Feeling Relatively Ignored, and Other Emotional Crap

Okay, so this has been a long time in the coming. And since I'm fairly certain no one reads this d*mn thing, I'm just going to go all out. In fact, the only person who may actually read it is the one whom this concerns...or at least who sparked it.

I think I've written this a few times over the years....now it just feels like a general angst. My friend Heidi asked me to join this thing called Friendster. It's one of those "look who you're friends with, and who they're friends with, and maybe you'll have friends in common, or maybe you'll MAKE friends with their friends," etc. So I joined up and started searching to see who is on there already that I could add to my friends list. And there were a fair few people I knew, mostly from Albion. The thing is, to add them to your friends list, they have to add you to theirs. It can only happen mutually. And then I thought, crap. Will these people even know who I am? Because I consider myself friends with lots of people....and would willingly keep up with those friends....but so often I feel like I get shuffled off. Like we were friends by proximity, or something. Or maybe I have a broader definition of friendship. I don't know. But it makes me kind of sad and mad, all at once.

And the other day, I stopped by Albion since I was in the area, and went into the theater to see Starko, who is probably the only person there still on faculty who remembers me--Royal Ward would, of course, but he's busy in the Dean's office. Anyway. And Starko starts rattling off who he's been in touch with over the years since I graduated, and they're all people I knew and thought I was good friends with, and frankly TRIED to keep up with myself, but emails would go unanswered, phone numbers would change with moving and then I wouldn't get the new number, and so on and so forth. I kept wanting to say "IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!" I felt so close, so connected to these people and then look what happened. Apparently I have a great big purple "G" on my forehead, which stands for "graduated," and therefore no one wants to keep in touch.

I know I'm being unfair right now. There are a few people with whom I've kept up a moderate correspondence. In my bitter moment, I'm forgetting that. If you're out there, and reading this, thank you in advance for including yourself in that group. You know who you are.

So this all got kind of brought to a head when I realized that, once again, someone with whom I felt very close with at one point, has chosen to ignore me. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe we were never close....could have fooled me though, and lots of other people, truth be told. I really thought the world of this person--and if he's reading this, good. Call it another exercise in emotional honesty. But it TICKS ME OFF. And maybe it shouldn't....perhaps I should have given up on it long ago....maybe that's what a normal person would do. You fall out of touch, and you stop caring. Is that what's supposed to happen?

It just always seems so bloody one-sided...like I keep trying, and the other person doesn't. Why is that?

And yeah, I'll admit--at one point I had a big ol' crush on this particular person, and I'm sure it wasn't exactly a secret. But newsflash--I'm over it. Clearly. I've been over it, for oh, 3 years or more. Actually, in a twist of irony that I could not have written better myself, it was at an event that I had invited this crush-boy to that I then began developing a relationship with the man who would become my husband, because crush-boy didn't end up coming. Which of course was conflicting for me for a short time, because here was the pull of the thing I'd been wanting but that wasn't manifesting itself, against the pull of something real and good and true and frankly in the present. I went with the latter, and never looked back. I'm happier for it.

And here's the thing. This was the first crush I ever had that was actually based on something, other than random attraction. In my opinion, this person--other than the fact that he appears to have written me out of his life now, which I admit does put a damper on thing--has a lot of really remarkable qualities. And for once I wasn't idolizing either....I saw that he had a few flaws, if you want to call them that....I saw them and I accepted them. But the biggest thing was that I was seeing them, truthfully. And then deciding, on purpose, that he was worth fancying. This was a big turning point for me....a huge lesson. And I also knew that he was worth fancying even if he didn't fancy me at all. An even bigger lesson.

So if what's stopping this person from reinstating a friendship is the old crush issue, he can rest assured that the thing is dead and buried and all I miss now is the laughs. He was fun to be around, to explore with, and I felt very cared for by him at the time. He was there for me as some very big things changed in my life. That means a lot to me. I don't think it's asking a lot to get an email once in awhile, or at the very least a response to one.

Well, poop. That's all the ranting I can muster for one day.