Things have been pretty tough between M and me lately. The silences and subtley harsh words have been taking their toll on my wellbeing and our friendship. M has a tendency to ask loaded questions, which makes me stumble in conversation as I search for the exact neutral phrases that I think are appropriate. You see, I am determined not to satisfy her with the answer she is looking for, but I am also desperately trying not to upset her unnecessarily. It’s tightrope walk.
Over the past two nights we’ve had late-night heart-to-heart chats about our relationship and these things always end with her being upset because I let the truth slip out: that she has acted apallingly.
Last night’s chat was about the chat we had the night before. She had said that the way she had been acting lately had been a strategy, a staged drama, if you like, to help me fall out of love with her. That all the silences and criticism, all the nastiness and personnality assassination had been a deliberate act of wall-building to help me get over her. She had done it on purpose. She had shown me her worst side. So I said that was fine, but it had backfired and she had been in danger of losing me as a friend. And that, quite frankly, I couldn’t see myself in a relationship with someone who would act in that way. I didn’t want to be with someone like that.
We slept on it and the next night she said that she didn’t like what I had said about me not wanting to be with someone who would act like that. That I made her sound like a monster. And anyway, she’d made a mistake and didn’t mean to say ‘on purpose’ and could not think of the word she wanted to use; but it didn’t matter because she didn’t do it on purpose, it was something she couldn’t help doing because she was, and still is, emotionally confused about her break-up with Jeff.
I could tell that she wanted me to apologise for those harsh-but-true words. She kept on repeating that she couldn’t understand how someone who purported to be her friend could say such a thing about her. That it was unfair, and that … But you said you did it on purpose. If you hadn’t have said that, I wouldn’t have said what I said in response. And I still stand by that sentiment: I wouldn’t want to be with someone who acts in that way.
The conversation went round and round in circles until she finally gave up seeking that elusive apology and moved on to another thing I said when she’d asked me who my best friends are. I listed three or four but had not included her, and she was hurt by that. Why wasn’t she on that list? Do I consider her a close friend? I told her that I wasn’t prepared to answer such schoolgirl questions and, that she had no right to ask it. In the consequent squirming and stammering as she furiously tried to back-pedal she called me JEFF!