One minute they're there...

I've been browsing various blogs that I follow this evening and looking at ones which haven't been updated in a while. There are a few blogs which I used to always look forward to reading when a new post appeared,  which I sometimes commented on, and whose writers occasionally commented on my posts.

One minute new posts are appearing semi-regularly, the next, nothing. No more updates, no comments, no more news of their lives. I go to their blog page and find the last post is one from a year ago, or two years ago or more. In a handful of cases the blog has been deleted entirely.

I find myself wondering about the writers. Why did they stop blogging? What's happened in their lives since their last post? Are they ok? Did they get bored of blogging? Did real life get in the way? Do they just not have anything to report? As I mostly follow blogs about older virgins I wonder if they have lost their virginity and are now in a relationship and don't feel a need to blog.

I wonder what happened to Jo at Pseudo Dating, to Silencio at Forever Single, to Anomylous at Kisses from God, to tbrooke at Different Kind of Fine, to Lady Waiting Impatiently at Lady Very Much in Waiting, to Skipping Along at Skipping Along, and to others who were there one minute and gone the next.

Decision Made

In the past couple of days I have come to the decision that my friendship with T cannot continue. Or at least it cannot continue after the holiday we have coming up together in April.

A few weeks ago I was away from work for a few days when it was announced that tickets for a tour T really wanted to go to were going on sale. She texted me some dates and asked if I could make them. I replied that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to take leave from work for those dates, and as I wasn't at work couldn't check before the tickets went on sale. She replied saying not to bother, she'd just sort her tickets out and I could please myself as usual.

Over the next few days a few texts went between us about general things, no mention was made of the tickets. She sent a couple of texts telling me she felt odd, had done a few things that were out of character (nothing awful, just things like buying clothes in a colour she hates) and didn't like how she felt. I texted saying if she felt any worse to please consider getting help. Her reply said she thinks you can only get help if you have someone you can truly rely and depend on and she doesn't have that. She wants to get sorted but can't do it alone. I tried to remind her that she has me, but she then proceeded to ignore me for the next week and a half (bar one text saying remember I love you). I sent a few texts, a couple of emails and tried to phone her 3 or 4 times but got no answer.

When she did get back in touch it was with abrupt texts about practical arrangements for a show we were due to see last Saturday. I met her on Saturday before the show and went to hug her. She pulled away and said she didn't want a hug. I asked if she was okay and she snapped "I'm fine" in a way that suggested she definitely wasn't. I said she didn't seem fine and hadn't seemed fine for the past couple of weeks but she insisted she was. She then spent the rest of the day and evening chatting away about all sorts of random things as if nothing was wrong.

Yesterday afternoon she sent a text telling me that she wasn't going to do one of the day trips we'd planned to do on our upcoming holiday so I could go ahead and book for just me to do it. When I queried why she said she thought it was about time she started being inconsiderate as well. Today she has texted to tell me that I treat her like one of my staff, and not like a friend, and that the move to my new job is the worst thing I have ever done as I am no longer the lovely Katya she loves. She told me that I have hurt her so many times ( I was very tempted to reply that she has hurt me multiple times too) and that I have have her feel that we're no longer close enough for her to talk to me about any of this.

Yesterday I was coming to the conclusion that I have to tell her she must get help for her lack of self esteem, and that if she wouldn't I would have to distance myself from her. I have spoken to my best friend and to my housemate Extrovert and both said the same. Both also said T is manipulating me (something I know readers have suggested in the past as has another friend of mine).

Today I have looked through old emails from her and realised that she first mentioned depression and self esteem issues back in 2008. She has been on anti-depressants a few times over the years, and has started having counselling twice but abandoned it each time. I fear that even if she did get professional help this time I would always be waiting for the moment when she gave up on it and reverted back to treating me this way.

As I said we have a holiday together booked for April which we were both really looking forward to. It's a place she loves and has been keen to go back to for ages, I have been getting quite excited about going too. On Saturday we were talking about it as if it is still going to happen.

If we can both just act like we did on Saturday and pretend that nothing is wrong then I think maybe it can still work. From a practical point of view (i.e. the holiday is paid for and can't be cancelled and we can't afford to just not go and lose the money) I think that is what needs to happen.

After the holiday though I have to think of my own sanity. I have to tell her I can no longer cope with her repeatedly telling me I am a bad friend. I can't handle her getting angry with me over something trivial and ignoring me for weeks instead of just talking to me. I'm not strong enough to keep trying to act as her therapist. I can't keep saying the same things to her over and over again and see them have no effect whatsoever.

I'm not qualified for this

Nothing to update on the dating front since my last post. Towards the end of last year e-harmony started emailing me again out of the blue to tell me about my new matches, and to invite me to rejoin. Last year was so busy, for the most part with memorable, sometimes unforgettable, times with friends, that I didn't have the time to trawl through online dating matches. I also didn't really have much time to feel alone and boyfriendless as I had so much to do.

The whole checking matches, replying to them, arranging a date process seems so scary to me that I think I need the push of feeling alone to make me do it. This year will I think be a little less busy, so may have some alone moments to push me into perhaps rejoining e-harmony, or trying something else. We'll see.

As for the T situation, she sent me a text at the end of last year telling me to remember that when she has one of her downers/meltdowns in 2013 (which she is convinced she will) she means none of it and that I am very important to her. So progress of sorts there, as she does realise that the things she says hurt and acknowledges that they're not the truth.

At the moment I am having to deal with a household situation that I am very unsure how to handle. We had a new female housemate move in at the end of last summer. Not long after she moved in my other female housemate (I'll call her extrovert) and I started occasionally noticing what seemed to be traces of vomit in and sometimes around the toilet bowl. This has kept happening. and Extrovert and I have been cleaning it up. Also, we almost never see the new housemate eating. When I say almost never, I have seen her eat once, a bowl of soup in a restaurant when went out for Extrovert's birthday. Extrovert saw her eat on a second occasion, when Extrovert cooked both of them dinner, not long after new housemate moved in.

New housemate leaves the house before 7am on workdays and usually doesn't get home until 10.30 -11pm or later. She goes to the gym daily before and after work. All of this made us suspect that New Housemate might have bulimia. We had occasional discussions about what, if anything, we should do about it. We were worried about New Housemate's health, and were also getting a little fed up of cleaning up her vomit, so partly wanted to talk to her about it. However as she is hardly ever home we felt we don't actually know her very well, and talking to her could have been difficult.

Eventually a few weeks ago we decided to speak to her. We planned what we would say to start the conversation, we thought out possible reactions from her and prepared our responses to those reactions. We full expected her to deny she has a problem and to get angry with us. In actual fact, to cut a long story short, she admitted that she has bulimia, which felt like a huge step for her. It turns out we are the first people she has told. We encouraged her to see a doctor, and to get help, but made no demands, did not try to force her to get help, and didn't tell her to stop making herself sick. She said she felt very bad, and embarrassed, that we had had to clean up after her.

A few days ago, Extrovert and I, when putting rubbish bags into our outside bin, both noticed what appeared to be vomit on the inside of the bin. We immediately wondered if New Housemate had put a bag of vomit in the bin and it had split.

Yesterday we decided to clean the bin as we just couldn't leave it with vomit in it for the refuse collectors to face. When we opened it to take out the rubbish before cleaning it, we found a large tote bag full of plastic bags of what can only have been vomit, along with various empty food packets. We then spent the next two hours triple-bagging the vomit filled bag and washing and scrubbing the bin clean of sick. I'm not usually squeamish about cleaning mess, dirt, filth, bodily fluids etc but both Extrovert and I agreed that this was probably the most disgusting thing either of us had ever had to do. Certainly neither of us ever want to have to do it again.

I wonder whether she felt so bad about us cleaning up in the bathroom that she thought she'd avoid vomiting in there? Or perhaps she didn't want us to know that she was still vomiting? Or was trying to hide the extent of it? Extrovert sent her a text on Friday, with no mention of the bin, saying that we understand that it's going to be a slow process for her to get better, and that if she still does feel the urge, then the toilet is the most hygienic place to vomit. I really hope she will get the message and not use anywhere else. I understand that she is ill, and that she can't help needing to purge, but at the same time, it doesn't seem fair on me or Extrovert that we have to deal with cleaning up after her. We are undecided whether we ought to mention to her that we cleaned out the bin, and why.

We are trying to help and support her and trying to be understanding, and have said we are happy to listen if she ever wants to talk to us, but I have no idea whether we are handling this in the right way. If we find vomit in the bin again I suspect that we might rapidly lose understanding. I'm not a doctor, or a counsellor or in any way qualified. It feels selfish to say so, but I don't want to come home from work and have to deal with this. When I'm not at work I want to be able to relax and de-stress, not worry and stress about this situation. She has apparently made an appointment to see a doctor, so I really hope that starts the process of recovery for her.

So, a question

Say I have plans to go to a friend's hen/bachelorette party at the weekend. And say those plans fall through because my friend has been having trouble organising the party. I am then free that weekend and have no plans.

Say another friend then suggests going out with her somewhere. And say I tell her I'm free the weekend of the non-hen party. Does the fact that I originally had other plans for that weekend make this friend second best? If I am free and able to meet her does it matter why I am free that weekend?

If I have plans which fall through I am supposed to never make any other plans for that day/evening/weekend in case the person I do them with might think they are second best?

T finally decided to get counselling. I was so proud of her for taking that step and so pleased that she might finally start feeling better about herself and gain some self esteem. From what she told me it all seemed to be going ok. It sounded tough and emotional, but as if she was working through issue. But then when I asked about it a few weeks ago she told me she'd stopped going as she thought the counsellor was just being nosey. She ignored my enquiry about whether she would be able to see a different counsellor. She's been mainly ok in recent months. I'm not sure she's going to continue that way.

Questions

I just used some old sheets of printer paper and in the empty packet found an envelope, postmarked 1998, with a number of questions written on it. It was a list of questions about sex which I wanted to ask my best friend, but I never managed to do so. The questions are these:

• When you're going out with someone how do you start sleeping together? Does one of you suggest it?
• What does the woman do in bed?
• What do people mean when they say that someone is "good" or "bad" in bed?
• Is it easy to kiss someone or do you need to know what to do?
• How do you know what to do the first time you sleep with someone? Does it come naturally or do you have to guess? Is the first time embarrassing or frightening?
• When is it normal to sleep with someone? On a first date? After a couple of weeks? Couple of months? Six months? What would a man expect?
• Does it hurt? Does it take a long time to learn how to do it properly?

They seem so basic, so childish, so naive in parts. Although I have sort of found out from magazines like Cosmopolitan and from the internet what the woman is supposed to do, I obviously only know in theory. And the rest of the questions I still don't know the answers to. I am 38 this year. I shouldn't have been asking the sort of questions a 14 year old might ask when I was 24. I certainly shouldn't still be asking them at almost 38.

I need to stop this

I have to stop spending an hour or two every evening googling terms like "how to help a depressed friend", "friend has no self esteem", "friend says she has no friends".  I have to stop thinking about the things she said in her email. I have to stop composing replies in my head.

I have to find some way of telling her that I am feeling overwhelmed, that there is only so much I can do to help, that I cannot fix everything for her, while also telling her that I still care and still want to help. I have find a way to tell her that she needs to try to help herself and make a life for herself that won't make her feel as if I am yet another friend who doesn't want to know her.

Brick Wall

Well, T is "talking" to me, though only by the occasional email and text message, and only to reiterate her feelings on friends, and the end of our friendship.

She is geniunely feeling completely alone and very lonely. She has listed various women she thinks of as friends and who she either hasn't seen for 6 months, a year or longer, or who have only seen her when they needed something from her. She says she has made it clear to them how awful they've made her feel and they don't care. She wishes that they would admit to having contributed to how she is feeling and that they would be honest and tell her that they only think of her as a colleague.

From what she's said about these women I think one of them is generally quite a flakey, unreliable person who has let T down on a few occasions. I do wonder though whether the rest of them even realised that T thought of them as close friends. Perhaps she is being overeager and thinking there is more to the friendship than there actually is. Perhaps they they just didn't feel that same level of friendship, perhaps they need much longer before they think of her as a good friend.

She did actually say something similar about me, that maybe she loves me too much and wants to much from me. She mentioned the last guy she sort of dated, who she thought she was in love with after knowing him for a couple of months. She said she probably didn't actually feel anything for him, and that she was just clinging to him because he appeared to be somene who cared.

She did mention things which I have done or not done which have made her feel bad. I'm not perfect and do make mistakes but these things were a small number of things that were surely outnumbered by things I have done that have hopefully made her feel good.

She says we don't talk. Not about "proper" things anyway. It seems the hours and hours we have spent talking about various problems of hers and some of mine have been a figment of my imagination.

She says she spends every weekend alone. So all the weekends I spent with her last year were also imagined.

She used the fact that I didn't tell her all the details of a longtime family issue of mine as proof that I don't really think of her as a close friend. I very rarely talk to anybody about this particular issue and I am angry she has tried to use it in that way.

She is still blaming herself for all these people treating her badly and abandoning her. She is insisting that I am a terrible person for not changing certain of my plans to include her. She says she would if I was feeling the way she is. I suggested she thinks about getting professional help. She says she doesn't need any. She is still talking as if we will never see each other again.

I spoke a bit to my friend E about all of this. She thinks T is trying to manipulate me, albeit possibly without realising. I do feel as if I am being manipulated. I don't think that me changing my plans on two or three days of the year so that I can spend them with T will help her. She will still feel alone and lonely. She will still feel as if she has nobody. She will still hate herself. She will still not have the confidence needed to make a life for herself that includes other friends as well as me. I cannot single handedly make everything better. I feel overwhelmed by pouring her heart out about her loneliness. And her refusal to seek help makes me feel as if I have hit a brick wall. What more can I do?