What Are Friends

Sorry I’m so wordy, and you probably don’t care. I guess I’m just whiny.

My timeline of friends and now I have no one..

So in high school, I had three best friends (M, S, and B), but then after high school we hung out less and less. We’d still have get-togethers every couple months, though, where we’d have a blast and do everything fun. I was the only one of the four of us to go to college, so it was kind of easier for them to weed me out of their group. M and S work at the same pizza shop together, and B works at a convenience store in the neighboring town, but B practically lives with S. So they all kind of kept in touch. It was harder for me, being over an hour away and in college and everything. Soon I found myself funding the get-togethers. They only invited me to do things when they needed another person to split expenses between or they just needed a place to trash. Then they didn’t even do that anymore. They started having get-togethers of just the three of them. When I’d ask after seeing pictures the next day, they said it was “a last minute thing,” which they somehow managed to communicate between the three of them, but not me. I don’t know why I cared, they just used me and I knew that. But I guess it was three more people leaving my life that used to care about me. They knew they couldn’t keep the “last minute” excuse forever, so they told me they thought I thought I was too good for them because “I had a boyfriend, fancy college degree, and well-paying new job in my field and they never excelled after high school.” I never brought up any of that with them, and I never thought lesser of them for not going to college. We just had different parents and mine helped me a lot to get where I am; it wasn’t their fault. But I guess they just wanted a way out. Now they’ve replaced me with one of M and S’s co-workers. That’s fine…

Moving down the timeline to my next little group of buds. They were a couple I met at my first job, McDonald’s, in high school, but never clicked with until nearly the end of my college career. Her name was C and his was P, and they had a baby girl named A, whom I loved as my niece and them both as family. They were better to me than anybody else had ever been, even more than the aforementioned three “best friends.” They would do anything for me and they are such great people. They helped me get through a lot of shit in my life and I most likely would not be here if it weren’t for them. But like all good things, I pushed them away. That was almost a year ago. Now I realized I did it because I wanted to leave before they could leave me like all the others. I miss them like crazy, and they hated me for leaving them, understandably. A few months ago I got in touch with them and apologized. We hung out, and haven’t since. C keeps telling me she misses me and we need to hang out again very soon, with all sincerity. I concur, but of course with no intentions of going through with. I know it makes no sense. But I love them and they love me still. I don’t want to let them realize they don’t anymore, but rather just think of good times with me instead of how they no longer love me like they used to. Plus, I was leaving college soon; therefore, not finished moving forward with life. As proven before, moving forward does not allow you to keep anything you had previously. I guess I just got a head-start and prepared for the separation this time.

Still moving forward, as usual, I got a new job and a new friend. They really have nothing to do with each other, just a timeline. She does not work there. Anyway, her name is E. We were best friends. I helped her with her depression and her many relationship problems (she goes through a lot of people and leaves them for no reason). She was the only one I could talk deeply with and the only one that really knew how I felt. She was my depression buddy, I guess? We did everything together and did everything to make each other’s lives less shitty. Recently, my sister, J, moved back home from California, and we were best friends. A couple months after she came home, her husband requested a divorce. So she’s going through a lot. She needed a distraction so I invited her to come to a concert with me, my boyfriend, and E. J and E joked as it being a double date–I strongly emphasize joked because they met once prior to the concert and didn’t even talk that time. Turns out they really hit it off, and E formed a huge crush on J after one day. But they “can’t” date because J and E are a decade apart in age, J is going through a divorce and has a baby, and E just graduated high school. So now they decided to be best friends. I lost my most current best friend to my sister. Cool. Neither of them talk to me anymore, but they text each other all the time. J got angry with me the other day because I don’t do anything with her and E is there for her more than I, her own sister, is. E has no responsibilities or a job, unlike me. Whenever I go over to my parent’s house, where my sister lives, E is there now. J told E about my uncle passing last week before she told me. J asks E to watch my nephew before she asks me. J invites E to things now without any mention of the activities to me. Found out the other day my brother had a get together and invited J and E, but not me. E was invited to family day the other day as well with my parents and everybody. J refers to E now as “her friend.” Glad I could give you the last friend I had, J. I’ve been replaced in my own family even. That’s fine too, then…

What are friends good for when you’re dead anyway.