The Slow Death of a Good Friendship

It's not an easy job being my friend. People like to be around happy, cheerful people. Now I can be that, for a while. But eventually, my pain and scars will become apparent and I'll start making them uncomfortable with my sorrow. This problem gets worse each year. 

Every time I go through a life tragedy, something inside me changes. And more often than not, it's not really for the better. I feel myself becoming less resilient as time goes by and more & more dependent on those around me. 

The fact is, I don't have any sort of support system at home. That means I get incredibly attached to people very quickly and as one can guess, this sometimes does not result in a happy ending for me. 

This is what I feel when I look back at the remains of my friendship with Cathy. A friendship that was ultimately only meaningful in my own head for several years. 

Our friendship felt really special for a while. And I must stress on the word friendship here. It was the most platonic, brother-sister thing you could imagine. So no, this is not going to be that kind of story. 

Serendipity

There was a lot of serendipity involved in how we met. It was through work. She was a couple of years junior to me but from the start, it felt like we could talk as though we'd known each other for years. There were no senior-junior formalities. 

Now this was at a time I was the king of compartmentalising my life. Things could be falling apart at home but you'd never tell from my face at work. Work was my escape from the helplessness I was facing at home. 

So for the first month that we got to know each other, she'd only seen the good side of me. Maybe in an alternate reality, I could have maintained that for longer. But my life went to shit real fast after that. 

Problems

There were some good moments in those first 6 months. When she learnt of my financial problems, she wanted to help out. I refused to take money from her obviously, but it's the thought that counts. When she got into an accident and broke her leg, I visited her at her home which was quite far away. I was apparently the first of her friends to ever come visit there (it was a very remote place). It felt like we'd always have each other's back, at least for a while. 

Unfortunately there are social problems with a guy and a girl being "just friends". People start talking. And it was obviously much worse off for her. Even some senior doctors from the place I worked started talking. It got so bad that I told her it'd be best if stopped talking. I didn't want her to feel hurt over & over again. I told her to block me. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. 

Out of the Blue & Into the Black

Unfortunately, things would go from bad to worse for me in the next few months. I would be subject to both mental and physical abuse, details of which I'd rather not share now or ever. But safe to say, I was not in a good place. 

There were very few people I'd felt close enough to share these problems with. And even with them, I felt a sense of shame that prevented me from talking about it for a long time. 

Eventually, I felt I needed to tell *someone* about it. I saw Cathy at a temple one day and we briefly talked for a while. I later decided to call her to tell her what was happening with me. If I didn't contact her that day, perhaps we'd have only had good memories of our friendship. But things were never the same again. 

Once you reveal to people just how *damaged* you really are, most don't see you the same way. I always felt that with Cathy after that. I became less of a friend and more of a burden for her. Over the next few months, I'd try to solve this somehow but the truth is I was probably in denial. 

People Change 

When my father passed away, the first person I'd called in the hospital was Cathy. Needless to say, I was not in a good place during that time. 

What I did not expect to happen was Cathy blocking me out of the blue 2 days later, without even telling me the reason why. I was sad, angry, confused and everything else in between. 

She did unblock me after a few days. Apparently someone had started talking about us again. This time though, I felt this was a fucking lame excuse considering the state I was in. 

I told her I forgave her. I wanted to forgive her. But I never forgot this incident and never truly let it go. 

Ghosts

After that day, our friendship was a ghost of what it used to be. I kept looking for ashes of the good times we used to have. But those were seldom (if ever) found. 

We were still "friends" but it was never the same. It still took me a while to accept that it was never going to be the same either. But eventually, even I accepted that she won't be as close a friend as she once was. 

Until 2 months ago that is. I was again going through another life tragedy. This time, I needed Cathy's help because she was in a position to do so. Her responses were however incredibly unhelpful and extremely poor attempts at trying to avoid the situation. I was not happy but I accepted it. 

As things got worse later, I just asked her if we could just talk for 10 min one day because I was not in a good place. She refused. 

Suddenly it all came back. What she did after my father died. What she was doing now. I knew our friendship had to end once and for all. I cut off all contact with her since that day. 

This is how it ends

I don't blame Cathy. She was a good person who just met me at a terrible phase of my life. It's hard to be good friends with someone who is going through emotional trauma. She's a very talented person and doctor and I wish her only the very best in life. 

Meanwhile, I continue to become more emotionally immature. I find little solace in speaking to people given how badly that's turned out in the past. But I still try to open up to anyone willing to listen 5 minutes like some drug addict struggling to get a high with repeated doses. 

I realise this is a complex problem for me and that there are no easy solutions for me anywhere. But all this self-awareness is yet to yield any positive effects. And I'm starting to doubt if that will ever happen.