so here's a story

i've written a lot about relationships of various sorts. probably since the inception of this blog, i've shared the good times and the difficult ones related to relationships of long and short durations. one common theme that runs through the hard times is the belief that at any moment the relationship was destined to fall apart with the other person walking away, leaving me with little understanding as to what i may have done wrong or even what is wrong with me that precipitated the departure.

i've indicated that, particularly when it comes to men, a key reason for this perspective is the absence of my father in my life. as i've stated many times before, i've come to believe that when it comes to men, my experience is that those who i care about and want to care about me eventually leave. while this life experience is certainly a significant contributor to my fears of abandonment, there is another story that is of equal impact in terms of the scars it has left on my psyche. let me share that story with you now.

many (many) years ago, in the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college, i went through a life-changing event with my best friend (to be referred to as "my bff" from this point forward) from high school. we met in our sophomore year of high school and had been very close friends from that point forward.

over the course of this fateful summer, i started to feel that my bff was less and less interested in spending time with me. when i would go to my bff's home, he seemed as if he had little interest in my being there and seemed perfectly content with the idea that i leave as soon as possible (in fact, his parent's seemed more interested to see me than he was).

never having encountered a situation like this in not only our friendship but in my life to that point, i decided to seek counsel from my mother. in doing so, she gave me the following advice. sharing that it sounded as if my friend was likely going through something and just needed some space, she suggested that i give him that space and just hold off from contacting him, trusting that he would work out whatever he was dealing with and would reach out to me soon enough.

and so, i gave him his space. i didn't make any contact and waited until he was ready to reengage in our friendship once more. that time never came, and i never heard from him again. he just left. no explanation. no reason given. no goodbye.

while i know the remorse over the loss of that particular friendship has long since dissipated (though believe me it took many, many years before it did), the wound still remains and tenaciously refuses to heal. i know this to be true because whenever i enter into similar circumstances in a friendship, the fear grows that another loss is about to come. another shoe will drop and another hole will be created in my heart.

now i find myself in one of those "similar circumstances." greater and greater distance has emerged in my relationship with a current friend. when we do have contact, he seems not to have any interest in engaging me and has left me feeling that he would rather not deal with me at all. when confronted with my concerns, he shares that he's just been really busy. with this being the case, and following the devastating experience of a week ago, i've decided to give him his space to work through whatever is going on in his life, knowing that if he is indeed desirous of a friendship with me, he will eventually reach out to me again.

it's been a week since we last had any form of contact. as you can imagine this is not sitting well with me, and the pain in my heart is becoming ever more palpable. for you see, i already have an experience of days without contact turning into weeks turning into years turning into never again. i really, truly don't want that to happen again with this friend, and i know there's not much i can do about it except grieve and hope that the wound left by this loss doesn't go quite as deep as the one left by my high school bf(not so)f.

alone in my pain

on my ride to the airport this morning, i thought about the blog entry i'd written earlier in the day.  and with that reflection, i noticed how the pain in my heart just would not subside. i thought about how i was heading to yet another place where i would spend more time alone. i thought about how many nights i've slept alone and how many more there were yet to come, with no end in sight.

as my heart broke even more, i realized that probably the most difficult aspect of this time in my life is that i am going through this experience completely alone. in the midst of this pain and sadness, i have no significant other and no intimate friends in my immediate sphere of contact.

it is true that I have a few friends. it is also true that i engage with all of them online via a combination of text, email, and instant messaging. while satisfying to a certain to degree, i've also come to feel that, when the primary means for engaging these relationships is virtual, it feels as if my "place" in the lives of the majority of these friends begins and ends with the pushing of an "on" button.

obviously, i can't speak for others who find themselves in a similar life dynamic, and maybe it has something to do with my age, but, for me, i've begun to feel like these relationships have more of a utilitarian aspect to them. in other words, i've come to feel as less of a person and more like an appliance -- turned on when people want to engage me and switched off (sometimes abruptly) when they are done. and when they are done, they are done, meaning that i seldom if ever come to mind outside of this space powered by technology.

i rarely feel i get an opportunity to express myself completely. i always feel that something is lost in translation, being restricted as i am to words on an electronic page. there is no nuance that comes from the inflection placed on a word, the look in the eyes, or the making of a gesture. perhaps the most significant drawback is the lack of any physical expression of support. there is no gentle touch of the hand, no embrace, no shoulder to cry upon.

i find that when i'm at my most vulnerable, my most broken, my most in need, these conversations always end too soon. the time is up. off goes the switch. and i am again alone. alone in my pain.

unvalued

i had (very) tentative plans to meet up with a friend this week. at periodic times over the last couple of months, i would check in to see if those plans were coming together. never in this time did this friend reach out to me to share with me what progress he was making. with each check-in, he said he had been too busy to reach out to me about how things were going, but he was "still working on it."

when this week arrived and i'd received no word that he was coming, i naturally assumed that he wouldn't be joining me. naturally, i was disappointed, but what actually hurt was the fact that he did not share with me himself that he wasn't coming.

as chance would have it, i had the opportunity to share some of these feelings with him in an online chat monday night, particularly the point about how his not contacting me did hurt me. i shared that things used to be different. that now it seemed as if he didn't want to talk with me. that it seemed as if our friendship was coming to a close (and i thought but didn't express that here we go further down the road to my becoming a memory in his life).

he dismissed those thoughts. said the lack of contact was due to the fact that he was "just busier." he said he was actually still working on coming later in the week. he then stated that we should chat the next day, and our conversation ended.

that chat never happened, nor did any further word about whether he would be coming or not. i was in a word devastated -- not because he wasn't coming (to be totally honest, from the moment i invited him to meet me, i gave it no better than a 25% chance). what elicited this deep emotional pain was the fact that i had explicitly shared that what had hurt me was the fact that i had not heard from him. so what happened following that confession? i didn't hear from him.

i sent him a text yesterday expressing some element of what i was going through. he responded that he had been busy with no time. he asked how my day was going. i told him i was "wrecked" by his lack of contact. he said "i'm sorry" (a gesture that i actually took to be an expression of his condolences about how i was feeling and not any recognition of any complicity he may have had in my emotional state). i said (and meant) that was all i needed, meaning any acknowledgement of how i was feeling was appreciated.

and yet i sit here haunted by the question of "what does it mean when someone, who says he's your friend, won't take a minute out of his day to send you a text with his regrets that he won't be able to fulfill your invitation to meet your and enjoy one another's company?" my heart has been breaking that after two years of friendship i am not worth his time. and of course these feelings have unearthed a deeper pain.

i feel completely "unvalued" in this friendship, in my work, in my life, and i question if i ever will be.

in this specific situation, i continue to really like this person. i continue to care about him. i continue to kind of miss him. i continue to feel that he feels none of these things for me.