So I went for dinner with my friend who was sleeping with the married guy. It had been a couple of months since I’d seen her in person and it had been hard to tell from emails and texts what frame of mind she was in. Happily, when we met up she seemed much more positive than she was when I last saw her, and even described herself as feeling “great”.
As the evening wore on the reason for her perkiness emerged. There’s a guy at her new work who she likes (well, lusts after would probably be more accurate) and who seems interested in her and she thinks there’s a strong possibility something might develop between them. Which is great. She hoped I’d be happy for her, and to an extent I am, she deserves some good stuff after all the crap that’s happened.
There are just a couple of things stopping me being as happy for her as I could be. One is some of the things she’s told me about him. He’s older than her. Much older than her: almost twice her age and easily old enough to be her father. And apparently he has something of a “reputation” with younger women (usually younger than her). She’s says she doesn’t want or expect anything long term from this, but I worry that she will end up falling for him and getting hurt again. I told her to be careful but fear it may fall on deaf ears. It did with Married Guy.
The other thing is how hearing this made me feel. I think I’m envious of her. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve felt envious of a friend’s relationship. It used to happen all the time when I was in my 20s, but it has got better over the years and I am now mostly genuinely happy for my friends who are in relationships. But this time I found myself thinking how come she has someone new attracted to her so soon after the last one? How does she just meet someone at work with no effort whatsoever? What’s so special about her? How come the men I’ve been attracted to in my life haven’t been attracted to me? (Actually how come nobody, to my knowledge, has been attracted to me?) And if I’m honest I was looking forward to having a single friend again, and feel disappointment that I probably won’t get that. But that’s just selfishness on my part and if this is what she really wants I hope it works out for her. I’m just not sure how well I could handle helping her pick up the pieces if it all went wrong again.
3 comments:
This actually hit home -- because, while I highly doubt that you'd want to be in a relationship like your friend's (you'd probably want better for yourself), there's still that sense of, "Why isn't it me that's in a relationship?"
That's what it always boils down to for me...even though I know that the other relationship that my friend's in isn't one I want for myself.
i'm with ecrivain on this. i mean i'm happy for my friends' relationships and happiness but i do get the whole "why not me?" feeling. and maybe it's a case of misery loves company but sometimes it's nice to know that you're not the only single one out there amongst your friends.
Ecrivain is right, I wouldn't actually want this particular kind of relationship, and I know it wouldn't make me happy. It's just the fact that it is a (potential) relationship of any kind that brings on the why not me feeling. I just don't get how she and others seem to move from one relationship to another, when I can't even start one. And yes it's nice to know you're not the only single one, but then that makes me feel like I'm kind of wishing for my friends to be unhappy, just to make me feel less alone.
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