WordPress ate my first post!!!

I am so mad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, this is going to be a long and wordy post full of rage.  Rage not because I was dropped as a friend, but because I should have been the one to do it first.  In the spirit of being liked, I dragged on a friendship longer than I should have.

The first part of my rant went something like this:

 Bitch please!  Do you think I won’t notice you put me on a restricted list on Facebook?  Do you think you are doing this to a fucking moron?  I know what you did.  What you should have done is pick up the damn phone to air any grievances you had because quite frankly, you are more at fault.  But, go ahead, listen to your small appendage man.  The open road cleared your head?  Sure it did!  Second, don’t fucking use my analogy of relationships being like a business.  WE TALKED ABOUT THIS not too long ago.  You didn’t come up with it.  You stole it!  Whatever.  Like short man, you refuse to see the truth.  Don’t worry, I dropped you as a “friend.”  In case you didn’t know, there is an unfriend button on Facebook.  Learn how to use.  Boy am I glad you chose not to be a teacher.  Good riddance.

Now that my anger is gone, I can sit down to write down exactly what has happened with this friend in the past few years to see how we ended up here.  Here is the story:

When I moved back from Chicago with FullEclipse, one of our morning routines was to stop by the local Starbucks on my way to work.  One of the Baristas was from Chicago as well.  This fact, along with being our age, created a relationship that went beyond your typical, “what would you like to drink?” banter.  When I became pregnant with Paczki, Barista would sneak in a dollop of whipped cream even though I was not really supposed to get sweets.  Paczki was born and the relationship continued to develop.

One afternoon, Barista was sitting in her car looking upset.  FullEclipse asked her what was up.  Barista was having issues with her father and step mother.  We asked her to come over to our house to get a nice meal and forget about her troubles.  From then on, our house was open to Barista anytime she wanted to come over.  We included her in our festivities and we did the same.  She spent the night in our old house once or twice.  It was a good friendship even if there were things about her we did not like.  For example, she was always late.  I mean always.  Other people might consider it rude but we made that part of her quirks.  I would try to schedule things to accommodate her schedule and times.  We had to pencil in dates to see each other because she was so buy.  Once again, it was part of the friendship and I am sure there were times when I could not meet up with her due to life.  I always tried.

When she met her now husband (small man), I was very happy for her.  They reconnected and met up over a Christmas holiday.  From her demeanor, I knew it was serious.  I remember having a conversation about love over summer.  I told her, “you will find the one sooner than you think.”  We met small man.  He was charming and nice.  He got my phone number and texted me once or twice.  Small man also befriended me on Facebook.  Through his posts I could see he was a conservative man whose political and other views did not align with mine.  Not a big deal because I have friends who come from different backgrounds.

Barista and I would talk about the prospect of marrying small man.  She was happy.  We even talked about me helping her with the wedding and being part of it.

Almost a year into the relationship, they had issues.  He did not like a friend of Barista’s.  Despite the problems, they stayed together.  Small man texted me to get help in regards to getting the ring size for Barista.  Yes, he was about to propose.  At this point, they were living together.  Do you remember the friend of Barista’s he hated?  Small man asked her to help him plan the proposal.

Things continued to go well – or so I thought.  We went out with small man and Barista.  We picked up the tab on most of the outings because they did not have money.  We did not care because money is nothing compared with friendship.  We were never invited to their place (we went once).  They never paid for anything for us.  Once again, that did not matter.  It was always about them not having money.  At least, that was always something Barsita would bring up even if her Facebook profile was full of pictures of them doing things that did not say, “we are broke.”  Because I know how social media can be, I didn’t think too much of it.  Facebook and blogging are only a glimpse of life.

That September, I asked Barista to come celebrate my birthday.  Obviously, small man was invited.  She agreed.  Within half an hour she called back crying.  She was hysterical.  All I got was, “can’t talk and I can’t comment.”  Then nothing for two weeks.  Facebook gave me an updated from being engaged to being single.  I felt like crap.  Two weeks of silence.  FullEclipse kept me from calling Barista every hour.  He said Barista will reach to me if I was needed.

When Barista finally got in touch with me, the first thing I was asked was “what did you tell small man about marrying me?”  Can I say I was shocked?  I said nothing!!  From what she told me and from what I could piece together, when Barista told small man about coming over for my birthday, he made a remark about me.  In short, he blamed me for proposing to her.  YOU READ IT CORRECTLY.  I was blamed for their engagement.  I guess I pressured him into proposing?  Please tell me how this is my fault because two years later, I am still puzzled.  They had an argument where things escalated.  Basically, small man needed an excuse to start a fire with Barista.

I was mad because it takes some balls to use another person to air your issues.  Real men would never do this.  This was the beginning of the end of the relationship.  Dr. Backstreet Boy heard me talk about my anger for a very long time.  To be honest, I did not even want to be around small man.  In the spirit of the friendship, I kept in touch even if FullEclipse asked me drop this friendship.

Things continued “normally” even if part of me harbored a lot of resentment towards small man.  We still went out with the golden couple.  We still paid for their stuff.  We still changed our schedule to accommodate theirs.  I was feeling the stress because walking on eggshells around small man made me emotionally tired and upset.

When the wedding came, I was almost at my breaking point.  The invite to the wedding shower came.  I went to both events because Barista always had warned me not to miss her wedding.  I could not say no to the shower.  She was happy when I showed up to both.  By the way, I was not asked to be part of her wedding.  This hurt a lot since Barista asked a lady who she only knew through small man to be part of the wedding party.  Still..I wanted it to work.  By the way, the friend who helped small man with the proposal was on shaky ground with Barista.  Something about Barista opening her eyes.  This should have been a huge clue of things to come because small man did not like this friend at all.

The golden couple was invited to Christmas and kids parties.  The last party was something I had to schedule to fit her time table.

FullEclipse told me not to take the wedding thing too personally.  He also said this, “you don’t mean the same to people as they do to you.”

A few months ago, Barista asked me to lunch (which I paid for).  I cannot tell you what we talked about even if the friendship is gone.  I was asked to keep things a secret.  The only thing I said was how hurt I was about small man using me as a pawn.

In July we got an invite to Barista’s birthday party.  It took me a while to reply because we were asked to pay for a painting class she wanted to attend.  No, we were not paying for her.  We had to pay for our spots.  After bending backwards throughout the friendship, this was something I really didn’t want to do.  In retrospect, I should have said something soon.  But, given the history by now, I was having a hard time making sense of it all.

The story is almost over I promise.

When FullEclipse was laid off, Barista and I talked on the phone.  She told me she was quitting her pursuit of being a teacher because the time she put into it was not worth it.  Honestly, small man was complaining about the lack of time they had together.  I understood her other reasons too.  My gut feeling, however, said that the main reason was small man and his many insecurities.

The last time we got together, the golden told us they were moving out of state because small man had lost his job.  I always had a feeling he would want to move back home because SoCal is not the type of place where his views are well received.  They talked AGAIN about the lack of money and how they wanted to live.  I understood this because this place is not cheap.  I still don’t have a house.  We asked them to keep in touch before they left.  I texted her to see if she was driving small small home.  She said yes a day after I texted her.  That was a long time to respond.

Then something happened.

I kept looking at Barista’s Facebook page and nothing made sense.  One thing is to be living pay check to pay check and the other is just to flaunt a lifestyle that screams, “SOMETHING IS FISHY!”  Trampoline classes….dinners, outings, etc.  All spontaneous.  That’s great but we had to pencil in getting together ahead of time.  We had to accommodate their life to have them in ours.

I was getting pissed.

So I dropped Barista from my newsfeed.

I began to pull away.

Because I could no longer see her on my feed, I had no idea as to what was going on.  I went to her wall once only to see her car broke down.  She commented on some of my posts in the last week, but I never responded back.  Again, I should have said something but I was too angry to engage in our regular banter.  Her lifestyle did not make sense to what I was told.

Then on Thursday I woke up from a dream where Barista and I had a fallout on Facebook.  Lo and behold, I woke up to see I was put on a restricted list.  FullEclipse told me she posted something on Monday about how friendships are like business and how she was put a lot into some friendships and to take my business elsewhere.  No my name was not mentioned but given the time frame of events, it was pretty clear to me.

A few  things jumped at me.

Barista said she had time to think about this over the open road.  That means small man finally broke her down.  The lack of Facebook communication combined with the time they spent together helped him.  Just like it happened with the friend who helped with the proposal.  He worked Barista to the point where she dropped friendships of years.

Barista still kept another friend with full Facebook “access” even though Barista would complain about how this friend only spoke to her to be negative or get gossip.  Talk about being a hypocrate.

It was an eye opener but it did not lessen my anger and shock.

It was an underhanded, cowardly move on small man and her.

But they deserve each other.

FullEclipse was kept on as a friend until this afternoon.

FullEclipse posted the following:

True friends will accept you for who you are and not what they want you to be! – my wife had to learn this the hard way I told her to drop a friendship long ago. She didn’t listen.

I guess the truth hurt too much.

I want to email her to let her know what a shitty person she turned out to be and how she and small man deserve each other.

I will try to let it go.

Or bore Dr. Redemption with my rants.

Thoughts?

Should I say something