Someone sent me a website link today to a Pinterest board. She did it because she knew that I'd never find it on my own because, unlike the rest of the world (apparently), I don't Pinterest. I look at Pinterest links that people post on Facebook of cool things, but I don't have my own account, and I don't "follow" anyone. Spending my life on Facebook 24/7 is enough for me, and I figure all the REALLY cool things will show up there anyway.
En. E. Way.
Someone sent me a Pinterest link to the board you created just for me. How do I know it was for me? Because it was created a day or two after we had what I thought was an argument but you clearly thought was much, much more, because you cut off all contact with me completely. Because it had 'pins' on it of little quotes/sayings that you captioned or followed up with things that were relevant to our disagreement. Because almost all of the quotes say things about "frenemies", which is the last post of yours that I saw on Facebook before you unfriended me, then blocked me. And if they don't reference frenemies, they say nasty things about friends who really aren't, or how friends never talk behind your back, or poisonous people disguised as friends and family. There's even an awesome one there that says our relationship became one where you call me a motherf*cker and wish I would die.
Today, it has 104 pins on it. That's a lot of hurtful things to have aimed at me. Especially since, contrary to what this board seems to be saying, I haven't said a word about you to anyone since about a week after you shut me out of your life without a word.
One hundred and four. ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR. And ironically, most of them are denigrating the practice of talking behind one's back, not talking TO someone instead of ABOUT them, or bemoaning the fact that so many people claim to be moving on, and yet spend so much time talking about or trying to tear down the one they claim to have moved on from.
I have never, ever been so pathetically wrong about someone in my entire life.
You were my best friend. Not my BFF, even though you used that cutesy term for me all the time; that's a kiddy term, one that goes along with saying "totes adorbs", and one that I detest. But because you were my BEST FRIEND, I accepted those little quirks of yours, along with dozens of others, because I thought I was also getting acceptance of my quirks, kindness, support, and love from you. But I loved you. I loved you like a sister. More, because while I do love my own sisters, I thought our relationship was so much closer. You were the first person to know about my pregnancy (aside from Dr. Husband); did you know that? You were also one of four people in the ENTIRE WORLD with whom I shared the horror of my miscarriage. My own mother doesn't even know I've been pregnant three times. I finally told the rest of the world in a very backhanded way three years after the fact, but I trusted you with the knowledge and the pain in the very beginning.
I picked you up from your house and took you out for dessert when you needed to cry about work. You would come to my house and play with my children, even though you professed to dislike most children, and I felt so privileged and proud. And my children loved you. Not as much as I did, but they would ask when you could come visit if it had been awhile.
And you took my older son on his first date.
We talked about everything. We gossiped and griped and vented to each other. We understood each other. When my family moved away, we stayed in touch as best we could (yay Facebook), and you would say nearly every day how much you missed me and hated that you were missing seeing my kids grow up.
And I thought....I really, really thought...that if we had a fight, we'd be able to go away from each other for a bit, then come back and talk it out.
Which is why, when you blocked me from your Facebook life (which used to be about 90% of our communication), I wrote you an email, called your cellphone (which you didn't answer, of course), and then sent you a text. You didn't respond to any of these attempts to talk to you.
But...the pins on the board give me your replies loud and clear:
"I should have gotten rid of you way before I did."
"Maybe my silence is trying to tell you something."
"Dedicated to anyone who wonders if I'm writing about them. I am."
"Whatever pathetic excuse you have, I don't want to hear it. You're dismissed and deleted."
"I'm sorry our love/hate relationship has turned (into) a hate/please die motherf*cker relationship."
"I'm making changes, so if you don't hear from me, you're one of them."
"So don't sit there and try to tell me that I don't know what I think I know. I know, bitch. I know 100% w/o a single doubt." (This one was particularly hurtful to read, as it was your own words, not a some-ecard you cribbed.)
I have seen you get into arguments with other friends, take offense,
then cut them off. I myself generally didn't tell you when my opinions
differed from yours because you seemed to take offense at it (even though
you declare to anyone who will listen that you don't). I usually preferred
to just keep quiet. But over the last half-year or so, I started
saying what I think to you more often...and now I wonder if that was
part of what made you decide you didn't need me around any more. But
still, I didn't really consider that you would put me in your personal
version of 'time out' (your myriad restricted groups in your friends
list) or ever unfriend me, because I always, always, always thought I
was different. I thought I was special. I was an idiot for believing
you.
Knowing you the way I do, I know that you wanted me to find this board. I hurt your feelings that night, so you need to hurt me back. After you didn't respond to my overtures, I didn't have much choice but to let you go, and I miss you every day. But I also see that you don't view the Pinterest board dedicated to me as 'talking about someone behind their back'. And with pins that state "One of the most profoundly human things you can do is talk to people instead of about them", I question your logic.
And more than ever before, I am really, really glad I saved all of our private messages on Facebook. I don't like reading them any more, because so many of them are full of bushwah that I now know you didn't really mean (support, love, best friend, missing you, you'll be okay, I'll always be here, etc. etc. etc.). But I will never delete them, because who knows what I may need to have access to if you should ever decide to come out with a carefully sanitized version of things you've said in the past.
But I'm so very hurt. Which, as I said before, is exactly what you wanted. So....you win. You hurt me. Even though I don't think I could ever trust you again, my heart is broken, and I think I'll probably miss your presence in my life forever. You can be secure in the knowledge that you won.
But I still won't be talking about you to our other friends, unless they ask me about you. Sorry to disappoint you and leave you with no real reason for the pins you've put on the Pinterest board you've dedicated to me. Other people would point out to you that you're letting me live rent-free in your brain, and showing the entire world with each pin that you can't stop trying to hurt my feelings, which makes you such a very small person.
But I'll just be sad. I am very sorry that I hurt your feelings by laughing at your dislike of cold weather, and hurt them further with my backhanded comment that expressed my anger at being shoved in a time-out. And I'm even sorrier that you didn't give me an opportunity to apologize with my actual voice, or at least in a letter or email.
But I'm mostly sorry that I misjudged our friendship in such an astronomical way. Believe me, no one wishes more than I that I didn't care so much about the loss of someone so dear to me. Finding out the truth about someone doesn't mean I don't feel wretched about losing a friendship. Even when the friend never really was.
