9 posts tagged “friends”

Wedding planning continues apace, with our vows chosen (we went for the traditional required statements, and that's it. Why make people sick having to listen to you promise to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every second Tuesday for life?) and everything important booked. The dressmaker for the bridesmaids dresses is popping over to the house for a chat on Sunday and that just leaves the flower girls' dresses which I'm not remotely worried about.

Talk about grown up, though. My mother-in-law was chatting to the eldest bridesmaid, Georgia, about the day. She's 7. Going on 45.

MIL:            Are you looking forward to being a bridesmaid?
Georgia:     Of course!
MIL:            What sort of dress would you like?
Georgia:     Whatever Alex wants us to wear.

I liked the kid anyway, she's beautiful, smart and thoughtful which is a winning combination in anyone, but now I like her even more.

Last night we also went to see a diamond setter / ring designer / jeweller who's a friend of the family. MIL has - with tremendous generosity - offered me part of a multi-gemstone ring for me to make part of my wedding ring. Which means if it works I'll have a row of diamonds, eternity ring style, on one side and a plain band on the other, so I can wear it as bling or more muted as I choose. He's studying it now to see if it can be done. Even if I can't, I'll be eternally grateful that she offered - it's not about the diamonds but the sentiment. What a way to show that I'm part of the family; she offered it to me because the ring was left to her by one of Ashley's favourite relatives who adored him.

I also met his wonderfully mad aunt at the weekend, who is just brilliant. She's a headteacher at a private boarding school and her husband is equally lovely. They have ducks! And a gorgeous cat! Plus she's an amazing cook and has a sense of humour about everything. What's not to like? She was going to play the harp at the wedding but can't get the instrument down to Oxford which is such a shame.

Sometimes, despite all the aggravation life and hormones can throw at me, I do know I am one of luckiest people on earth.

If there's one personality trait guaranteed to fuck me right off, it's people being unnecessarily childish.

By this I don't mean childlike or playful. I'm quite happy for my friends and family to scuttle around like hyperactive terriers and enjoy reading children's books or watching kiddie films. Personally, I love Disney World, for example.

But when it comes to any sort of relationship, professional or personal, close or distant, once you let the element of the playground in, it's all over. I just realised while I was having a followee cull on Twitter that someone I worked with before this job removed me and took me off their Facebook etc, etc. None of which would really have any significance for me (because we don't work together now, or even precisely in the same field, and we're not really friends) if I hadn't bumped into her at a mutual acquaintance's shindig the other week and had her be blatantly rude to my face.

Having met Ash on several occasions before, she was always very nice about him. On this occasion she ignored him completely and grunted a pained "hello" at me because I unsuspectingly went "Oh hi! How are you?" (I know, wasn't that terrible of me? I'm such a bitch.)

The fact is she started being an arsehole to me around three months before I left the job and I probably complained about this to someone who told her. I hold my hand up - I should have just asked her what the hell was wrong and fixed it if I'd done something to upset or offend her. But then she seemed to stop freaking out and even sent me a message or two after that so I just filed her in the "polite acquaintaince" box.

I actually respect her for trimming the fat - we've all done it with friends who are basically no longer friends and it's easier still if you were never really friends in the first place. But simple manners wouldn't hurt. She can be as rude as she likes to me but why drag Ash into it? He was just being friendly (he does have some terrier-like traits, it's true).

You know, I started this post thinking I could muster some righteous indignation at the person concerned but really it's about all childish people, from those who throw their toys out of the pram in website comments to those who let PMT dictate not only whom they want to speak to but whom they do actually speak to.

Sad to say, 90% of my experiences of this kind - and they are thankfully few in the grand scheme of things - have been with other women. So much for the sisterhood...

Work friendships, that is.

I have a strange history of work friendships. At my first major job, I ended up with several close friends, mostly male, one of whom I shared a flat with for a year and another of whom I'm going to marry in four months. So I'd say that went well.

At the next job, however, it all went a bit... squidgy. Quite a lot of people were younger than me, and sometimes that made me feel very old and out of touch. It was an almost all-female environment, which for some reason I struggle with. Some were also single, and I think they might have felt I was a bit 'smug married' because to the outsider there's a fine line between smug and brutally bloody grateful.

Does age matter? Generally, no. My friends tend to range from about 23-40, but I don't have entry requirements beyond thinking you're nice and trusting you - you can be any damn age you please as long as you're interesting and friendly. Make up an age, if you like.

So why did I feel old? I guess it was the amount of bitching that went on behind people's backs. I am sure that if I didn't get bitched about it was only because I was too boring. Everyone else was furiously Skyping back and forth and the worst part was that I found myself caught up in it and taking part. And I started to hate that, and myself. And they probably didn't much enjoy it either. It wasn't really any formative part of the reason I left which was a purely professional development direction (I realised I didn't really want to continue specifically down the path I was on but meander a fraction to the left of it) but I certainly don't miss it. Instead I can indulge in missing some of the people, and not the versions of ourselves we tried so hard to project through gossip.

Today the girl sitting next to me went out for lunch with the girls who sit opposite. They chatted about it loudly but didn't ask me or my manager if we'd like to come along. A year ago I would have been hurt and wondered what I'd done; today I was relieved.

I've made every effort to be friendly and welcoming and have chats with anyone around, but I've also made zero effort to actually be friends with anyone.  I don't see them outside work and I've yet to make it to a pub drinks, although I would go with a bit more warning. Whether they didn't ask me because I'm technically one step up the food chain from one of them or whether it's because they just don't know / like / want to know me - I'm kind of surprised that I'm not sweating it. I feel like I should be. But if the inter-office politics, mild though they were, of the last job taught me anything it's that friends are friends and colleagues are colleagues.

I'm not saying never the twain shall meet, because that's silly. It obviously happens (hey Ashley!). But I just won't go looking for friends at work anymore. Because when you need someone you trust to bitch to about stuff that's going down at the office, they shouldn't be from the same office.

It's probably no coincidence that of the people I met at the last job that I'm still actually friends with (I'm in touch with a few, either for work reasons or as friendly acquaintances, but little more), one has known me for five years, one has left and one is just one of the sweetest people in the known universe and has never, ever said a bad thing about anyone else in my presence.

I wish I could be more like her.

Dear L,

Nobody's perfect. All of us look at our outside sometimes and think "ugh - look at that flab" or "yeesh, is that a wrinkle?". Not everyone can examine every inch of themselves with pride and pronounce themselves 100% perfect.

When I was little I wanted to grow up to be... someone else. I wanted to be slim and toned and have green eyes and thick, raven (or possibly red) hair. I hated exercise and ate too much, so the first aim was out. The green eyes were something of an impossibility without contacts and my hair remains resolutely chocolate brown and very thin and flossy. If I could change the texture, I would, but I've grown to like the colour.

I also loathed, loathed, loathed my nose. I'm still not too keen on it. It's fine when I have my specs on but there's this big ol' bump on it that's really visible when I don't. I am dreading the wedding pictures. I'd have surgery on it (and expensive dental work on the crooked tooth) if I wasn't scared of the potential disaster. What if they botch it and I end with Liam Neeson's hooter? (Looks great on Liam Neeson, I hasten to add). With the tooth I'm just scared of the pain.

Also, Ashley has reacted with some distress. He loves my nose, prodding it delightedly and announcing with no small measure of admiring pride that I "have a big nose!". He calls it "multifunctional" and squeezes the tip with glee. He also thinks that if I fixed my teeth my "adorable" mokus (squirrel) face would no longer be as cute. I never thought it was cute.

That's my point. You cannot demand from people that they hate you as much as you hate yourself. You cannot predict what someone else will like. You say that there simply is no-one anywhere that could like you and then push them away because you don't like you. It's a common problem, but it breaks my heart because I know the pain of it and I know how fabulous you are.

I'm not going to lie - some people won't find you attractive. Because if everyone fancied everyone else then... well, then everyone would be having a lot more sex and monogamy would probably be dead in the water. But they just don't, and I don't think you want everyone to fancy you. Think of the havoc it would play with your time!

But some people will. Not only that, they do. Every week, every month, every year, you come across people who like you, inside and out, and you either don't notice or they don't tell you or there's nothing they can do about it, but it happens all the time.

You are the only person who cannot see you from the outside. And therefore you are the last person who gets to judge whether you're outwardly attractive or not. You don't even need to care about it - you just need to care about whether you're healthy (all that exercise! How could you not be?! And a vegan diet to boot) and if you're doing at least some of the things you'd like to.

That second one is bloody difficult for everyone, but only you can address it. I couldn't possibly judge, and wouldn't want to.

You've told me before that "if you were only thin" or "if you only had a boyfriend" it would solve everything. It doesn't. At least once a month, Ashley has to swallow his frustration and help pull me out of a quagmire of misery when I just can't seem to count my (many) blessings. There's no outward cure to anger, frustration, depression and self-loathing - there is only getting the idea in your head that you are worthwhile and then repeating it to yourself in a variety of different ways until it sinks in a little further each time. It's hard fucking work and the results can be a long time coming. But it's the only way.

"If only" is the worst thing we could do to ourselves. I'm not telling you things I haven't said to myself and I don't always take my own advice. I wouldn't even load my (unasked for) ideas on you if I didn't love you very much indeed and just want to see you happy in yourself.

You're one of the oldest, closest and most intelligent, loving friends I have. I would smack anyone else who said horrible things about you, so I'm choosing to smack your self-esteem goblins instead.

Hugs, love and a listening ear,

Alex

xxx

I'll be there for you... when I feel like it

In fact, I don't hate Ashley's friends. At all. Most of them I have a pretty good relationship with and at least one I think I missed more than Ashley did when we went on holiday. Between them they have the kind of relationship where you ring up for a chat whenever that I've sort of lost with quite a few of my friends (not that I don't appreciate some forward planning) and a warmth and understanding between them which is admirable.

And I don't even hate HER. I feel sorry for her, feel peeved by her attitude and dislike the way she manipulates Ashley. But I appreciate Ashley is responsible for allowing himself to be manipulated and I simply don't have it in me to really hate.

The Secret History

SHE is an old friend of Ashley's from around ten years back. They were, at one point, fuckbuddies and this sort of kind of did or didn't drift into a relationship. Ashley says he never counted it as one and they both dated other people. SHE announced proudly to me when I first met her (nervous, outnumbered on her home turf) that she had turned Ash from a crap car driving mamma's boy into the boy I was going out with and it was all credit due to her. Mhm. Sure.

Anyway, SHE moved to New York before I really appeared on the scene, and yet even from there managed to create an uncomfortable situation between Ashley and a friend, E, when SHE claimed said friend was annoyed at us for being too coupley (on that occasion, we really weren't). E denied ever having thought twice about it.

None the less, we somehow managed to get on. Then, when Ash and I moved in, SHE created a huge song and dance over me removing him from his family and friends (by suggesting we get a flat nearer my neck of the woods, a whole 20 minutes' drive away from where he was before and continues to work). All that SHE predicted - Ashley's loss of independence and personality -has yet to come to pass eight months later. We had a clash, and I was temporarily furious with Ashley for making a ham-fisted job of defending me. But back then a lot was happening at once and I actually don't blame him for his slight helplessness and have put that incident behind us.

We continued to, in a way, get on. SHE continued to interject her unasked for opinion on everything in our lives from when we have the wedding to where we're going on honeymoon. Then SHE had a falling out with Ash's closest friend, D, over the fact that SHE thought it completely normal to expect him to leave his wife with friends in the city and come up to Albany to see her alone. Why? Because SHE had never really liked his wife. After the inevitable argument, SHE insisted that her point of view and lifestyle weren't being respected. Despite basically thinking SHE was wrong, I stayed out of it and we somehow managed to continue to get along.

Ashley then went through a phase of being a crap friend. No buts - he was rubbish. So he decided to ring up and make amends, and made plans to see her yesterday when SHE was in the UK for a brief period. Later SHE announced that her plans were that Ash should pick her up, ferry her to her gran's in Southgate and then come back to West Hampstead to meet with me and another friend (E, the same one she tried to convince us was angry at our couplyness) for dinner. I rather baulked at this request as Ash doesn't know her grandmother and it was a rather girlfriend like request. Still, I opted to stay out of it. Ashley wasn't keen on this turn of events, being a baffled as to why I was excluded, but decided to go ahead with it.

Yesterday:

12:00pm - SHE rings to say she'll go to gran's alone, and we'll meet for dinner in W. Hampstead at 6:30
6:25pm - SHE rings, when we've just arrived at the restaurant, to say her gran wanted to see her for a bit longer, so she's still there and will be an hour and a half late, so Ash should come and pick her up. He explains he has his car (2 seater), so SHE says, in that case, two hours.

Now, this is how Ashley tells it. SHE claims she said 'up to' that long and was actually back within half an hour.

Ashley was incandescent. Not only was he enraged at the lack of forethought in calling so late, he felt like he was being treated as a taxi driver. (He later received a message from her when she was on her way back saying 'come and pick me up' again - this time from a local station. Not asking - telling).

We had some dinner and he was shaking, jaw set. It takes an awful lot to make him angry, but this did it. We went to see D, who was unsurprised. D later called E about something else and discovered E had expected to still meet us there and felt stood up. We didn't know - which is why we left, we'd never have been so rude otherwise - but E's upset is my only regret in all this. Still, I don't believe E was that upset - or upset for the reasons she now states - until SHE convinced her to be.

Honesty Kills

The fact is, I was glad to be rid of her. SHE has since called up and - in an unprecedented move - apologised to Ash. Of course, she's apologised with about fourteen qualifications, so it means nothing.

I'm not sorry he accepted the apology - I have enormous admiration for people who show forgiveness and understanding - but I am sorry SHE is back in our lives. I've had to take the step of saying that I want nothing more to do with her ever, under any circumstances (so she'll finally get him alone - yay her!). I know this seems manipulative, but I really don't want to come between them.

I just think her peremptory and arrogant behaviour sucks. SHE claims she has a 'long list' of male friends who have deserted her after becoming part of a couple, but instead of blaming me and the relationship can she consider that if it's a long list SHE is to blame, not all of them? You can't be clingy and divisive with one half of a couple, pushing their other half out and being secretive and then expect not to eventually be excluded yourself.

The positivity has taken a bit of a dip, thanks to completely failing to deal with one aspect of the future plotting. In terms of honouring work commitments, however, I've improved (and now I'm very glad that I recognised my ability to create a rod for my own back and didn't publish a 1-10 style list of aims).

A lovely evening meal last night has unfortunately unsettled my stomach so I'm curled up on the sofa looking a bit green and wincing. It wasn't the cooking, more likely the amount I put away! It was so nice to just go round to a dear friend's house and be fed and talk and laugh and reminisce. I'm not the first or last person to point out the beauty of simple things, but really I think there's no harm in pointing it out again.

Sometimes I feel like every blog post should be an open letter, or a call to arms, or a cleverly themed exploration of a universal feeling or perhaps an indignant, interested or irritated response to the news. But sod it, I don't have to be inspired all the time and right now I'm mostly inspired to double up in pain.

I've been, instead, reading around other blogs this morning, and watching for the waves of similarity and difference. A strong picture emerges of a very specific type of blogger (and this particularly seems to apply to successful, readable female bloggers) who is vulnerable-yet-incisive, revealing illogicality and quirkiness whilst calling the world on its bullshit. Yet often these are the most accomplished emotional vampires. If they were communicating in person they'd be demanding understanding, patience and time from everyone but since they're writing online their lifeblood is the commentary and recognition.

I sometimes wonder if I'm one of them (without the incisive posts, of course). I do love the conversation that springs from comments, but a year of professional blogging cured me of the need to seek approval from the blog-reading public. I am not super-human, but I can mostly ignore negativity now. It's become easier since my personal blogs have small readerships I do not trouble to expand and the professional blogs I now write are on less contentious topics than geekery.

Am I indulging, then, in emotional vampirism? I think perhaps I'm moving in the opposite direction. I expect (and sometimes, sadly, deliver) less and less from people around me apart from my immediate family and closest friends because as I grow in confidence I seek the approval of fewer people generally. That doesn't mean I've become cold and indifferent - far from it. I just expect less credit for basic acts of human kindness and try to achieve less selfishness. I use the fact that I don't like it when I fail to spur me to be a better person (I fail, I don't like it, I keep trying).

Yesterday, Ashley and I were talking about depression, and the responses to depression. I opined (in my non-researched way) that there seemed to be two loose groups of post-depressives: those who, since they've come back from the brink, have nothing but sympathy and patience for this hideous condition and those who, because they've come back from the brink, bypass empathy in favour of holding themselves up as an example of beating it.

There's a fine line. You can indulge a depressive too much and fail to give people positive examples if you fall into the first category. In the second you can lose some of your humanity. I've heard friends of mine who I know have skated close to the edge of suicide complain vociferously when their train is held up by a desperate death bid. Because, of course, the suffering of their unpleasant journey home is so much worse than the horror that person must have suffered before jumping in front of a train. I used to think that way too - "couldn't they go and kill themselves quietly somewhere?!" - until I experienced some hurt and losses that gave me an insight into how bad things could get. I don't need to have clutched the razorblades to understand what drives people in that direction.

One of the things Ashley and I have in common is a youth spent visiting someone close in a range of mental health wards. I never feel I am compassionate or kind or selfless enough, but I recognise that the goodness I do display is down, largely, to having had experiences and awareness of things beyond the little, closed world in my head.

So, in the end, I think that's what the emotional vampirism comes down to. Those people might be travelling and having amazing experiences but in the end they're trapped in their own heads and have the world view of a hermetically sealed pistachio. I'm not pretending I've flung open the door to big picture thinking, but it's wedged open and I'll continue to push.

Stream of consciousness done.

There were some other things I wanted to say that went out of my head when D called. I still can't remember them all, but there was one that is even more relevant now, so...

4. It's Not The Person Who Leaves You Tongue-Tied But The One Who Sets Your Tongue Free. It's so easy to be so swept away with awe and admiration that you lose the ability to talk about what you want, need, deserve and expect from a relationship. The perfect man / woman will not be the one who dictates or demonstrates to you how to live, but the one who shows consideration without needing (too much) prompting, and who calls you on your bullshit. And believe me, we all have a veritable manure heap of bullshit to carry around with us.

It's not the person who doesn't appear to have any that is 'perfect', neither the one who refuses to see yours and puts you on a pedestal. The One sees you for what you are and loves you anyway. They'll help you change what you want to change, and accept what you don't. They'll help you love what you didn't think you could and think for more than just yourself. When you've found the person who will let you be stupid, silly, innocent, clever, questioning, bizarre, stroppy, understanding, irrational and intelligent, calling you on your shit in a gentle, respectful and above all helpful way, then do them the honour of being that person for them, and hang on to them for as long as it keeps being like this. Bliss will be yours, no matter what they look like or what your friends think.

That title has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I just said it to Ash and it so summed up the dynamics of our wonderful, faintly twisted love affair that it had to be documented. So there.

This post should really be entitled: Things I've Learned About Being Young (Because I'm Starting To Be Less So And I Like It That Way). Or something catchier. These are things I couldn't help thinking about today.

1. You Will Grow Out Of This. And then you will feel embarrassed for having liked it until you get to this blissful age where it feels secretly cool to be sad. Finally you stop caring altogether about whether it's cool or not - it was just something you liked at a point in time and what with other things going on back then it either fills you with nostalgic fondness or a vague sense of doom.

2. You're A Sheep. Yeah, you know those people who you think are sheep simply because their hero or heroine is a little more mainstream than yours? You are exactly as ovine as they are. I promise you, your feelings towards the object of your affection are every bit as humiliatingly sycophantic (and every bit as important in helping you define who you are). You are unique not because you follow a particular person, because you won't be the only one following them, but thanks to the combination of influences you will ingest. Later on they will emerge in new and interesting ways and that is when you will truly feel comfortable in your own skin.

Baaaaaaa.

3. When You're Hurt, You Hurt Just Like A Teenager. Forever. In the middle of this post, the phone rang. One of my best friends, reporting being dumped in a particularly depressing way. We've sobbed together and I'm going over armed with chocolate, vodka and anything else I can think of. But the childlike pain in her voice is the same as it ever was. It doesn't get any easier. But at least after you've been through it once (or more times), you know it goes away. Every time you cry you appreciate every laugh that much more.

I haven't the heart to continue this now. I feel I should be there with her but she dissuaded me as she has to be up at 5am for work. When this happened to me, I didn't want to see anyone. I hadn't even the energy to talk to them. Everyone's different. And yet, in pain, the same.

This post was inspired by an incident that happened to a close friend (one of my bridesmaids) and made me think of some of the childishness and immaturity I've seen over the last few years. This is what I'd say if I were her.

Dear Girls,

You know, it's funny. I never suffered in junior school or senior (high) school from bullying or being treated disdainfully or badly. I was fat, I was clever, I wasn't particularly pretty and I didn't have a vast crew of friends. But the friends I did have were plentiful and wonderful - I still know a lot of them now - and the other girls did not exclude me; we simply had little in common.

So, with that kind of background, it shocks me that girls like you still exist. Girls where you put out the hand of friendship and it's accepted only on selfish terms, when it suits you. Most people, at this point, would probably make grand pronouncements of cutting people out of their lives. I'm Christian, though, and that comes with a sense of duty to try and not take things personally and turn the other cheek.

That's not to say you're not pissing me off; I'm not that good a person, you're pissing me off. It just means that I will keep trying to be a good person, and will remain open to your friendship should you ever attempt to bestow it.

It strikes me that a lot of the girls who behave like this were once excluded and quietly tortured in that way that only children can inflict on other children. Why they'd want to spread that behaviour around is beyond me, but that's often the case with any form of abuse.

Open up, relax, and stop worrying if you're cool or not. In the grand scheme of things, no-one will remember what you were like in your 20s, and thank God, because I've got news for you: we're ALL arseholes in our 20s.

Take care,

Alex