A friend is someone who knows all about you, and loves you just the same.
“
| — | Proverb |
I really hope someone is up right now and reads this, because I need some advice.
I am currently IMing with this guy. For a little backstory, I’ve known him for around six years, though mostly online. We met through Kevin Smith, through his messageboard, as we were both posters on there. In 2007, Kevin had an ’80s-style “prom” as his birthday party, here in New Jersey. That was where this guy and I met in person, finally. It’s the only time we’ve met in person, as he lives in Texas.
The problem is that, for quite some time now, he has had very strong feelings for me. He will IM me out of nowhere to tell me that he loves me, and wants to hold me and be with me and lay his head against my chest and so on. And I just…do not return the feelings, unfortunately, because we only met that one time and talking online hasn’t really facilitated anything developing beyond friendship.
I just feel so incredibly guilty that I don’t feel the same way, but I’m also frustrated because he’ll say things like “Nobody wants me. Nobody loves me. I tried to love myself. I’m the Invisible Man. I’m nothing. I hate my life.” And no matter what I say, he shoots it down or disregards it.
He claims that he wants to push me away because he thinks no one cares about him, even though I’ve told him I care about him. And I’ve told him that I love him, and he shoots that down too because it’s not “real love,” he says, like romantic love, and that makes me feel even worse. Plus he’s been through so much in his life, with having brain cancer and multiple surgeries and all, and so I feel like I can’t get completely angry at him.
But I literally dread getting IMs from him anymore because it’s this same spiel over and over and I can’t “fix” things no matter how hard I try. Our conversations seem to go in circles and nothing I say is the “right” thing…and I’m terrified that he might try to hurt himself and if he does, I know I will blame myself.
Has anyone ever dealt with something like this before? I just feel like I have this giant weight sitting on me and it’s stressing me out so bad. Any advice would be very welcome right now…
Let me just explain things plainly:
My former best friend from childhood’s dad was just diagnosed with a rare degenerative neurological condition called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This, after her mom (who used to be babysit me in elementary school) died four years ago from cancer.
This is why I feel like I need to step back from Tumblr for a while. Because things like that are what matters…not the things that I have been letting get to me here on Tumblr. I see/feel myself getting worked up over stuff that I know isn’t important, and I want to cringe.
One thing to know about me is that I have this tendency to care too much about people. Even if I don’t often talk to someone, if I consider them a friend, I hold their feelings in the highest regard. And I expect (or at least hope) that they hold my feelings in a similar regard.
So if this is not you…if you have no problem with casting me aside without a word…then maybe we shouldn’t be friends. Maybe we should get out of this social contract before it goes too far, cause if you’re not wanting to respect me in the way that I respect you, it’s probably not going to work out in the end.
I realize that I am not an easy person to be friends with. I’ve driven people away just by being who I am, and one of the greatest fears that I live with is the fear that I’ll eventually drive all of my friends away, for good. So that gives you a choice here:
You can be one of the people who proves me right, or you can be one of the people who proves me wrong.
I hope you’ll prove me wrong.
Okay, I’m menstrual right now and therefore in a more schmoopy mindset than usual, so bear with me. But I just need to say how glad I am to have Lynsey as my best friend. I’ve never been good at making friends, and prior to Lyns, I had a best friend who had been in that position for twelve years….
Amy, you are the cutest little button ever, and I don’t know what else to say other than YES to all of this, right back at you. I still remember the day you first approached me, I was so bewildered that you even recognized me, when I had no idea who you were, haha. Since that day, I have watched you grow and flourish from an already lovely person, to a confident, outgoing, successful woman, and I am consistently so amazed and proud of you. I adore us as a duo, and think we compliment each other very well. I am happy to be the Thelma to your Louise, the marinara to your sketti, the Statler to your… well, you get the picture. :D
<33333 You have no idea how happy this entire post makes me. :D (And yes, Steve, you were right. Haha.) I will always remember that first meeting at Peter’s show (I still say we owe him an attractive fruit basket in gratitude. Haha.) I never could’ve imagined what would have happened from there, and I, too, have seen you grow leaps and bounds since then, and I’ma proud of you too, my dear.
Also, bless you for the marinara>spaghetti reference, as that pretty much made my Italian, pasta-loving heart explode with joy. Haha. I also adore us as a duo, and I can’t wait for all of the wacky and wild adventures we still have to come. :D
Okay, I’m menstrual right now and therefore in a more schmoopy mindset than usual, so bear with me. But I just need to say how glad I am to have Lynsey as my best friend. I’ve never been good at making friends, and prior to Lyns, I had a best friend who had been in that position for twelve years. We were all each other had in high school, and there was a time where she meant everything to me.
But, as friends sometimes tend to do, we drifted apart when college came. Even then, we managed to find our way back to each other, and I was still deeply invested in our friendship as we continue to grow and flourish into the people we truly were.
The problem came, however, when I started to realize that the people we truly were had nothing in common. Camaraderie turned to clashes, and after a falling out in 2009, things were never the same. It was around this same time that I met Lynsey, and I believe the start of our friendship came about exactly when it was supposed to.
It was in September of 2010 that my former best friend stopped talking to me completely—unfriended me on Facebook with nary a word. A phone call from me yielded no results—no answer to the voicemail message that I left or to the questions that were swimming through my mind. I was brokenhearted. And that’s when things with Lynsey began to take flight, and our friendship deepened into something I never could have anticipated.
For the longest time, I was reluctant to use the phrase “best friend.” I’d been burned, and I didn’t want to employ such a descriptor for Lyns lest it not be reciprocated. Traditionally, I have a history, too, of being far more invested in a friendship than the other person, and after what had happened, I dared not assume that I was that good of a friend to her, or to anyone.
The day that Lynsey called me her best friend, I quietly rejoiced. Because I knew I’d finally gotten it right.
We have more in common than my former BFF and I ever did—our worldviews, our musical preferences, heck, even our experiences growing up are almost bizarrely similar. Because we mainly keep in contact online (living four hours apart will necessitate that), it is at the point where we sometimes type the same things at the same time, or finish each other’s thought before the other has finished typing it.
I honestly never believed that I would have another best friend after my previous one, or that I would be able to find a friendship as good as that one—either because I did not think one existed, or I believed I didn’t deserve one. But instead, I have found one that is even better, even more special, and more fulfilling than anything I could have asked for.
Lyns: I love you, mama, and I am sorry for writing such a soppy love letter to you on my Tumblr, but my ovaries insisted on it. Haha. Thank you so much for being my best friend. <3
Well, thank god for best friends. I am feeling about a thousand times better now. It’s so relieving to have someone who can give you perspective on things, and who can take the gnarled pit in your stomach and untangle it so perfectly. I would most certainly be lost without my wonderful best friend.
do you ever look back on your life and your choices and say how the fuck was i ever friends with you?
I sometimes find myself comparing things in my head. Things that were, versus things that are. In particular, friendships, because I am in this place now where I have old friendships to look back and reflect on, which I never did before.
The thing that I am observing now is one of the (many) differences between when B was my best friend versus L, who is my best friend now. When B would have bad days, I would be sympathetic, of course, and try to offer an ear/shoulder/whatever of support. But when L has a bad day, I just want to find who/whatever is causing it and throttle the crap out of them. I’ve always been protective of my friends, and have never liked to see anyone I care about suffer…but these days, even the thought of someone making L unhappy is enough to set me off.
I have no idea what that means—if I care about L much more than I did about B, or if L is providing me with a much stronger friendship than B did and so my desire to reciprocate is therefore stronger, or if I’m just a hot-tempered little mama, through and through.
But yeah. If I could take every bit of frustration/sadness/pain that L feels when she has a bad day and put it in me, so she doesn’t have to deal with it, I would. I probably would have done the same for B, in the old days…but now, in this context, in this friendship, it just seems to mean a lot more.
So…I was un-followed and un-friended without a word. Okay. I’ve dealt with that, and the fact that the same was also done to a friend of mine. But now I see that I’ve been flat-out blocked on Tumblr, and that both pisses me off and makes me incredibly sad. I don’t understand how someone could’ve once called someone their “friend” and then end up treating them like this. I just don’t understand.
