Getting over Friends

Good people have friends. I have friends. Ergo, I am a good person. Simple. And wildly untrue.

Step aside from the Good/Bad debate for a moment and we can acknowledge that unlikable and cruel people have friends. Irritating, but true. And we can flip that, in some cases, kind and unique people may not have walked a path that has given them the chance to meet possible friends. I don't think either of these statements really apply to me, or at least I hope they don't, but I can't pretend it doesn't throw me a bit. It would be nice to believe that something as precious as a friend would only be given to someone worthy, but that's never really been true has it?

I've been doing this maths in my head for years, see if you can spot where I have good wrong.

Friendships are important, having friends is important, being a good friend is important, good friends last a lifetime, and being a good friend makes you a good person. Is this true? It doesn't seem like enough of a criteria for 'good' but at the same time the reverse certainly feels true, being a 'bad' friend can sure as hell make you feel like a 'bad person'. The problem is knowing when you have been a bad friend, and how bad? Are you unethical? cruel? apathetic? demanding? toxic? or just dull? And if the friendship ends, was it ever a friendship?

Friendships are so unbelievably easy to fuck up. But the thing that consistently seems to fuck them up is time. The majority of friends I have had passed in eras or proximity, when I left London I unknowingly abandoned the vast majority of friends, trying to maintain those friendships I was suddenly an inconvenience to be slotted in every 3-6 months. Had I known how changing home would end friendships I valued, I would have been so much more terrified to do it. Ultimately, I made new friends, a new era, an era of easy and rewarding friendships with more variation and depth than I could have imagined had I stayed where I was. I can make peace with the community I left and in turn the lack of effort from them, existing is after all exhausting. That being said, I can think of two friendship breakups/endings that I just can not seem to shake. Two that have been rattling around my head and my core for years, and I still don't know the answer to that age-old question 'Was it me?' They have been haunting me this week. The irony of all ironies, is whilst I can not make peace with these friendships ending, I was fine seeing my ex's holiday snaps with his new girlfriend this week. So why is this friendship, arguably less intense and definately less intimate holding such a power over my sense of self? Why does being discarded by them make me feel like a failure?

I suppose I don't believe you can 'have' friends, only friendships. Friends are the people on the other side of the relationship that I treasure, and I have no ownership over them or their lives. I can't imagine limiting them in way, shape, or form. Likewise, I can't imagine giving any of them the right to limit me either, and I suppose this keeps them one arm's length away.

Meeting new people has never been a problem, I'm confident that on encountering me people will decide if they like me of not and I will respect that choice. After all, if you meet enough people odds are some will be your people. The bit that freaks me out, and gives me anxiety, is the bit that comes next. A friendship hitting the 3-year mark, the honeymoon is truly over and the patterns have come to the surface. It's often around this point that I sense whether or not people will be sticking around. Now I need to be clear here, many have, I am fortunate that I do have long-term friendships but not many. The 3-year friends tend to be the lifetime of most friendships, and that scares me. People consistently pull away out of seemingly nowhere, in reality, it has come from somewhere. My life moves fast, every 3 years have looked wildly different from the 3 years prior, and the 3 years before that. It makes sense that the people in my life would echo my life as it is. But that doesn't make the loss of friendship any less rattling.

The two friendships I mentioned earlier rattle me in different ways, but in it's simplest terms they rattle me because I think I was the problem in those friendships. Or at least I was made to *feel* that I was the problem. I think these two people looked at me and made the active choice to end that friendship. Because I wasn't worth their time, energy, and affection. Otherwise phrased, I wasn't worth their friendship.

I have to respect that choice. I have to respect that they didn't want me. But that is so much harder to accept 3-years in than 3-minutes in. First impressions are not the problem, the problem is that people leave once they get to know me. It is a cruel thing, to leave someone who loves you, but far crueller to stay. My mind knows this. I know that their leaving is the best thing to do long term, but I won't pretend it doesn't rattle me.

I wonder now how many people I have rattled? I wonder if my eras, that I veiw with super love, have left people wondering where I am? How I am? do I think of them? The same way I wonder about these two. I want to reach out, to say 'hey, remember that time when we loved each other? wasn't that good? wasn't that friendship?' But I've reached a point where I know that some people walk out of your life and you never see them again. Sometimes there are last-times.