So, you made your bed, time to sleep in it. You don't make time for us, we don't make time for you.
A close friend of mine from high school (literally, my only female friend from high school who lasted past high school --- the rest of 'em were all guys, most of whom are still friends of mine) had a kid about six years ago. She lives in AZ and I have only seen her once or so in the past ten years, but we had a nice (if intermittent) email correspondence going. She's an artist and a jewelrymaker/silversmith.
So last year, when I was in Vegas over the summer (DH was at a postal conference), I offered to drive over to see her. She was getting packed to move, she said, so it wouldn't be a great time for it. I told her I wanted to see the desert and that seeing her would just be gravy, and I could be totally flexible with time (I'd of course stay in a hotel), but she still said no. She did say that she'd be at an artists' conference in Maine (relatively close to me) a few months later, and that we could see each other then.
I emailed her at the conference in the fall, and said I'd be happy to come up to see her --- again, with a totally flexible schedule. She replied that she was really, really busy, and that it wouldn't work out.
So...lemme get this straight. I offer to do all the travelling, in both cases (hours' worth), and she can't even set aside an hour? Particularly after she'd said getting together in Maine would be a workable idea, told me the dates a few months in advance, etc.?
I thought, for a bit, that maybe she was just trying to blow me off as a friend...trying to let me down easy. But she's been continuing to occasionally send me pictures of her son via email, with little captions about his life and her life and her DH's life. I used to comment on them and try to keep the connection going. She probably hasn't noticed that I've recently dropped all pretense that we have a relationship. It's as if her idea of a "friendship" at this point, is sending me pictures of her kid and her work on her commercial website and having me say "Oooh! That's nice".
We were good friends in high school and she got me through some really rough patches. I've always been extremely sentimental about holding onto relationships (I guess it comes with the territory of being a chld of divorce who also moved a lot; if you have a friendship, by all means, hold onto it!). But I've learned, since then, that when all that's left of a relationship is the history, the best way to honor that history is to just let it go.
At times, I've wanted to drop her a note saying why I won't be getting back in touch with her. But I've just let it slide. I have good reason:
I recently ended another friendship which had gone waaaay past its time --- this time with a male friend. This friendship used to be a viable one when we lived in the same city, but had devolved into just forwarding each other interesting email news items and his sending me notices of what his premature, physically handicapped, yet intellectually bright toddler was up to.
This friendship "breakup" went very badly. The guy nearly tore my head off when I told him that while I was interested in what his kid was up to, that "kid stuff" had become the sum total of what he had to say to me. While it was nobody's fault, specifically, we'd descended into a bunch of email forwarding, hadn't seen each other in 10 years, etc., etc., and that I just didn't see the point any more (he lives in DC; I'm in NH). Even more to the point, a dear mutual friend of ours (the one who'd introduced us 20 years ago) had died, and so we were that much less likely to ever see each other again.
He ended the relationship (or, should I say, by this point, a "correspondence") with a string of expletives. F%^k you, Elise (for being so honest --- I guess that was the subtext). Nice!
Well, at least I know now that I made the right choice in dropping him as a "friend". I just shouldn't have told him why, or even that I was dropping him. Just take his name out of the address book and block the email address.
People who become Professional Parents don't want to be told that they're no longer interesting, apparently...
All of this occurred against the backdrop of my other friends. Many are single, most are straight, some are gay, some are coupled or married. Most have no kids, but some are parents. The parents with whom I've maintained real, vital friendships make an effort to continue to relate to me as an adult, rather than just merely cornering me as an audience for their pictures and their stories about their offspring. The ones who are not parents? We just go blithely and happily along, having not missed a beat.
My two best friends, I met the year I was 11 (we did a summer children's theatre program together, and met...OMG...30 years ago last month!). One is a single, childfree gay man. The other is a divorced mother of three. It's not a person's reproductive status which makes them a good friend...it's whether or not they have a flippin'
clue.Byebye, Maureen. 'Bye, Mead. It was fun while it lasted.