keninabu!

Friends: Help or bane?

I've been very tired defending her, and defending my decision to be her friend to my friends.

A friend from the US (let's call him P)started attacking her, and said authoritatively that from his own experience, such calls for "alone time" is bullshit, and it's better for me to just give up hope completely and move on. He said that usually this call for "alone time" is just a long drawn breakup, and it might as well break off right now instead of later. It seems to have happened to him quite a lot of times, and I know this guy well enough to know that deep inside, he's very sensitive, and he must have been extremely hurt.

But he forgot that he's not me,and she's not the other girls.

I got quite upset, and I complained to another friend, whom I'll call S.
S is a friend of mine from JC, and is on good terms with my now-ex, whom I'll call M. A bit of background is necessary.

S was in a six-year relationship, which she then broke up. In large part, it's because she felt for him as a brother and a friend, and not so much as a lover. I know this, because we had once spoken about it before, and I had actually counselled her then to stick with him, which she did.

More recently, she was in a short relationship with this guy who essentially dumped her. She has been pining over this guy, and wondering why he dumped her. But at the same time, she told me that for her, her chief concern is that he be healed from the scar of his relationship before her, and she would be happy if he had another girlfriend, not necessarily her. I told her, I admired her altruism, and supported her in the way she thought, as I can understand her motivation for doing so. She expressed relief that someone actually understands.

Keep this background in mind.

So I told S what my first friend P had said, that he was attacking M, and that I was pissed at my friend for pushing his interpretation on me based on his own experience, on a very different situation with very different people.

I was quite surprised when, quite out of the blue, she told me, "Yeah,actually what M said is quite like what I said when I wanted to break up with my first bf. You should take care of yourself and break off completely."

I asked her, "Did you tell your first bf that you loved him, before you broke up with him?"
S:"I loved him as a brother and a friend, but not other than that".
Me: "But it's quite different, then... M told me she still loves me, that it's not about the feeings but that she is confused, and she needs the time to decide for herself and clarify matters."
S took a while to reply, and she replied by typing, "I have this instinct that the break will be permanent. You should just break off and move on"
Me: "Yeah, but if I do as you say, and assume that it is permanent,then it WILL become permanent..."
S: "Yeah, but at the chance of prematurely cutting a love of a lifetime, I'll still advise you to move on, I'd hate to see you get hurt".

Given her recent past, and given her own feelings and actions towards her latest ex, it was a complete surprise for her to tell me all that.
When she herself has not moved on, and has not let go.
It made me very angry as well, that she kept drawing my situation with her breakup with her first boyfriend, when it's not the same. You can't compare two situations in two different contexts, with two sets of different people. She had no passion whatsoever for her first boyfriend. It's not the same with M and me, unless I'm very much mistaken. M's confused; my friend S was not. S did not see her bf as being eligible in any way; M told me that I was perfect for her, if only she was more stable.

Very fundamental differences,I think. Especially since M has been very confused of late, and sending very contradictory signals at times, of wanting to be just friends,but sometimes I still sense something, a concern, love.

Of course, I'm not saying M will get back to me, and frankly, I'm dealing with the possibility that she will come back to me and say 'no'; it would not be a surprise to me, to be honest. But right now, she's confused, she needs the space and time, and that's all there is.

But it's not the first time that my friend S has exhibited such negativity, almost cynicism about life and relationships, and for her to be willing to let this negativity come through. She is otherwise a very sweet person. Last time when M was drunk, while I was driving S home, S had told me, again out of the blue, that M was very uncertain about being together with me,that M felt pressure from me, that love was not enough, that M was still very young. The way she said it, she was warning me off M. She then ended by saying, "Life sucks. You can't always end up with the one you love".

All this, I heard from M herself afterwards, except the last bit.

But I can't help wondering, given everything that S said to me, has M been influenced unduly by S as well? Could S subconsciously be influencing M to doubt my relationship with her, and to reconsider things? S has a very sweet demeanour: but lurking beneath that,could there be a very hurt person who unintentionally lets her cynicism of love and life poison the relationships of others around her through unintentional manipulation?

posted by keninabu @ 3:49 PM