I may sound a bit disjointed this go round, I'm sorry. I know what I want to write about, I have the thoughts in mind.. but for some reason they're not wanting to meld seamlessly like they usually do. But hopefully the gist of it comes out...
So, I've pretty much weened myself off of Facebook, looking through my entries, it seems to be over a month since I first clicked the 'Deactivate Account' button. And for the most part, I haven't missed it. I have checked back a few times, for maybe two minutes a time-just to see if anything has changed, or if there was big developments that I've missed since I've gotten out of the loop.
And tonight was finally an occurrence of major developments going unknown by me. You see, there's this person that I met/started talking to in earnest a couple months ago. I wanted to get to know them better, maybe become close, see where the friendship might go (or fizzle). They were just getting through a breakup, from someone I had known.
They might not have had no clue what was going through my thoughts. Heck, even I didn't know until recently. But, either way it's where the thing of my shyness and 'slow to warm up' personality comes into play. See, ever since I was little, school would start at the end of August and it would take me months to warm up to the other kids. By the time I was finally forging friendships, summer break would hit and then, if they didn't live near me, I would basically have to start all over the next school year.
Anyway, back to the 'major' development. This person and I were talking A LOT, constant texting every day for awhile. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to have just dropped off. Bouts of sickness, work, busy schedules on both our ends seemed to be the culprit. (And what was 'blamed' as the cause.) But, I randomly signed on tonight to see in my news feed that they and their ex have reunited back into a relationship. And they had mentioned that they had met with them a few times recently. Which, connecting in my mind with a previous blog discussion about people seeming to only want to use me to fill the void until they work things out with whomever, seems to make the absence of texts I'm getting make sense.
I can recall several instances where it seemed as though I was truly being used as a 'seat filler' until the person they wanted in that particular spot of their lives came back. And this seems to fit the mold of those times.
What do you guys think? First, can you make sense of what my poor brain is trying to say? Second, do you ever experience things like this? How did you proceed with the acknowledgement when you realized what was going on- did you confront or just shrug your shoulders, thinking 'oh well, their loss.'?
There have definitely been moments when suddenly I've realized that I was getting a lot of attention from a particular friend because of a breakup in their life, and then when the next one (or the same one as in your case) comes along I seem to be forgotten about... and on the flip side, I've been in situations where I've broken up with someone so I end up clinging to a particular friend and when I've ended up taken again, my time and energy ends up getting sucked into that and I struggle to remember to reach out to my friends.
ReplyDeleteI spent most of my life being a relatively shy, passive person. It took me a long time to warm up to people, and I struggled intensely with a fear of rejection. I was seriously the type of person who would be devastated by a "No, sorry, I can't hang out today. I've got other plans," and then not reach out to a friend I wanted to see because I couldn't bear being told no. That being the case, I grew very accustomed to letting other people take the lead on our friendship. I always let other people take the lead on inviting me places and starting text message conversations... and the side effect of that always seemed to be that when a relationship in their life changed, I usually noticed it more because I wasn't constantly reaching out to the friend in the first place, and then because of my fear of rejection I'd end up feeling all butt hurt because I took their lack of contact as a rejection, when in reality? That was rarely the case.
I would reach out to your friend. Tell her that you appreciated your text talks and whathaveyou and invite her to do something and see what happens. Most people tend to appreciate that, and if for whatever reason, she ends up being flakey and not responding... It may not be worth your time.
I can relate to that. I always say that I have the opposite luck of most girls- I met a wonderful guys as teenager and we're happily married, so relationship wise I'm awesome. But my friendships have the break up routine of most romantic relationships, I just seem to be very replaceable as a friend :( It sucks, but I honestly have no idea what to do about it. I am sorry you are going through something like this though, I know firsthand how hard it is.
ReplyDeleteOh, I feel ya. :( I've definitely been there. Seat fillers are very convenient for those who are frequently in and out of relationships and can't handle being in one while still maintaining their friendships. If this is the first round of seat-filling you've experienced with that friend, maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. Chances are good that they're not intentionally trying to hurt you. But if it happens (or has happened) more than once as they vacillate back and forth between being attached and not, that's someone who is taking advantage of you. I'd encourage you to call them out on it, even subtly. ("Hey, I'd love to go out! But I hope I'm not your second choice. I missed hanging out with you over the past few weeks.")
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