Talk To Me!

Ok, so as much as you try, you just can't be friends with everybody. You are genuinely nice to them in hopes that they accept you for "one of their own". You build up a good relationship with them, on solid ground, bff's as you will, and share all your joys and frustrations about your family, your partner, your plans for the future and maybe just every day stuff that bothers you. Best friends will be there for you through everything and not be judgemental or biased. They will give you an objective view on a situation when sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. They are truly indispensable. But once in a while, something happens, and you really never know why, and the friendship goes sour.

One day you are best buds, telling each other everything, and the next moment, your friend won't even talk to you. Have you ever had this happen to you? Because if you have, then you know how frustrating this can be when you don't know why your friend won't talk to you. Maybe you said something that made them upset and they are just mad. But when they don't tell you what they are mad about, you can't apologise to them and get the friendship back together. You totally rack your brain trying to figure what it is that you have done so that you can fix it, you go through every conversation in your mind a thousand times and still come up empty. No answers. It's frustrating because you feel guilty that you have done something, but how can that be? You are a NICE person! You would never hurt your friend in a million years! But yet, you are convinced that somehow, it must be your fault. And you know the worst part is? You ask them what is wrong, and they tell you, "Nothing" very convincingly but then they never speak to you. They avoid you like the plague, don't answer your phone calls or texts and all of a sudden, you are invisible and it's like your friendship never existed. Did you do or say something to end your friendship and not even know it? If you did, you sure would like to know so that you can do whatever it takes to right the wrong, apologise, beg for forgiveness, or whatever. Not knowing what you did  or said just drives you mental. Trying day after day to figure it out yourself, well that will just drive you to the loony bin. For all of us "nice" people out there, we just want things to be the way things were. We don't want people to hate us, that's our worst fear. We want everyone to like us and we want to be everybody's friend. We don't like confrontation because we don't want to be a "mean" person if we disagree with something. So we don't like fighting and arguing either. I know I don't like being mad at someone, that uses too much energy and there's a lot of valuable time wasted being angry. We just want everyone to be happy and get along! So if you are in a friendship or intimate relationship, and this is happening, please tell us why you are upset so we can deal with it and move on.

This situation happened to a friend of mine. We were both friends with this girl but more her friend than mine. One weekend, my friend came to visit me in London and we all hung out and watched a movie. Three girls, just hanging out, talking and shootin' the shit, laughing and swapping stories as we didn't get together very often. Well, somewhere in the conversation, my girlfriend said something to the other girl that got mis-interpreted and that changed everything. My girlfriend had no idea that she said something wrong because, like me, she is NICE! She wouldn't say shit if she had a mouth full of it and would never ever intentionally hurt somebody by saying something rude or derogatory. She is just one of those super nice people that wants to be friends with everyone (and really, why can't we?) and somehow she said the wrong thing. Not knowing at the time, she didn't apologise because she she wasn't aware she said anything wrong. But the other girl took what she said the wrong way and sadly, that ruined their friendship. But what was it that she said that ruined their friendship? Unfortunately she will never know. She's reached out to her but she will have no part of it. My girlfriend was heart broken, the last thing she would ever do is hurt someone like this intentionally. There was nothing more she could do except chalk it up to experience and a lesson learned (although she is still trying to figure out what that lesson is!)

So I guess what I am trying to say is, I hope that if I say anything that is inappropriate or hurtful, I hope someone tells me so that I can apologise and make it better. I would hate to lose a friendship (or relationship) because of something said on the fly. I would hope that my friendship with people would not be so easily discarded. What takes many years to build on, surely must be stronger than a slip of the tongue. Is that worth throwing away all the years (or perhaps just months) of laughter, tears and sorrows we have shared? I think not.