More rambling from me...

(Reposted from February 2, 2009)

Something that I am struggling with today…

I am beginning to see a recurring theme in my friendships.

I have a tendency to keep my friends for years and years. If you look at my friends on Facebook, MySpace, my email contact list, or even my cell phone, you would find people tracing all the way back to when I was in pre-K. For someone to fall out of my friends’ list, they would have to do something extremely heinous. I think that there is a lot to be said for sticking by your friends, and I rely on mine for so many things.

That said, I also expect a lot from them. As my mother has told me more than once, I am an extremely difficult person to be friends with. Not because of being difficult myself, but because I do hold those people to very high standards.

I have sat by and listened and counseled on all things from divorce, fear of balding, helping people learn how to sing, helping them through divorces and subsequent divorce settlements, custody disputes, criminal problems, erectile dysfunction, money problems, break-ups, friend issues, school, tests, teaching them things for work to impress their bosses, answering questions on anything at any hour, family problems, whatever…

The problems in the friendships usually start when you introduce new people into those equations.

When I have started dating someone, the conversation inevitably arises about jealousy. My friends do take a lot of my time, and that is great and not a problem. What IS the problem is when those friends happen to be male. I understand that it can be a bit daunting when a guy who is interested in you has to understand that you also have guy friends –of whatever level of attractiveness –who have been with you through a lot of things and you both rely on each other. I completely *get* that it is a hurdle for many to get their minds around.

However, I also think that it is incredibly shallow to (a) assume that your new significant other is too simple-minded to do so or (b) to drop this friend who has been with you for that amount of time on a “maybe” with a new person that you’re seeing romantically. I mean, given that even marriages are down statistically to surviving only 50% of the time, wouldn’t that seem a lot more risky than a friend who has stood by you for years? Further, wouldn’t it be that much MORE risky to take a chance on someone who couldn’t trust you or know you enough to understand that you have genuine friends? I, for one, don’t want to be with someone who thinks that I’m the type to drop my friends for anyone who comes along –and I don’t want to be with someone who would do that either.

I do know that when you start a relationship, that person is going to take up a good bit of your time, and your friends will get less of your time, accordingly. I do not believe, though, that it means that if you’re attempting to date, you immediately drop any and all friends of the opposite sex who might be threatening to your new person.

I know that not too many people feel the same way that I do, but I am struggling with this right now. I don’t know if it coincides with the new year or not, but I find it very sad that I have apparently misjudged a lot of my friends in my life. I am at a place where I am looking around at the ones who I have been friends with for at least 10 years now, and realizing that despite all of the time spent with each other and the value that I placed on those relationships, I obviously didn’t know those people at all.

It’s kind of funny, because for the ones that are seeing people, I start to think that whoever they’re dating can’t really know them, since they have systematically removed people from their lives in order to make the new person more comfortable. Then again, maybe those new people know them better than I ever did, since it wouldn’t have occurred to me that they would behave in that manner.

The funny / sad thing is that I have been through this with several of my friends in the past, and I have been through this several times with the same friends repeatedly. (Thus the pattern, I guess…) It is funny that someone who is supposedly so smart –either myself or my friends would be that one –can be so stupid as to trust again or take that person back as a friend over and over. It is sad that it ends up leaving me disappointed and let-down over and over again too.

I guess that overall, it all comes back to my own feeling that I have to behave in the way that is right for me, and not worry too much if the outcome is undesirable. It just gets very tiring sometimes, especially when I know that it’s only a matter of time before one or the other of them come back and then they want to try to play the friend card yet again. I guess all of this train of thought is for me to once again, try to decide if I should close these doors permanently or continue to be the kind of friend that I would want, which means still being here for them…

The end result, for now, is that on days like today, I am sad, and feel like I've lost a friend again. Whether the other person valued the relationship or not, I did, for whatever it was worth.