BoomerGirl Diary

… is, baby, be friends with you.

I wonder exactly who inspired Bob to write those lines. I do identify all too well with his verse. Sometimes I am confused as to what is expected in friendship.

My niece and I were out shopping when we ran into my friend Lydia. Later, the niece told me, “Aunt, I don’t think you should be friends with that woman. She’s kinda low-class.” This comment came from a jobless high-school dropout whose idea of success is to get pregnant so she can get a man to support her from the rest of her life. (I love her, but our obvious differences will probably end up in another article sometime.) Well, Lydia was having a bad hair day and had left the house with no make-up, but I do that all of the time when running errands. But it is more than her hair and clothing that makes Lydia my friend. It is that she cares for me as a person. No, we don’t go skiing together, or go to the movies, or have each other over for tea. We mostly meet for coffee every other week and talk. Or we talk on the phone. We talk and we listen to one another. I suppose it is a form of therapy. We don’t try to change each other. We don’t tell each other what we have purchased lately. We don’t really talk about anyone else. We are very different people. I have three college degrees; she never went to college. She has two grown children; I have cats. She is struggling with a relationship that she desperately wants to work; I am struggling with the fact that I have no romantic relationship. We tell each other what our lives are like over three cups of McDonald’s coffee. And we ask what the other thinks. But we don’t try to change each other. We don’t criticize or advise or try to change the other’s point of view.

Unfortunately, I do not see that in all of my acquaintances. There are people out there who describe me as a friend and they haven’t the faintest idea what a friend is.

I know that I have changed in the past few years. I have lost a lot. I lost my marriage. I lost my Dad. I lost my job. But I have gained a lot, as well. I have gained my own self-respect. I have gained the ability to be kind to myself. And I have gained the gumption to tell some people that I will not allow them to mistreat me.

While I was going through some of these changes, Janie, my friend of 16 years, learned that I slept with my husband before we were married and she then ran around telling people that I was not the person that she thought I was, that I was dishonorable, that I was a slut. Excuse me? Well… she had been on thin ice ever since the FBI showed up on my doorstep a few years back with a search warrant. They were looking for her, a Little Old Lady that she hadn’t returned to the nursing home and $20,000 that the afore described LOL had withdrawn from the bank. They found them all at a political rally in Florida. Last year she enlisted another friend to put us in the same room at a holiday party. I politely said hello and walked away under the pretense of needing a drink. Now Janie and the other friend have told others how unreasonable I am being by throwing away a friendship of so many long years.

Oh, do not think that when you talk badly about someone that it will not get back to her.

Then there was Sharon. When she put me on the mailing list of an extremist political group, I called and asked her to remove my name from the list. She yelled into the phone, "People like you are the reason that six million Jews died in Nazi Germany!" I could not even respond to that. I had no words. I just could not deal with having something like that said to me by someone who was supposed to be my friend.

There are certain things that one should never ever say to a friend. That was one of them.

At least my ex-friend Ron was honest when I last spoke to him. When we were in college, he would play this game of speaking in suicidal tones and then not responding to my calls just to see me hop around worried about him. In recent years, I told him at least three times that I do not allow people to treat me that way anymore. So when we had a disagreement about a sexist comment he made (It was not just sexist. It was a gross and filthy comment about female anatomy, and I had finally told him that I would not discuss it further with him.), he stopped responding to my e-mails. Of course, I hopped around worried sick, finally e-mailing that if I did not hear from him I would call his sister because I was concerned. His response came less than an hour later. He stated that he was just ignoring me for a few weeks because I disagreed with him and that insulted him. Now I have a brain, and I have opinions and I still will not agree with him, so we no longer speak. My choice. I do have choices.

Do not try to change who I am or dictate to me how I should feel.

So last spring, I was shocked when another friend sat me down and told me that I was not a good friend. I asked her exactly what she meant and she stated that she did not see me as being a quality friend because I was never there for her. I admit that I have not recently been the most out-going person, but then I have always been a bit of an introvert. Not to mention that I have been dealing with a lot lately. And I will admit that I quit asking to be included in “girls’ night at the movies” because she would tell me about it after the fact, adding the comment, “We didn’t ask you to go because you are unemployed and should not be spending money on movies.” But I had left two messages on her phone and sent an e-mail in an effort to get together, all of which went unanswered. She gave me a copy of a self-help book and suggested a 12-step group where I could make friends. I already had the book. I went to the group six times. At my second meeting, they asked me to take a volunteer administrative position. I turned it down. When I didn’t return after the sixth meeting, nobody missed me enough to call. Imagine my surprise today when I opened a holiday card and read her handwritten note— “Haven't heard from you in a long while. Hope this means you are busy and making some new friends... Give a call sometime and catch me up with your life. Love…” Huh? Are we pretending that nothing happened? Am I supposed to just pretend that he telling me that my efforts at remaining friends were not good enough did not hurt me? I'm confused. And once again, I have no words.

I’m not sure that I will be calling her. I don’t know what I would have to tell her. “Hi. Everything’s the same. Nothing’s changed. I am still the person that I am, and I don’t allow people to treat me the way that you did.”

Just as I am feeling like a “friendship failure,” Lydia calls. Her relationship has gone toxic. There’s bad stuff. There’s good stuff. She called to let me know she is okay. She called just to hear my voice because she says that I am a good friend and that she can always rely on me to be there and to care for her. She calls to let me know that she is going through a lot right now and might not be as available, but we’ll have coffee when she gets straightened out.

And I don’t want to control her or change her or blame her or take her for a makeover. I just want to be friends with her.