Introvert or extrovert? If you have ever taken one of those personality quizzes, you probably know what these words are describing. If not, here's a quick description. An introvert gets their energy from solitude, and expends energy being around others. An extrovert is the opposite; they are energized by people and being alone expends energy. Introvert: shy, extrovert: outgoing. (Very broad generalization)
I am an introvert, and have been for as long as I can remember. I like it this way, being that I'm me and it's all I've known. Sometimes I've wished I could be a little more outgoing, and honestly, I've gotten better about it as I've gotten older. But for the most part, I'm still pretty shy around big groups of people. The introvert-extrovert scale is like a continuum, it's not just one or the other. You can be very introverted or less so, and same for extroverts. I am not an extreme introvert anymore (I used to be highly introverted), but my mom is almost off the charts introverted. I think for me, being a teacher helped.
Being shy definitely affected how I make friends. It's not a bad thing, it's just how I am. I have always preferred smaller groups of close friends. Since I started this blog, I have made some more friends, even people I have never met before, and it is kind of cool! I was so nervous starting this blog, because, you know, people were going to read it. But I'm so glad I did.
(I hope I haven't already shared this story with you. If I have, I apologize, and you can quit reading. But this person was on my mind recently, and it sometimes helps me to talk about it.)
Sometimes there are friends who come into our lives and then leave, and even if the end was necessary or natural, it's hard to let them go. Even if you don't want to be friends anymore, they can still come back to your thoughts now and again. Such is the case with an old friend of mine. We met and became friends when we were new teachers at the school where I used to teach. She had been teaching for several more years than me, but we hit it off and became (what I thought was) good friends. Back then, I was married to my first husband, and as things got worse and worse, I would confide in her, even things like, "I'd rather be miserable than divorced." (Yeah, well that didn't last long thank goodness.) She was divorced from a really awful man, and she and her three kids were living with her boyfriend, who turned out to be not so nice, either. We would bake brownies all the time, those 13x9" pan size brownies. We got 6 brownies out of those pans. Oh, yeah. We totally drowned our sorrows in brownies! She was good at teaching math, and I was good at English. We shared the roles and she rescued my class from a bad math lesson on more than one occasion! I thought we were great friends.
I helped her out when she was in a car accident and was recovering from that (I got her using her seatbelt, and thankfully so or she could have been killed), as well as when she was on bedrest with her fourth pregnancy when she remarried.
She taught me to sew. We would spend whole days sewing. The only time I have ever used a serger was at her house. When she remarried, that was where everything fell apart. Apparently, she only needed a friend until she found a husband. After they got married, and she had a baby, she sort of dropped off the planet. But I still thought of her as a friend, even though we didn't do as much together.
I moved to Florida with Bill, and even though we had almost stopped talking, I valued her friendship and wanted to try to reach out to her and maybe be better friends again. I missed her. I invited her to our wedding, and she RSVPd that she would come. She didn't. On our honeymoon, she called me (the last time I think we ever talked, actually) and told me she didn't come because she had a bad hair day. I just rolled my eyes and shook my head and went on my honeymoon.
Then, I got pregnant with Karina. After much debate with my other friend, Stephanie (who was also friends with this woman and had also been blown off by her), we decided to give her one last chance. We invited her to my baby shower. She didn't even RSVP. This woman, who had twins, a daughter, and another son who she thought she was going to lose when she started spotting and was put on bed rest halfway through her pregnancy, couldn't even acknowledge that I, a formerly close (I thought) friend, was having my first baby. That was it for me. I was done.
Not long after that, several months I guess, I got a request to friend her through an email program. I was furious. I wrote a very long letter to her, being very careful how I phrased things (English major--I always thought we should get a BS instead of a BA, ha ha), and basically told her that she had hurt me too many times for me to put myself out there again. However, I was willing to hear her side and possibly give the friendship another go, but I was going to protect myself if that happened. Her response? She just told me to ignore the friend request. I was so hurt. I couldn't figure out how someone I had once spent so much time with could so completely turn her back on me.
And yet, every now and then I still think of her, and I miss the friendship I thought we had. I often wish things had gone differently, and I wish she was still my friend. For someone like me, who usually has a small circle of friends, losing even one is a big deal. I'm fortunate that she is the only one who has really ever done that to me, although it is not the only friendship that has ever ended. A high school friend and I drifted apart, a work friend and I parted ways gradually. Most of the lost or ended friendships were ready to go, naturally, and for good reasons. This one, I don't know. Obviously on some level it needed to end, because clearly she did not value my friendship as I did hers. But sentimental me, I still sometimes wish I could just call her up and fix things, even if we didn't become friends again, which really, I don't think I want. I guess what bothers me is the way it ended, finally.
I should just move on and be happy, and I am, because I have some really amazing, steadfast, wonderful friends. I don't need an unhealthy relationship with someone who doesn't value me. I know this. I do, really. But I'm still sorry it ended the way it did.
Sorry this post got so long!
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