There has been something that is on my mind for a while now,
and it has to do with female friend dynamics.
Now, I am not a huge ‘girl power’ feminist, [not that there is anything
wrong with it, just not me], I have a few close girl friends but that’s really
it. I find girls are way too competitive
[for attention] and catty, and anyone who knows me knows I am a very straight
shooter. I am blunt and honest, and really,
if I do not like you, I will not sugarcoat it or pretend to be your friend to
your face, because life is too short to waste your time on anything, fake
friends especially. So in return for my
honesty and ‘realness’, I expect people do the same; I do not need everyone to
like or love me, nor do I want them to, but if they do not like me, I do not
expect them to call me up or be friendly to my face.
That being said, that was just the preface of the blog, to
add a little background and ground rules for the article.
I have several groups of friends; my close friends that I
confide in, my every day all the time friends (which is a gender mix), my ‘party
friends’ (which is a gender mix) and then acquaintances that call us ‘friends’
but we’re really not that close. Now
obviously there are friends that are in several of these groups, I am not
popular to have so many different people closely in my life, but it is the last
group, the ‘acquaintance friend’ that are the troublingly perplex.
The complexity of these people are that I have known them
for several years, maybe we even shared good times/pictures/drinks/laughs, but
we are not particularly close. Now just because
we are not close, does that mean that they are not obligated to be loyal?
If you are confused, I will paint a picture for you. Several of my friends and I have been through
the same scenario, so apparently this circumstance runs wild in the ‘friendly
acquaintance’ female world.
I live in a town that no matter where you go, you see
everyone and everyone knows you. It’s
perpetually like being on an episode of Cheers; you cannot go anywhere and have
anonymity. However, I have dated several
gentlemen (as I know my friends can also personally agree) that have been new
to the group and have benefitted and made new friends by meeting me. Now when things go sour, I do not ever expect
anyone to choose sides or not talk to someone just because we didn’t work out; that
isn’t nice and I am not like that. Nevertheless,
I think that if I dated someone, as my ‘friend’, you really shouldn’t be
skulking around them trying to hangout with them on a romantic level.
I have an ‘acquaintance friend’ that has done this with
every new beau I have brought around for the past 3 years. However, just recently it started to really upset me. How can she consider herself my ‘friend’ yet
be all up on my ex-boyfriend to hangout or subtly
attack his Facebook page?! That brought me to the following only logical explanations;
either a) we were never friends (hence the creation of the ‘acquaintance friend’)
or b) she does not understand the gravity of how inappropriate she is
being. My ex-boyfriend swears there is
not and was never anything going on and what I take as ‘flirting’ is simply her
being ‘friendly.’ -_- I call Bull. I am the friendliest person around, I can
understand an occasional blurred line, but I cannot understand this. I am extremely loyal as a friend in general,
and while I am not holding up the feminist ‘girl power’ fist, I am loyal to my
friends no matter what gender.
I cannot comprehend how anyone can think that being friendly
with someone whom you were never friends with, is normal and not flirty. I like my friends to be friends with my
boyfriend, and I like them to continue to act nice even after, because if he
never did anything to you, why should you be mean? But to text or message that
person, invite them to your parties, hang out alone, ‘like’ all of their social
media updates?? That is a bit much, and quite honestly, you look CRAY[1]!
The best part of all this ‘new found friendship’ is that the
girl never admits to the betrayal. If
the interactions are so honest and ‘friendly’, why not say something? Like ‘hey,
I see your ex deleted all of your mutual friends except me, but we hangout a
lot and it’s platonic. Is that okay?’ or ‘hey, I know you guys were never
official, which is why I still talk to him, but are you okay with that?’ I do
not even care if you curse me out to the high heavens and say it is none of my
business; just own it! Whatever decision you make, shady, respectable,
loyal, disloyal . . .just own it, admit to it, accept it. Because sincerely, if you do not have
strengths in your convictions, you have nothing.
So to all of the girls who can relate to this as the
betrayed half, you are not alone and I feel you. I hope you have some real
girlfriends you can rely on to get through and over it.
To all of the girls who are all of a sudden thinking if this
is about them. . . .Chances are it isn’t, but if you have to think about it, then you probably are
being shady and not a good friend to someone.
Rectify that or don’t, as long as you can look yourself in the mirror and
be happy with who’s looking back at you, then that is all you need to worry
about. . . but then you cannot be mad at the people who don’t like looking at
you.
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