So an old ex-friend of mine is getting married this week, and it had me wondering how we grew apart. I went through some of our old letters and things, and yes, I did get nostalgic, even though our friendship is beyond forgiveness. The girl I was five years ago is hardly recognizable. Yet it's sad that those who enter your life often must leave sooner than you'd imagined. Yes, she was witty, and fun to be around, but she had a manipulative, almost evil side to her. She would coo and coerce people with false compliments, and could worm her way into jobs, but they often found her personality eventually off-putting and would quietly get rid of her. In a way, I see in her untempered femininity, not normal woman behavior, but the socially constructed variety, the manipulative, sweet-talking, flirtacious, conniving way in which females sometimes behave. In a way, I wanted her power, her ability to befriend those she actually disliked to get what she wanted. But ultimately, it just seemed icky to me, to feign and coo, to build mock friendships with people you didn't actually like at all. . . I was never one for dishonesty. What began as friendship eventually went too far- she had insinuated herself into my family, she would begrudge things about me, she would be somewhat demanding.
Then a boy liked me, and I liked him. And she got jealous and he got jealous and they didn't get along. There was hostility. She gave me an ultimatum. I chose him. Who knows if it was the right choice. I was young, I was naive. We, of course, are no longer together. But a choice had to be made, and I needed to grow up.
The misunderstanding may have been forgivable, until she decided to destroy my life, or at least that's what I imagine her intentions must have been. She tried to stay really close with my parents, and I would find her over at my house at random times, sometimes by herself. She befriended my Grandmother. Everywhere I went, she was there. And then she got a job at my job, and somehow usurped my hours and started acting like she was the boss. I had to quit; it became intolerable. Finally, my parents got wise to her manipulations, and realized that if she was going to be hanging around our house, then I wouldn't be there. They would have to sacrifice their own daughter for this replacement, and fortunately, they preferred the original. But she was at my Grandfather's funeral, which I resented. And she still talks to my grandmother on a regular basis.
We went to the same school, but we didn't talk again. One time, she sent me an e-mail asking for all to be forgiven, but I couldn't respond. There was no forgiving the insanity it had all become. Once I knew what she was capable of, there was no way I'd play with fire again. I had moved on. I had a class with her once; she missed it often. She seemed to make a few friends. She eventually got a boyfriend. He seemed dull, and her life seemed a lot less interesting looking from the outside in. She worked at the school cafeteria, and was friends with the dorky, jock types. From overhearing my Grandma, she was really desperate for the boyfriend to propose. He seemed like the malleable sort, probably just her type. I wondered if I had been her type too, just someone to dupe, or if our friendship was genuine. I'd like to think that I was one of the few on the inside. It's a hard place to be, when you realize the source of the manipulations, but no one will believe you.
And now, finally, the boy is marrying her, in my childhood church. She is apparently the darling of the old church ladies. I wonder what gossip she's been spreading about me; probably telling them about my whoring around, like that one time she'd showed a blog entry to my Grandma. That was around the time she made soup for Grandma a day I had come out, caught at unawares. I was polite. She told me the soup had no meat in it, as I'm a vegetarian. Apparently, it was made with beef broth. I wonder if she's changed. She seems to have, at least superficially. She rarely wears make-up, and was often in sweats while we were in college. She lives in Olympia and works at a bank. She goes hiking with her boyfriend, doing really "outdoorsy" things, a far cry from her attempts at skiing with me, or in gym class. She has no social networking sites on the internet; her life is basically a mystery.
What a different world we now occupy. I couldn't dream of marriage for a long time. I'm too much of an intellectual, with a bohemian demeanor, to settle down in a small house in Yelm indefinitely, with the first boy I'd known. Perhaps I've just had to grow sager, and she could remain a bit of a child. Perhaps she grew out of her manipulative ways, or else she's just become more discreet. But our friendship could never recover. There are places you can't go back. The friendships of a fifteen year old are perhaps meant to stay in the past. For a long time, I couldn't even think about her, I found her so vile. Now, I see only a stranger, a vitriolic girl who I suspect wanted to make my life so miserable that I'd fold. But that always backfires. I didn't want to be controlled. And look at me now. I've escaped.
