“Some people, like obedient trash, know when to take themselves out.”
Sounds harsh, but I couldn’t argue at the time. Typically, things this particular friend says to me are either met with shocked silence or a knowing laugh, but rarely words. She's a great friend, and very wise, albeit, blunt.
And yet, there are those other friends, who aren’t as funny and interesting.
Friends, I don’t know if you can even call them that.
I told this one friend about my other friend and I told her the story I’m about to tell you. It took a violent end to the friendship and years of suffering before I realized she wasn’t really my friend.
You might have a friend like her.
You have them around because you knew them, or they knew you. Or they thought they knew you, or you thought you knew them. Either way, you knew each other and now you are forced to continue knowing each other. And that’s the basis for the entire friendship. Let me pause for a moment while I yawn.
The worst kind of friend can also be the best kind of friend. When you tire from dalliances with acquaintances, or people you discover were really into you sexually but pretending to be your friend because you aren’t single, or the people who only like you because you remind them of someone else, the person you are pretending to be, come on, you know what I’m talking about, at the end of the day you come back to the friends who know the real you.
Or think they do.
Or say they do, but they don’t.
Or know you but don’t appreciate you.
They don’t even really seem to like you.
But they are always there. Even if you run away from them screaming. There they are, waiting for you to remember where you came from and come on back.
Now there is nothing wrong with loyalty. A true blue friend who stands by you in your times of need. Nothing at all wrong with a friend who is a legitimately cushy shoulder to cry on, who always has a couch if you need a place to crash. Who knows they are welcome to crash on your equally available couch. Who you have no problem giving the shirt off your back to, in a totally platonic way. But I’ll be damned if some of these friendships are still not completely one-sided.
I’ve been writing for over 20 years. Imagine all the friendships a writer develops in that time. They can’t all be with other writers. It’s just not possible, trust me, it just isn’t. Often if you get someone to admit they are a writer; they tend to prefer spending weekends inside. Writing.
So, ironically, writers are forced to be friends with other writers who not only don’t know they are writers but also have no interest in said writing or reading said writing? They need these people in their lives for when they are pretending not to be writers. I mean, who do they go out to bars with?
Think about your favorite thing in the whole wide world. Your passion, your hobby, your livelihood. Let’s say it’s skateboarding. Can you imagine enduring the following conversation, twenty years into a friendship?
Friend 1: “Oh, you skateboard?”
Friend 2: “Yeah, I love it, I skateboard all the time,” “When I’m not skateboarding, I love reading about skateboarding, talking to other skateboarders about skateboarding. I even went to school for skateboarding and got my Master’s in the Fine Art of Skateboarding and met some really interesting professional skateboarders who I’ve skateboarded alongside.” “I’ve won some competitions.” “I even am trying to work skateboarding into my day job and I’m trying to start a skateboarding business.” “I’ve basically been doing all of this stuff the whole time you’ve known me.”
Friend 1: “Oh, I tried skateboarding in high school, but I’m not any good at it soooooo…”
Friend 2: “Okay…” “So…”
Friend 1 and Friend 2: *Awkward silence*
Now how realistic does that seem to you?
Twenty years into a friendship with an obsessed skateboarder this is the first realization that their friend likes to skateboard and even the first conversation they had about it.
Don’t you find that odd?
We all have the things that excite us, the stuff we geek out about. People won’t admit this but most of us become obsessed with said thing and forget there is an outside world that has zero interest in it. Because we love it. It’s our thing. We treasure it like a child treasures a favorite toy. There’s nothing wrong with it unless you refuse to acknowledge other people’s passions and obsessions in a kind and emphatic way.
Because then you are just a self-absorbed hypocrite.
So, this non-writer friend was obsessed with horses. Sometimes she would diversify and be obsessed with other farm animals, but typically when she ran out of funny goat videos to watch she would find her way back to horses. People love animals. It’s a thing. But imagine them talking about that and only that. They would attempt to talk about other things, but still the conversation would slowly find its way back to horses. And attempts to talk about other things was painful. And it seemed to anger them. To the point of belligerence.
Now imagine trying to talk to this person about skateboarding, I mean writing. Imagine you attempted this conversation for over five years and it never went anywhere. And you never would have even attempted this conversation if your friend didn’t pester, almost needle you in every conversation until the pendulum swung back to horses again. And they constantly took you to horse-related events, and they constantly introduced you to other people interested in horses. All the while ignoring your interests or events you could go to together or being at all invested in your writing life.
Imagine how long the friendship would have lasted if a conversation like this happened:
Friend 1: “I love horses so much. When I’m not horseback riding my own horse that I own, I love reading about horses, talking to other horse owners about owning horses. I even went to school for horse husbandry and my Master’s in the Fine Art of Horse-lovin’ and met some really interesting professional horseback riders who I’ve ridden alongside. I am trying to work horses into my day job and I’m trying to start a horse business…"
Friend 2: “Oh, I rode horses when I was younger, but they aren’t my thing sooooo…” (which to be fair is actually closer to the truth)
You see where this is going. The funny thing is, all of that was true.
First of all, this person was my friend, so I knew they liked horses. I would have had to put cotton balls in my ears to miss all of those hints she dropped.
But like, I said, she was my friend
I wanted to support her.
So, did I ever say “Oh, I rode horses when I was younger, but they aren’t my thing sooooo…”
No.
What did I say in response?
“That’s great, I like horses too.” “That sounds like fun, and I’m very happy for you, and I hope you are successful!”
Okay, so you might be thinking this person’s crime is that they were honest, right?
How can I fault them their lack of courtesy, and I’m the asshole for not ripping out their heart and throwing it on the floor?
After years of being this person’s friend and enduring this incredibly one-sided discourse, we went out for Mexican one night. The night was awful. I left angry and dejected. I tried to stop being this person’s friend over the course of many years but eventually felt guilted, almost manipulated back in. I went to this dinner because she invited me. I prepared for a night full of horse talk. I even rehearsed what I would say. I even found a couple of horse videos to show her so we could share in her love of horses.
And yet, this person, to my amazement spent the evening talking about other things besides horses. But it was the most toxic vitriol I ever encountered. She talked about mutual friends that I no longer spoke to that she started talking to again and about how much more interesting their lives were than mine. She criticized my relationship. She eye-rolled at me being a stepmom. She scoffed at the fact that I was engaged. She drank her tub-sized Margarita and trashed every aspect of me as a person (except my writing) and did it with a smile on her face.
So, I did the unthinkable. I started talking about my book. And I didn’t stop for ten straight minutes. I didn’t even look her in the eye I just babbled on about it to the waitress bringing our food and the people at the table next to us. I talked about writing, and how much I love it and how it’s really the only thing in the whole wide world that matters to me and thank God I had it because it was better than therapy. So yeah, I snapped. I made the conversation as awkward as I possibly could before I left. I talked about writing and only writing until I was literally blue in the face. I think I made up for twenty years of conversation in one night. She ended the night abruptly and I left for my anxiety-ridden drive home.
I left that evening no longer wanting to be her friend, but somehow the next morning she was still my friend. And for the next few weeks, she tried to get in touch with me. I was unresponsive. Another week or so went by and I got a text message:
“I miss you.”
I wrote so many responses in my head to that text.
I almost just said “I miss you, too.”
Which I often said just to make her feel better.
But it’s hard to miss someone if all you feel is relief when they aren’t around.
The text came in at 11:59 pm when I was going to bed with my fiancé so I ignored it. Then the unthinkable happened.
I woke up the next morning to this text:
“You’re a bitch, you’ve done this to me before, I hate you.”
Then moving to my Facebook, posted on one of my statuses that I needed to answer her right way.
I deleted it.
Then back to the text messages.
“Answer me!
“ANSWER ME!”
“A N S W E R M EEEEEE!”
Finally, I answered. I told her she was being incredibly rude.
She told me she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore.
And now we aren’t friends.
So, moral of the story is sometimes the trash does take itself out. Sometimes some friendships aren’t worth the hassle and you get the same loyalty from a dog. And dogs can’t talk.
But they will listen to you about your writing.