I just wanted to blog a little about the past week, which has been pretty eventful, in terms of the social happenings in my life.
Firstly, I “reconnected” with a friend from college.
Secondly, I quarreled with two friends from university.
Thirdly, I tried to catch up with a senior from college (and now in the same university).
Lastly, I’ve met two wonderful colleagues (fellow interns) at work, who have been great company over the past two weeks.
Well, let’s start off with friend number one (I probably only have time to cover one story today) – who once had the honour of being the subject of one of my poems in an earlier post. Everything happened (or rather, fell apart) 2 years ago, sometime in June or July. Named friend and I used to be very close friends, sharing secrets and all – ah well, essentially everything good friends did. Then one horrid day, this friend suddenly stopped replying my messages, stopped talking to me and basically just cut off all forms of contact. It seemed like he had simply dropped off the radar and disappeared from my life completely. Naturally, it was a very traumatizing and painful experience to have a friend do this out of the blue but me, being me, didn’t just resign myself to fate and wallow in sadness of course. I tried talking to him, tried reconnecting with him and I think I really tried every imaginable way I could just to elicit some kind of response from him (short of ambushing him at his house). I still recall that I started off with some innocuous hi-bye messages and when that failed, I moved on to texting him. Then I tried leaving him messages on Facebook and when even that failed, I attempted tagging him in a Facebook post. (I thought it would force him to give some sort of reply since the post was on his wall) Alas, even that was useless. =_="
It was a very painful time then because I simply couldn’t comprehend his actions – why did he suddenly choose to distance himself from me and how could he even bear to do that to me? Those questions kept repeating in my mind for days, weeks and months and till today, I can still clearly remember the anguish that accompanied the realization that I didn’t have an answer. It was tormenting me every single day because I really didn’t know what had gone wrong. I kept reflecting on my own actions as a friend – wondering if the problem was with me, whether I had done anything wrong or whether I had done anything to push him away. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt – the negativity just had me beating myself up inside.
Eventually, I resorted to the hard way (aka. direct confrontation) by asking him outright if there was a problem/misunderstanding between us and if so, how we could resolve it. By then, I think more than half a year had already passed. And the answer was one that I could have never expected (or forgotten). He just gave a curt reply that there was no misunderstanding of any sort and that he didn’t know what I was talking about. Imagine how shocked I was then.. I had just endured months of self-doubt and reflection, thinking about the one million and one things that could have possibly gone wrong and here he was, dismissing all of that with simply one emotionless sentence?
Some might think that things ended with that answer but heck no, it only made things worse. After hearing that answer, I got even more confused about the situation – so were things still the same? Nothing had happened? Did it then mean that the past 6-7 months of worrying and distress were for naught? That it was something I had brought onto myself, that it was over-imagination on my part? For making things out to be worse than they actually were?
In hindsight, that was a truly tough period filled with confusion and lots of self-blaming going on. (helpless shrug)
In the end, I just stopped trying to reach out to him (since it hurt so much every time I tried) because I reasoned that there was no point in trying to keep a friend who had no qualms in hurting me.
From then on, I did attempt to strike up conversations with him occasionally but they never did last and I never got the answers I desperately needed. In contrast, some of the responses I received were cold and plain hostile and never failed to just tear me up a little bit inside everytime.
Until last week..
Things changed slightly.
He posted some things on Facebook that indicated he was depressed (pretty rare of him to do it in the public domain) and for some strange inexplicable reason (I thought I had already decided to move on with life without him), I found myself feeling worried about him. I wanted to show my concern for him but at the same time, I was extremely hesitant to do so for fear of the stinging barbs that could possibly come flying my way.
I mean, it’s difficult to jump into a pool of fire knowing very well that it’s a, well, pool of fire (and that hurts of course, in case you’re thinking otherwise).
Unless you’re masochistic, which I’m clearly not. (My silly actions to try and mend the relationship repeatedly but unsuccessfully once had me suspecting that I was masochistic – I couldn’t think of a better reason to explain why I kept going back even after getting hurt each time – but I realized that it wasn’t because of an addiction to the pain (siao ar!) but his importance to me as a friend)
I took a few days to deliberate on my next course of action and I finally gathered up the courage to send him a message. It was a very carefully worded message, that allowed me to express my concern whilst maintaining a safe distance from him.
If you haven’t tried this before, let me tell you that typing words like, “it’s perfectly alright if you do not want to talk to me” (takes a deep breath) makes you feel like crap lying at the bottom of a festering pile of garbage in a rubbish dump. And the crap is like, 3 weeks old.
Once again, nothing would have prepared me for your harsh and straightforward reply.
You asked me, “why”.
(heavy silence)
You asked me why I cared.
You asked me why you still deserved such kindness from me even though you had treated me callously in the past.
You couldn’t see me then but honestly, I was at a loss for words. Your words suggested a friendship that had already ended – so what exactly have I been hanging on to for the past couple of years?!
For a person who still treats you as a friend, these words sting more than anything else.
You claim to have forgotten the reason behind your actions but regardless of whether that is true or not, it is a cruel answer. If you have indeed forgotten it, it simply means that I mattered so little to you that you didn't even bother to remember why you abandoned your supposed friend. If you haven’t really forgotten it, it means that you’re hiding something (and I will never get to know that ‘something’) and that leaves me feeling uneasy and upset. Either way, the outcome’s bad. (deep sigh) I act like it doesn’t matter that much anymore, talking about the past freely and without care but do you know this?
As much as I tell myself that all these will not have the ability to affect me anymore, honestly, they still do. It still hurts. It doesn’t go as deep as it used to but the lingering feeling of pain is ever too familiar.
I have so many unanswered questions and yet, you still have so little to offer..
Till today, I don’t understand how you could have treated me like this.
I don’t understand how I could have mattered this little to you when you were so important to me.
I don’t understand how you could have hurt my feelings so readily and yet, still act nonchalant and uncaring about it.
I don’t understand how you could have treated a friend like this. Every friend deserves respect.
I don’t understand how you can complain and mope about friends leaving you and unjustifiably cutting you off from their lives (and lament how your life is cursed) and yet, go on to inflict the same pain on someone else. Haven’t you heard of the saying, do unto others what you would like others to do unto you? What right then do you have to whine about your ‘ex-friends’ when you’re guilty of the same crime?
More than anything else, I don’t understand why you still matter to me even after close to 3 years and numerous rejections (in repairing the friendship).
There’s no way that you’re going to see this but anyway, this message goes out to you.
You asked me why – and that’s exactly what I ask myself repeatedly whenever I find myself caring about you. It hurts each time, I’ve thought about it countless of times over the years and I realize the only reason that could possibly explain everything is that perhaps, you were once someone whom I treated as a friend for life. As much as I would like to turn back time, constants have now turned into variables and the power to change things is no longer in my hands. I don’t know how much it even matters to you but I’m here. I'm here for you and I can do what you have failed to.
That is, I won’t run away from my friends.
Simply because, that’s what friends are for.
