A Facebook post I saw this morning reminded me that June 12 was the two year anniversary of the shooting in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. One of many. They are all sad, or horrific.
Which means it is also the two year anniversary of my being summariliy and cruelly dumped by a lifelong friend, whom I will call "LC". I have written extensively about this here, and here, and here, in the immediate aftermath, but now I have had quite some time to reflect.
This "dumping" (my therapist told me that her email to me saying "this is my last note; do not respond in any way" was like the childish dismissive texts that millennials send when they're breaking up with a lover of a few months) was probably just about the cruelest thing that anyone I considered a "friend" has ever done to me. I have had friendships peter out, sometimes because that was what the other person wanted; sometimes because that was what I wanted. I have had quarrels with people (I had one with LC in 2004 or 2005 which ended with my dropping an F bomb on her). But I have never been dumped with no explanation by someone because she thought something I had said (or in this case not said), which was not personal, offended her values. Yes, values can end a friendship, but that's more in the vein of "I can't be friends with Trump voters". Which leaves the door open that maybe, 10 years from now, when Trump is out of office, if the two people see each other again, they might pick up the friendship.
What I considered so ugly about this whole thing was that LC encouraged me to probe deeply into my psyche (it was a two-way street), asking me questions, asking me more questions, until, apparently, I said something that deeply offended her.
Bait and switch. I first heard that phrase from LC, as a matter of fact, several decades ago, when she used it to describe an unfortunate experience buying a car, or a washing machine, I don't remember. I had never heard it before, but then again, as a lifelong New York apartment dweller, I don't do that kind of shopping. But I realize now that that is the most apt definition of what LC did to me. She encouraged me to be a virtual member of her "covenant group", which used "word prompts" to "speak their truth". I have been in groups like that in the past, in person, and one of the ground rules is that people speak their truth and they are not judged. So LC seduced me into that activity and then broke that rule. The word prompt for that month had been "blessings". So I began talking about "counting your blessings." Which prompted her to ask me what I meant when I said that. So I said that I needed to remember things like the fact that I had clean drinking water, a safe place to live, healthy food, and healthcare, because in the context in which I live I consider myself "underprivileged".
As I wrote in yesterday's post, it apparently offended her that I referred to myself as "underprivileged". But that was my truth, which was what this word game (I am deliberately disparaging it because she so grossly and evilly misused it) was about. Then - I guess - my asking her advice about something I considered a snub (something we had each done with each other many times) the day after the shooting in Orlando was probably, for her, the last straw.
Bait and switch. She not only broke the rules of this "covenant" she was so gung-ho about, she also abruptly changed the rules in the middle of our daily correspondence, without telling me, and then made it a deal-breaker. Not a temporary source of irritation as in "we're really not on the same page right now; I just can't listen to some of what you're writing to me about; let's take a break and catch up in the Fall", but never. Don't respond in any way.
Then she (obviously resentfully) sent me the promised (artificial) flowers for my birthday, then I apologized, saying if I had offended her I was sorry, then she said she was just going to say goodbye because she wanted to be kind (kind??? what planet is she living on?) and hoped we could part "on good terms". Really? Good terms?? (I suppose she meant her terms.)
Then she sent me a thank you note for a picture I had sent her daughter for a memory book and I wrote her the nastiest (but most carefully crafted, with nothing untrue or hyperbolic) letter in all caps, not an email, with no salutation and signature, asking her never to communicate with me again.
But I am still angry. What dawned on me over a year later is that I am so angry because she deprived me of a confidante like no other. So it was like coming home and finding all my furniture on the street with the door locked and no warning. I can't tell you how many times I will start musing (about Myers-Briggs, about people, about politics) and say to myself "Gee I should tell LC that" and then WHOA.
She did me a lot of damage. I guess my takeaway is that relationships based solely on what is politely referred to in therapy circles as "co-ruminating" are destined to end badly. Sure, I still share confidences with friends, but they are usually about things that are concrete (problems with my partner, feeling isolated, artistic yearnings that are unfulfilled, quarrels with other friends) and more importantly, this is not the bulk of our interaction. We usually share interests, eat together, even go on outings. So there's some substance there. And if friends live in the same city (someplace I never leave) even if there's tension, and a quiet backing away, we never know when we'll see each other in person and move closer again.
I hope writing this will help me evict LC from my head. She doesn't deserve to rent space there.
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