NoJoMo 16

So today, I thought I’d tell you about some of the strange friends I’ve had in the past. Or perhaps it’s me that’s strange, I’ll let you be the judge.

First, there was Jess. We became friends at the end of primary school and were in the same form at secondary. We hung out all the time, usually in hysterics at some silly joke or story she was telling. When we got to secondary school we met Kathryn, and we all used to hang out together all the time. We were all really close, really good friends, there was never any bad blood between us or anything. I remember occasionally Jess and I would wind up Kathryn by stealing her pencil case out of her bag. For some reason it would make her go MENTAL and that was just hilarious to us. But apart from that, I don’t think we ever really did anything to piss each other off.

Anyway, one day, Kathryn and Jess started acting strangely distant towards me. They approached me at lunch time and proposed we all meet in the library that afternoon to talk about our "feelings for each other". Now, I know they’re not gay. They weren’t then and they’re not now. So I still have NO IDEA what exactly they were trying to get at. So, I responded with "Errr… Why do we need to talk about our feelings for each other?!" and they told me if I didn’t do what they said then they would stop being my friend.

I literally had no idea what to say. They were demanding that I do this in such a hostile manner, I got the feeling that regardless of a trip to the library, it looked like they didn’t want to be friends either way. So I just said to them that I didn’t think we needed to talk about our feelings in the library and they just turned around and left. They never spoke to me again. To this day I have no idea what I did or what they wanted to talk about. I wish I knew if it was me being a dick without realising or just two strange girls.

My second strange friend was Helen. Again, we got on like a house on fire. We’d hang out every weekend, we liked all the same music, we had the same thoughts, fears, crushes, etc. We also used to debate a lot. We’d have these big arguments about, I dunno, whether dogs or cats were better. It was never serious debates, just these funny back-and-forths that would get us both fiercely high spirited about whatever we were discussing.

And again, one day, helen approaches me and says "I don’t want to be friends with you any more, we argue too much." She wouldn’t let me say anything, she just walked away and never spoke to me again. At least this one I can partially understand. I guess whilst I saw our debates as something fun and silly, she was taking them quite seriously and getting upset without telling me. But it meant I lost another friend who was really awesome.

The thing that bugs me is I’ve never dumped a friend. At this point, I would never do that to someone anyway, but it really baffles me. Friends sometimes grow apart, or move away and don’t see each other so often, or other vague things that stop people being friends. And sometimes one friend might do something awful to the other friend, like sleep with her boyfriend or whatever, and those are probably good reasons not to speak to each other ever again.

But the act of dumping a friend is quite extreme I think. I can imagine the only time I would actually ask someone to stop being my friend would be if they were totally unbearable to the point of me hating them. Because if my friend is being a bit of a dick, maybe I just won’t see them as much for a while, or something, but I can’t imagine being so worked up as to literally tell someone they weren’t my friend any more. 

And it makes me wonder. Was I being so extremely unbearable that the only solution for these girls was to just tell me to stop being their friend? And how did I honestly not notice that I was being so awful at them? It’s one of these things that sometimes I think needs a little closure. I could just chalk it up to the drama of high school, or maybe these people are just strange. 

Perhaps it will forever haunt me, the idea that I’m terribly unbearable but no one is telling me until they hate me and can’t put up with me any longer.

Credit where credit’s due though, I have some friends who are fantastic and who (fingers crossed) would never dump me like that. But… you just never know… 

Thinking about it now, i realise that maybe it’s why I’m crap at making friends now. I’m so shy and withdrawn because I’m worried I’ll get dumped again. That’s a shame. Also it’s a pity it’s not something that’s solved with a snap of the fingers. Hmmmm.

Anyway, that’s the story of some of my favourite people who ended up hating me.

XxX