I am such a dork...look at this post title. Yeah, I kind of rolled my eyes at the title of this post right along with you because I hate when people make up verbs like "friending." Also, I'm not on My Space, Facebook or any of that stuff. I have this blog - this quiet, sleepy little anonymous place on the Internet - and that is about it. But I was feeling rhymey, so there you go - dorky title for a post.
What is on my mind is...when you have a friend, do you get offended when that person doesn't reciprocate your friendship?
Let me clarify the question - when I do something nice for a friend, it isn't because I expect something in return. In general, I don't expect a lot of others. It's not that I'm bitter or cranky...it's more that I'm 39 years old, I've lived a lot of life, I've known lots of people and I read the news. There are bursts of kindness and kinships in the world, but there are also a lot of sucktards out there who make it tough to keep having hope for the goodness of others. I know some AMAZING people and I feel fortunate for that. But there are a lot of selfish bastards out there who cause a girl to keep her guard up.
Still, if you have a long-term friendship with someone, isn't it fair to assume that they will at least appreciate the friendship and gestures, and not take you for granted?
In fact, while I'm not big on ragging people out behind their back, it's safe for me to vent here because she doesn't even read this blog. I once told her about it, offered to send her a link to it and she said, "I am on a computer all day...I don't have time to read one more thing." So, it's more than safe to assume that she'll never read this...and even if she did, it's how I feel, so I'd be okay with it. (By the way, she doesn't have time to read anything, but she IS on Facebook and a bunch of other social networking sites.)
We invited her to stand up for us at our wedding ceremony and understood that it could be tough for her to get here (she lives about 6 hours away), but she insisted it wouldn't be a problem to do it, and even swore she'd be at our reception.
Then, she revised her plans. She thought she could do the ceremony but not the reception because she didn't have enough vacation days.
(However, soon after saying that, she took several days of vacation to go visit a friend who has not been so loyal to her. Granted, it was because her friend's grandmother suddenly died, but where did these mysterious extra days off come from? More importantly, I tried not to be offended or hurt that when my Grandma died last summer - the Grandma that she always wanted to visit when she came to town and who she sent cards and flowers to - not only did she not come to support me, but only texted or e-mailed during that time...not one phone call for a full month when I really, really needed support.)
Steinvic offered to pay for a hotel room for her and also researched an amazingly inexpensive airfare that he offered to split with her (we'd each pay $70) to cut down on the time she'd need to miss work.
Her response? "I am too stressed at work to even think about it right now." Not thank you. Not, "That's generous...let me see what I can do as soon as I get my calendar together." Nothing.
It's been a week since we offered and she hasn't brought it up. I've gotten myself so pissed about it that when she e-mails with her "Hi! How are you!? What's going on this weekend?" I can't even reply. I don't want to say anything but," What the hell is your problem and how could you be so ungrateful?"
I'm no Bridezilla. I don't expect her to drop everything for us, throw me a shower, make an extra trip here to help me hot glue bows to something or party down with me wearing some tiara with a veil tacked to it. But she hasn't even asked what my dress looks like and that kind of hurts my feelings. Am I a sensitive litte baby or what? I hate that this bothers me so much.
But, if I'm honest, I regret our decision to ask her to stand with us because I feel like that is an honor for a forever friend and right now, I don't feel like she's going to be that to me or to us.
From an ettiquite perspective, I know I could politely call her and say that our plans have changed and that while we no longer need her to take the time off work for our ceremony, we sure hope she'll come to the celebration a few weeks later.
But that seems mean to me.
I don't know what to do...I don't have the energy to hash it out with her, but maybe I'll have to do it. Part of me thinks she should know how I feel and the other thinks I just need to suck it up.
For the moment, I'm just simmering on it. And feeling like a fool for counting on her in the first place.
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