The Best Friend Story

After I graduated I moved to the city with Jean, my best friend from college. Despite still feeling regret about it, in retrospect I think it may have been just as good as it was bad for me. It was a living nightmare yes, but I learned a lot about myself. Things I never would have learned had I moved in with a stranger or at the very least a friend who treated me better.

I could probably write a book about my relationship with her, the treachery/support, encouragement/jealousy and all the other intricate dualities of female friendship, so this entry will probably be long. Just a warning. I will try to keep it to details about how it relates to my inexperienced status but if I digress, I apologize.

We met the first day of our freshman year. She lived a few doors down on my floor and we discovered we had a lot in common. She made me laugh almost immediately, and though that’s not a hard thing to achieve she won me over with it. From that point on we were inseparable. We had so much fun and encouraged each other in everything we tried. After all my broken high school friendships it was wonderful to have a female friend who wasn’t manipulating for reasons unknown to me.

Until that’s exactly what happened.

We had a small circle of friends that we did everything with and that was ok with me because I always had a good time. It wasn’t until years later that I realized it wasn’t a good thing that I had surrounded myself with only one group of people. The leader if you will of our little group was Jean. She had a mothering quality about her that drew us all in for whatever reason. Maybe it was nice to have a friend care where you were the other night, or a friend who rounds everyone up to go to a party or a movie, or a friend who is a mediator of sorts because she knows everything about everyone. Being the closest one to her, I think I slipped into a kind of child mode where I let her run things because she wanted to and I didn’t mind. Or rather, because I didn’t know any better.

Being agreeable and of a mellow nature became my downfall once I realized she was taking advantage of it. We had never had a fight until our senior year and that’s when I began making excuses for her. She was becoming more protective and selfish at the same time, or perhaps becoming more selfish and disguising it as being protective. If plans changed, or I wasn’t where I supposed to be- namely with her, she became angry and accusatory while trying to tell me she was only looking out for me. After graduation this became the wedge that eventually drove me away, all the while cutting a hole in my heart because I am also of an ultra-sensitive nature. I didn’t want to believe she, who I trusted and would do anything for, could be so cruel.

She came from a broken home, with parents who constantly played her against the other. I met both her parents and actually liked them both, but divorce can be a nasty thing. They were civil to each other, but manipulative which is how I’m guessing she learned it. Knowing this, I attributed all her wrongs against me to it. She wanted full control over me because I accepted her for who she was and more importantly I always did what she wanted. In college there was no discrepancy because I wanted what she wanted. When we moved to the city closer to my family and away from all the mutual friends we had, the problems really began.

We managed to find a tiny apartment we could afford and lived practically on top of one another for a year. It was basically another year of college, only less privacy. We used to talk about my issues with men, none of which she understood looking back on it, but she listened and tried to be encouraging. When things started to sour between us, she used this against me. I went out on a date with a guy I met at a party and when I got home I told her he had made me uncomfortable with his constant talk of money and slightly racist jokes. He was a nice guy (off color joke to fill the silence aside) just not for me. She immediately criticized me and made me feel horrible about the whole situation. Aside from trying to deal with the professional side of my life, which she also criticized in the name of ‘I just want the best for you and I don’t think you’re living up to your potential’, I knew going on other dates would only bring more criticism when I didn’t fall in love with each guy.

I began hanging out with family on weekends, occasionally old high school friends, in order to try to figure things out and just plain get away from her. She did not make new friends easily and hated the fact that I was more outgoing. What really bothered her though, was the fact that I got along so well with my family and continued to turn to them for support. She gave me many silent treatments for leaving her alone and when we did finally talk she made me once again feel like a horrible human being for having done what I did. I spent a lot of time apologizing for who I was, yet another regret I would be weighed down by if I hadn’t learned from it.

And up until this point I still forgave her and excused her behavior based on the fact that she wasn’t that outgoing and didn’t have family nearby. I just continued to try to find the best in her and to convince myself she didn’t really mean the things she said. I still joke about the fact that if I was a lesbian and had been sleeping with her, at least I would have gotten some sexual satisfaction out of this abusive relationship. It’s also ironic that I always said, even since my high school days, that I would never let a man do to me what she was doing to me with her eyes closed. It’s almost embarrassing.

Then something happened which woke me to the fact that she was no longer my friend. She was just a negative influence in my life who was angry about the fact that I no longer catered to her every whim. My father became severely ill, and when I missed helping her with apartment issues she called me selfish. I realized at that moment who the selfish one was and that our friendship really did come down to what I could do for her. I felt utterly helpless and fell into a depression. Standing up for myself was obviously something with which I had no experience.

I didn’t even have enough strength to tell her I didn’t want to live with her anymore. Our lease was up but I knew it would crush her completely if I left her at this point. So I moved to a new apartment and lived with her again though this time we had another roommate, something I thought might take some of the focus off me. I suppose it helped a little, but I spent much of the rest of that year trying to avoid her. We still did things together, just not often, and when she continued to criticize me for random things I began to almost hate her. As much hate as one can muster when they’re swimming in depression.

Thankfully I still had other friends who cared enough about to me to try to help. My best friend K from high school and I had grown closer since graduating from college and I had made some new friends, neither of which sat well with Jean. It was K that finally told me I had changed. I knew it, but I wanted to believe I was hiding it well.

Even throughout all of this, every once in a while thoughts of having a boyfriend entered my mind, and pretty much added to my depression because I knew I’d never find someone in the state I was in. Oh Jean had boyfriends I forgot to mention, throughout our entire friendship, but that was ok. I often played third wheel. I can only imagine the hell it would have been if things had been reversed. One of her boyfriends even liked me first but ended up with her. Not that I’m judging because he became a friend of mine, but he was a mama’s boy and for a while the two of them worked well together. His neediness irritated me sometimes and I wasn’t even the one who had to tend to it. Needless to say it never would have worked had I said yes to him when he asked. Though in not even giving it a chance, I denied myself yet another helpful experience.

Two more events occurred which finally gave me the strength to begin the long, long trek to moving on. We met our mutual friend Kathy's best friend M, who eventually became a good friend. As weird as life is, it turned out that Kathy was exactly like Jean, oppressive and mean when she tried to do anything for herself. M and I had many other things in common, but that one thing was huge and ended up bonding us for life. We began to form a friendship without Kathy or Jean knowing because we knew if we didn’t hide it, the two of them would try to ruin it. M once said Kathy actually told her she was no longer allowed to talk to me or Jean because we were herfriends. I thought I had it bad, but Kathy was blatantly mean while Jean was just manipulative as hell.

Like all things meant to be secret we were found out. And just as we suspected Jean and Kathy were furious and insanely jealous though both retaliated in different ways. Kathy just began yelling at M for everything and anything. Jean gave me more silent treatment until the phone bill arrived. She started an argument about who had to pay what long distance charges because she never knew when I called M. It was absurd. That’s when I finally broke down and bought a cell phone. Isn’t that sad? I bought it for no other reason than to be able to make a phone call and not have to explain why later.

Then I was assaulted. Nothing life threatening or even that horrible mind you, but I was still grabbed by a strange man in the street and I was humiliated, infuriated and shaken up by it. When Jean found out about it through our roommate who was awake when I got home, she was more concerned with the fact that I was on the phone than with the fact that I was grabbed. Apparently someone had tried to call her and I didn't click over to pick up. This was revealed to me through an email, not even a phone call. That marked the death of any slight hope I had of keeping our friendship alive. From that moment on it was dead.

Because of that decision I was finally able to come out of my depression. Not worrying about Jean, what she was thinking, what she wanted from me or how she was feeling freed me to start living my own life. It was wonderful. I called M and all my other friends as often as I wanted, but I was still too scared to bring up moving out or actually going out. So I still did a lot of locking myself in my room. When Jean brought up moving out I took the coward’s way out and just agreed, not calling her on any of the shit she gave me when I brought up the mere idea of going our separate ways long ago. I was just so happy to be free of this jail sentence.

It took me another year to heal from the damage she had done. The damage I had done myself. My self-confidence was through the floor, I felt scared of everything, I couldn’t figure out why I still felt badly about some things that seemingly had no relation to my friendship with Jean. It wasn’t until I realized that I hadn’t forgive myself for letting her do all she did, letting her take my confidence, letting her run my life, that I was finally able to really move on. As totally new-age and psycho-therapist sounding as that is, it’s the truth.

So now I struggle with the issue of not letting that ever happen to me again especially with a man and knowing that I most likely would not be attracted to a man who could be that controlling and manipulative. But I wasn’t in love with Jean. What if my guard falls when I fall in love with a man? (I know comparing friendship to love is not really a good way to measure, but it’s all I’ve got. And anyway I’m pretty sure friendship is a big component of love.) If I am honest I will admit there were signs of Jean’s control issues early on and if I had been braver I would have put and end to things sooner. In that respect I guess I should thank her for making me realize the strength I’ve always had and that I can read people better when I’m not blinding myself to what I don’t want to see.

On the other other hand, though I have forgiven her I will never forget the hell she put me through, nor the fact that she used my weaknesses against me when I trusted her with the knowledge. If somewhere down the road I come to realize my friendship with her has added to my men/sex issues I will have to find it in my heart to forgive her, and myself, all over again.