Saturday 13 March 2010

the politics of friendship

I don't want to buy into all that but I do, I have done, I didn't learn. What can I say? Well at least this time the network is so strong that I didn't fall through and land on something flat. But still.

I'm angry now, and probably I am getting angrier. It's funny how you become angry gradually and increasingly over a few days with things like this, but being hurt comes all at once. As soon as you realise what has happened, what the intent was, and how little you have been kept in mind...it is like a stab. And your heart numbs and you make a little gasp, as though you have been winded. Sometimes it actually hurts like that too.

After that hurt I probably overreacted? Maybe, but true enough I'm not going to force myself to have fun while at the same time masking the fact that I want to collapse and invoke pain in the tiniest way all at one time. I don't like to bottle stuff up it just comes back at the most irritating times. I guess I like to control my emotions in the same way I like to control everything else in life, but I felt as though as long as I could make the time, and I was ok with it, I could be down.

This was as the thought process had evolved enough. "I'm driving" said it all to me and I could see, I could just tell that this was no unfortunate occurrence, no "nothing-I-could-do-about-it" situation - this was a choice, in one direction. I can't beleive I let myself be a doormat for even a few sentances! It makes me feel sick.

So It's been run with and talked out and scored out over and over. And I felt a bit better, I do feel better, I don't feel like collapse.

Last night highlighted everything I need to know though. When I saw her standing there the general effort we all make stinking up the air and the perhaps over-played smiles I just felt like I had been punched in the face. Do you ever end up physically hurting yourself in a dumb way - say walking into a table or the like - and the red mist coming down, getting SO angry that you never saw it coming? That was like it. And of course you have to be civil. All I wanted to do was find the gaping bloody wound and rub her face right in it and tell her "now you see it! how could you have not? why do I deserve this!?". But then again, I'm now fairly sure she has been master of this knowledge of the social reality underpinning this whole spectacle since Wednesday afternoon.

At least now everything is crystal clear. It is so clear and such a piercing reality that it hurts, but not like before, not in the way you would cry, but in the way that you can turn that pain into a grimace and know that even if it is bad, at least you can really feel it. I'm not stupid, and neither is she. Now she knows what she has done, and she knows that I can't beleive how arrogant a move it was to go. I hope she is aware that I don't buy innocence and I can't tolerate the victim procedure that is gone through. Some people appear to be so light and sweet that you are like a bee to honey and you end up regretting it. I honestly would rather have the most harsh person by my side, with the knowledge that even if affection is hard to obtain, they will be there holding you up. And in this sense I am the luckiest person in the world as I have Stuart doing that and he is in no way harsh.

I thought I might have been too easily affected, that I was taking it personally when it was a routine thing. I don't feel I have been rash. I noted my two choices last night and the decision was made for me. I can't beleive you would lie like that! And what's more I can't beleive I bought into all the deep chats, being a shoulder to cry on, being singled out for time...

No matter how hard times for either party there has to be reciprocation and I have had nothing. Yes it may be the cold compared to cancer in some eyes but I guess I'm just a footnote? Either way this is it. I'm not going to compramise anything else I have and I am not putting people I care about in uncomfortable situations but I'm done with that. I don't give a shit what you think or how you feel - because you clearly didn't give a moment of your life to think about me, and for that you lose me.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

You can't have it both ways

I'm always the one who organisies things. Meeting for coffee, uni-related group projects, Nights out, birthdays, etc etc - you name it; I've arranged it. Mostly I don't really mind this and being a control-freak I feel quite comfortable doing so. Infact, a lot of the time I would rather do it. However, there are always people to take this ability to get people in one place at one time successfully and turn it into a criticism of you, which soon enough becomes a nuclear bomb of self doubt and a feeling as though you are miss jean brodie being force fed a chill pill.

I understand that people probably do appriciate such organisation really, but the opposite manifests itself so often in "you ALWAYS make facebook events for EVERYTHING", "Yes, I KNOW its tomorrow", "Why do I have to pay in advance?", "Do you HAVE to book it?" and so forth. Maybe people just don't like being told what to do. Maybe people take my corralling as some sort of criticism of their own ability to organise themselves? Maybe being told what/when/where/why by someone harks back to being a child living with their parents and being constantly harrassed? Either way, I do what I can (and in the least intrusive or naggy ways that I can) to sort out a get-together and all I get are peoples snidey remarks and a feeling as though all the stress isn't worth it.

Thinking of this often, I sometimes decide not to involve myself in the organisation, to just arrive and have done. Two things become apparent. Firstly, as my better half pointed out the last time, the thing sucks. The un-booked restaurants are full or have an hour long wait, the cinema times at that cinema don't suit those getting a bus home, moblie reception is lost and someone ends up not finding the group and so on until one by one people just decide to leave. This coincides with a general indecisiveness that falls on the members of groups and no-one wanting to stand out. Secondly, should such occurr, I sometimes find myself being looked to for all the answers and to make all the decisions. I have to say "lets try and go here" only to find out that someone HATES that place and I am therefore enforcing my regime upon them. And from then on I am thought of to LOVE that place that someone didnt want to go to and turned out to be kinda crap anyway. There is no way to win.

So I resign myself to organising everything, all the time, and just have to take the negatives with it. Who said marriage is hard work? It's keeping a fluid and slippery group of loosley associated people together for 2 hours that is the challenge. And for them actually to enjoy it? Well thats another objective altogether.

All I ask is that now and again when the phrase "You always...go there/do this/text me that etc" is about to come out of your mouth... just consider that maybe the person who arranged what you are participating in had the honest intention of making the event a success and enjoying it with all the people they like there, and keep it in, or even say thanks.