's call him, what? M?
M finally said something to really irritate me. I'd been going to lunch and dinner almost every day (and gaining weight) because I liked seeing him. I always went with my friend J, too, because I liked the way she and he snarked at each other. I really liked him as a person, mostly because of how accepting he was.
I never like-liked him though, and I think it wore on me how he seemed to like-like me. Furthermore, by the time he really annoyed me, I'd come to realize that he wasn't the original I thought he was. His dad's an addiction counselor or something. M's just being the person his dad raised him to be. So after he irritated me, I stopped going to see him. I still saw him now and then, but I didn't go to see HIM, just to eat. And you know what? My guilty truth is that life felt quite a bit easier. Except when I felt like scum for hurting his feelings.
See, for weeks and weeks, I'd been going to see him even though I knew he felt differently about me than I felt about him. I didn't even want him to stop feeling that way because I didn't want to lose the extra attention he gave me. I was selfish and horrible, and then I just stopped, which was also selfish and horrible. I knew that he had feelings, that he noticed I didn't go see him anymore, and that he'd feel abandoned, like I feel when people ditch me. (Then again, I've been wrong about him before. Can I hope that he didn't feel that way?) I felt at one point that I had to go to him and explain, and I think that might have been a good idea if I had figured out a good way to do it. But on the day I went, he was downright chipper and said he was having a good day. I needed no other excuse to back out. He was doing fine without me. What would I have said anyway?
Maybe I'll write more about what he actually said at a later date, but for now that's the silly, guilty story.
Maybe I was alienating a couple people, but once I distance myself emotionally from people, I live more in harmony with them. The other girl (who's not J) on my floor really is nice, nice and grown up; she knows a good friend when she sees one, knows a snob when she sees one, and knows she herself is not perfect either. I find I like that kind of person, mature, humble, accepting, smart. The other electrical engineer possesses many of these traits too. But none of the people I've met could be my True Friend, and I think it's okay that I've distanced myself from them.
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