Expectations

You may have guessed that the letter in my last post was to my friend T. I didn't send a real one in the end as I eventually heard from her.

Things are not okay with her or us. A text that I sent saying I was upset and confused about why she was ignoring me finally got an email response from her. An email which can be summed up by saying that she finds it too hurtful having friends so she feels she is better off alone, with no friends.

The long version said that she had spoken to no friends since Christmas and was adjusting to being alone. It talked about how she had realised over Christmas/New year that she "has no-one". It described how she cried herself to sleep on New Year's Eve. It declared that at "times which matter", times when you're supposed to be with loved ones, such as New Year's Eve, she has no-one. It said that to her friends she is an inconvenience. It said that her friends don't make her feel good. It said that she couldn't stand another year of heartache and wondering if this year someone will invite her to do something in New Year's Eve, whether this year people who accept an invite to her birthday celebration will actually turn up. It said that she won't have to wonder about those things if she has no friends. It said she didn't want to hurt me.

It didn't say anything about the times when she wasn't alone, about the numerous weekends I spent with her last year, about the occasional coffees, lunches and dinners she had with other friends, about the Christmas Eve spent with family friends and described as wonderful. It ignored those times so I mentioned them in my reply. I tried to remind her that she does have friends, that she does have people who care about her, and that nobody has ever described her as an inconvenience. I said I didn't understand what she was saying; did she want to end our friendship?.

Another email arrived from her. It again spoke about being lonely and miserable New Year's Eve and not having anyone to go out with on her birthday. It said that she thinks the relationship I have with my best friend blinds me to everyone else, that there are other people who love me, who want to celebrate my birthday with me, who want to share "special events" with me, but they don't get the chance. It ended with saying she was sorry but that I will be okay because I have other friends.

I don't know what to think. My mind is all over the place. Mutual friends of ours have seen her and said she seems very down and tearful. Suddenly deciding to end all your friendships because of a handful of days spent alone seems perhaps irrational (one of the days was her birthday though, so I completely understand her upset about that). She has low self esteem and confesses to hating herself. All of this suggests she might be depressed again. I have tried to tell her that I am here for her and want to help if I can.

However, although half of the second email was about other people, half was directed at me. Is it simply depression or is there any truth in what she says about me? When she says that other "people" want to spend my birthday with me, she means her, as no other friend has ever expressed that wish. They send cards, they send a text on the day, but they don't voice a desperation to spend the day with me.

I am touched that she feels that way, but I have for the past several years spent my birthday with my best friend. It's what we do. Should I feel guilty about that because T isn't getting her chance to spend the day with me? I feel I can't hurt my best friend by dumping her on my birthday and at other times we spend together in order to spend them with T instead. Is that wrong? I may be wrong but don't think so. My best friend has been my best friend for 18 years and is the most important friend in my life.

I love T and have had some wonderful times with her and have considered her a great friend. I have over the past few years spent more and more time with her, last year probably more than I spent with my best friend. But it doesn't seem to be enough; she seems to feel that I am not spending the "right" days with her. Has all the time I've spent with her meant nothing? Does our friendship only mean something to her if she gets to spend certain days with me? It's feeling as if she is wanting, needing or expecting more from our friendship than I can give. There was also perhaps a hint of jealousy of my best friend.

And yet still I feel guilty. I try to be as good a friend as I can be to all of my friends. I cannot be everything to all of them and I cannot give all of them all of my time, but I do what I can and it upsets me that T seems to think I have failed as a friend.

I replied to her email. I told her there were times last year when I felt torn between her and my best friend and felt bad for having to turn one of them down due to plans with the other. I was honest and said that abandoning my best friend in favour of her on days like my birthday would hurt my best friend as much as T is hurting now, so I can't do it. I told her that having other friends does not make it okay when one friendship is lost. The others don't replace the missing friend and the loss hurts. I am not sure she will like my email. I couldn't promise her what she seems to want.

With a little help from my friends

I had a good Sunday. I went over to my friends’ house and had lunch, drank some wine, chatted, laughed, played some computer games. There were five of us to start with, then one of my friends and his girlfriend left and for the rest of the time it was me and another couple, both of whom I knew as individual friends before they got together.

They’re really good friends in all senses: they are people I enjoy spending time with and I know I can rely on them. Earlier this year I was quite ill and they visited daily and helped me in all sorts of ways. They’re probably the friends I spend the most time with currently and when I’m with them there’s no sense of me being a third wheel. On those days when I am feeling most down about my lack of relationship, (not to mention my job and where I live) when I’m feeling like a failure because I am no further on in life than 15 years ago, I remind myself that I am lucky enough to have friends like them.

There have been times in the past when I have not had many friends in my life. For a while I only really had one friend, albeit a very good one who is still my best friend. She was the only person I socialised with and opened up to and I came to rely on her a little too much.

At the time I was feeling particularly depressed about still being single and there were many times when I found myself crying on her doorstep as I tried to say goodbye and leave for home. Sometimes it had been building during the evening, others it seemed to come from nowhere, but always it was the same: sobbing rather than simply crying, noisy, messy sobbing, gasping for breath and finding it difficult to get the words out, which were always some variation of what’s wrong with me, am I ever going to have a boyfriend. I was also having problems with jealousy and I think a little paranoia.

My friend eventually told me I had to get help. I plucked up the courage to visit my GP. He asked a lot of questions (including “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “Have you ever had a boyfriend? How I longed, and long, to be able to say yes to at least one of those) but I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell him the whole story. I didn’t mention the uncontrollable sobbing and the paranoia; I just said I sometimes got upset when talking to a friend. I asked if I could be referred to a counsellor but he said he didn’t think I was depressed and told me to go back if things got worse. I never did.

Luckily I didn’t get any worse. I started spending time outside work with a colleague and managed to develop that into a friendship. I made efforts to keep myself busy. I stopped myself from reaching rock bottom. I know that if I didn’t have good friends now and if I didn’t have my classes and swimming, if I had nothing in my life apart from work, I would be back in the same bad place I was then.

It’s not that friends and keeping busy stop me wanting a relationship. They don’t stop the loneliness, they don’t stop the worry that I will never find someone, they don’t stop the hurt that comes from knowing that nobody has been in love with you, that nobody has liked you enough to even want to try being in love with you.

But my friends do make me feel loved and cared for. Spending time with them means I have evenings and days which I enjoy, when I have fun and when I laugh. It means that I don’t spend every waking hour thinking about my situation; it doesn’t completely dominate my life. I won’t, and can’t, let it dominate my life. If I did I fear it would completely overwhelm me.