This is part of Sprite's Keeper's Spin Cycle. This weeks theme: Mistakes.
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Mistakes. I’ve made them, everyone has. I can tell you I feel I’ve made
a lot of mistakes when it has come to my friendships over the years,
though.
In junior high school I became obnoxious to one of my
friends and one day she stopped talking to me. Thankfully she and I
became friends again and are still friends to this day. You would think
I would have learned my lesson from the first experience. I didn’t.
In
college there was a guy in our group of all girl friends. He was about
two years younger, hilarious, handsome, and a lot of fun to be around.
To make a very long story short, I grew apart from my friends while
commuting to college my final year and working full time at a
newspaper. When I did see them it was strained, especially among the
guy friend and I. He wasn’t treating one of our friend’s very nice and
that bothered me because she’d been my college roommate. I told another
friend I was bothered by Guy Friend’s behavior.
I had told her
in confidence, I thought, and she told Guy Friend everything I’d said.
I’m not blaming her because I’m sure she was only trying to help. And
I’m not sure what she told him, but a couple week’s later when I
e-mailed Guy Friend about getting together before we all graduated
(actually he still had another year) he shot back the nastiest e-mail
I’ve ever received. He told me he knew what I’d been saying about him
and ended it by saying I was a worthless person who would never be
anything but a sad, pathetic loser. Needless to say that e-mail stuck
with me for a very long time, even though I deleted it immediately on
the advice of friends and family.
Looking back I can’t decide if
the mistake in our friendship was mine, his or whether it was all some
huge misunderstanding. After my former roommate told me a story about a
conversation she’d had with Guy Friend I leaned more toward HUGE
misunderstanding. My former roommate told Guy Friend I had said he had
gotten engaged to his fiance too quickly after only knowing her for a
few short months.
That’s not what was said, but Former Roommate didn’t
have time to explain because Guy Friend said I never had anything to
say unless it was negative and never let her finish the story. Who
knows, he was probably right. In reality, it was Mom who had said she
worried Guy Friend might have rushed things, not me. What I had said
was that I felt Guy Friend had spent three months with this girl at a
summer camp and I was sure only he knew if he was ready or not.
So
what is the mistake? The friendship was not a mistake. The failure of
it, I guess, was more of a blunder. My other friends’ roles in it all
wasn’t a mistake either. They weren’t trying to sabotage friendships.
It all simply got out of hand. That e-mail from Guy Friend? I would say
that was a mistake.
He’ll never know how badly it affected me.
How much it made me hate myself and how I had a hard time trusting for
years after that. I still do. He’ll never know how much I cried after I
read that and how I told myself over and over he was right and I would
always be pathetic. He’ll never know how much I hated him for years,
then loved him again, then hated him, then told myself I had to do what
was right and forgive him, even though I knew I’d never see him again.
I
hear he’s married, living somewhere in the midwest. He has three
children. And the ironic thing about it all? He’s now a pastor.
