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Trying To Make Sense of Something That Happened Twenty-Two Years Ago


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Nope. I've always enjoyed a variety of people, but I don't have to be super close with them all. I guess I would call more of them friends, but you may have similar relationships and call them acquaintances. When it comes to really, super close friends, I probably have 5-6, and they mostly know each other, at least to some degree, but that's based a lot on just my current life experience.

 

When it comes to people I really want to hang out with on a regular basis, there are 2 guys that I play games with via Zoom, and before Covid they would come over. And they're probably my best friends. Everyone else is in a circle removed from that.

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I'm going to hijack this thread for a minute instead of making my own just out of sheer laziness.

So, I'm going through a thing right now with a good friend. So let's see...where to begin...

Last October our scouting units had a pretty big shake-up. The 2 scoutmasters for our linked troops (the boy troop and girl troop) had a falling out. There was a lot of drama and bad behavior, mostly from one side though. In hindsight, our friend Jason, the SM for the boys, was going through some personal issues (including some health issues) and he lashed out at the other SM, Jaime. It was a pretty big shake-up for everyone in our friend circle as well. Anyway, in the middle of all of this, Jaime's husband decided that it was the most opportune time to tell her that he was leaving and divorcing her.

 

Jason, his wife, and 3 of their kids all left the troops. His wife was our committee chair, one of the "Key 3" positions that basically runs any scouting unit (along with the scoutmaster/cubmaster and chartered organization representative, COR). We had to do some position switching to fill all the required roles. Our chartered org, our homeschool association, asked me to step-in to be the COR for all 4 of our units. The primary responsibility of the COR is to be the go-between for the chartered org, which owns the units and ultimately decides how things are run, and the unit committees. I was a pretty obvious choice - I know the programs better than most since I also work for our local council, I'm already a member of the homeschool association's board, I was committee chair for the Cub Scout pack until Noah aged out, and I was the next logical choice to be committee chair for the troops as well. So I agreed and our then-COR stepped into the role of committee chair.

 

Mostly, being COR is a simple job. You just make sure everyone is on the same page, and most people usually are. But then, COVID.

 

Fast forward many months, and I'm losing my mind being on the board/committee of so many different organizations here trying to decide if, when, and how we should be doing meetings and activities. What seems like it should be a pretty simple decision - keep everyone safe - has turned into a nightmare thanks to how the powers that be managed to successfully turn a pandemic into a political battle. We have seriously gone from "you can't make everyone happy" to "no matter what everyone is going to be ****ing pissed at you". And to add to all of this, since there's been no clear direction from anyone in any position resembling leadership, the buck keeps getting passed...yes, even right down to each of our scouting units. Our homeschool association doesn't want to say that our units shouldn't meet, so they keep telling me "whatever you think is best". I decided that what I think is best is that our Cub Scouts (5-11 year-olds) aren't going to be able to socially distance or maintain anything resembling personal hygiene, so they shouldn't meet at all right now. And that our older units, troops with 11-17 YO and the crew with 14-20 YO, should make their own decisions but be limited out outdoor activities where social distancing is in place and all precautions are taken.

Noah's troop, the boy troop, has had several activities in the past few months. They did a hike where parents and kids stayed together away from the others. They did the same thing fishing at a local lake. They had an ice-cream meetup where they each got Dairy Queen Blizzards and hung out in the back of their own family's SUV/truck all in the same parking lot. They've also done a lot of virtual meetings and campouts. The girls, Jaime's troop, have been doing only virtual meetings. The crew, which is run by the youth almost entirely, has also elected to stay virtual.

 

Now, Jaime is an RN who quit her job in labor and delivery at a local hospital right before COVID because her newly single-mom schedule required something different. She's now teaching nursing students at the community college. Jaime has also been in a pretty downward spiral since this began. She's a social person who's been cutoff from nearly all of her support system right after losing her husband and several of her closest friends. She's also more conservative-leaning than most of the rest of us and has even fallen into several of the big conspiracy-traps that we all keep making fun of online, which just means that she apparently has been feeling personally attacked by her friends since we've been very open about how stupid we find some of these things.

 

Several weeks ago, our homeschool association decided to go ahead with an in-person open house. I didn't necessarily agree with that, but I was outvoted. So I had emailed all of the other leaders for our scouting units to ask if they wanted to participate. Most of them didn't, which I knew. Jaime and our other scoutmaster did, which I also already knew. But I told everyone I would support whatever decision they made and I would help however I could. Then, Jaime just up and decided to announce that the girl troop would be starting in-person meetings in August. Amy, our committee chair, and I were really taken aback because deciding to meet in-person is really a group decision and probably needs to be something that the scouts' parents also have a say in. So we asked for a "Key 4" meeting between the 3 of us plus the scoutmaster for the boy troop. In the meeting Jaime kept asking me what our homeschool association had said about us meeting in person. I kept telling her that the last board meeting in June was almost 100% about the upcoming year's budget and approval and very little was said about any of our activities. We decided then that it wasn't worth even trying to talk about since the pandemic didn't look like it was ending (this was right at the beginning of the "2nd wave" spike) and the homeschool board wouldn't meet again until August anyway so let's just make decisions then with 2 extra months of information to go on. Jaime then said that she'd contacted "someone high up on the board" to ask them about what the homeschool association had said. So Amy was like "why did you go over Cereese's head? That's her position and she's already told us everything." To which Jaime replied "well, her last email [about the open house] was very biased and I just want to make sure that what she said was accurate."

 

So I was shocked and hurt since she basically implied that I was lying. Then she doubled-down and decided to attend the August board meeting for the homeschool association to "hear for herself" what was being said. Board meetings are open to all of our members, so I don't have an issue with her attending, just her given reason for doing so.

 

It's been a few weeks now. And I'm still really bothered by this. I know that she knows that we don't agree politically about a lot of things, but I for damn sure don't believe that should be any reason to think that I would suddenly start lying to my friends about an extracurricular activity for our kids. But still, we had a full committee meeting with all of our troop leadership last Wednesday and everything went really well. Later that evening I received a private message from Jaime that says "I wanted to apologize for my attitude a couple weeks ago. My depression has definitely worsened over the past couple months with a "no end in sight" Covid 'unprecedented times'. Dang I'm sick of that phrase. I know what I said to you was likely hurtful and for that I'm sorry."

I haven't responded yet. I'm not sure what to say. I know I'm still bothered by what she said, but I also completely understand where her mental health is right now. A part of me would prefer that we all move on like this never happened, but then another part of me feels like this was a significant moment in our relationship and something was broken.

 

So...what do I do/say? Somebody tell me what I need to be thinking right now because I'm too emotionally taxed as it is to come up with my own solution.

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I have thoughts, but not a lot of time.

 

In short, I think that mental health is a valid excuse, but having a valid excuse doesnt mean youre free from repercussions. The question at hand is, what are reasonable repercussions, and thats a hard thing to decide. I think the right thing to do is tell her how you feel - you understand that shes having a really hard time, and you want to forgive her, but youre also hurt by her actions. She needs to know that her actions hurt others, otherwise mental health can be a way to excuse behavior that isnt actually caused by it:

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Tank, if youre weird, Im weird. I was even like that as a kid - I had friends from the neighborhood, friends from 4-H, friends from homeschool group, friends from church, friends because our moms are friends... my birthday parties were horrible, as no one knew each other, no one wanted to make new friends, and no one got along, but I couldnt have five separate birthday parties.

 

Nowadays, the pagan community in the area is a pretty unified group, but its not my only friend group. I also have my college roommates and their spouses, my college friends (completely separate group from the roommates), and friends I picked up in various random places (including Reese and Jacob).

 

With the exception of Reese and Jacob who I only ever see on video chat, I see all of these people in person maybe once a year. Even before Covid. Pagans, maybe 3-4 times a year, because we all travel together. And it works.

 

And this is why I finally hit a point where I gave up trying to throw myself a birthday party, and just accept the first dinner invitation I get instead.

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Reese, yeah, shes a tough one. I would definitely let her know that she hurt you pretty deeply, but I would word it like you did here, that you feel that its a significant moment in your relationship that you want to make sure is properly healed before moving on. She came to you with an apology, so she should be open to that. You could even pull your pastor in if you need to, theyre trained for this kind of thing.

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I have thoughts, but not a lot of time.

 

In short, I think that mental health is a valid excuse, but having a valid excuse doesnt mean youre free from repercussions. The question at hand is, what are reasonable repercussions, and thats a hard thing to decide. I think the right thing to do is tell her how you feel - you understand that shes having a really hard time, and you want to forgive her, but youre also hurt by her actions. She needs to know that her actions hurt others, otherwise mental health can be a way to excuse behavior that isnt actually caused by it:

This. I like to say that you can be upset about your circumstances but it does not give you license to treat others poorly. My mom did this for years and it drove everyone away. Our last conversation was an argument because she had been horribly mean (treating me like I was dumb for having difficulty caring for a woman who normally had 24-hour nursing, commenting on my weight negatively when I had just lost 20 lbs, etc) to me when I came to her assistance, and I was having difficulty forgiving her. While I unfortunately do not have very many good memories of my mom, I learned a lot from her, even if it was how NOT to be.

 

It does sound like Jamie is struggling in this new normal, from COVID to being a single mom. And yes, right now it sucks for everyone. Do you think it actually impacted the board's opinion of you, or do they realize she is being unreasonable right now? I think you can either call her on it, or let it go. If you don't want to deal with it, let it go and chalk it up to crazy and maybe distance yourself. No special favors to people who treat you poorly. If you're brave enough to call her on it, I would acknowledge that you realize she's been through a lot lately but there was no ill will, and that you have been out voted on several issues. In Girl Scouts we call it girl-led, I assume you have a similar structure for scout or child-led. Her families need to be part of the decision, she does not get to make it alone. If she goes against the will of her troop, she will just lose them. (And that is a huge risk for all Scout organizations in this atmosphere.)

 

As for my friends, I had a few different "groups" growing up and they didn't always mesh. I got comfortable with only rarely integrating them (annual birthday party). I was very social, so if I wanted to do something I would just see who wanted to go with me. In college, my social circle was tighter and I had preferred friends that I mostly spent time with. As an adult, well, if they haven't already moved out of state, then I try to hang out with them once a year when I can get a sitter or reprieve for mom's day out while getting texts from my husband asking when I will be back. Adulting sucks.

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I feel like its normal to have different groups of friends. I had a friend who used to get pissed that not everyone he knew would just hang out together, but it was also like Well why dont you invite everyone to hang out?

 

I agree with everything you said about Jamie and the situation with your mom. My mom is good most of the time, but then goes psycho about stupid stuff. Like when Louis was born, I couldnt reach her so I asked my brother to keep trying to call her, because Laura was in labor and didnt want me on the phone. I asked her to stop by the pharmacy on the way to pick up my inhaler that I needed. Everything is fine but my mother-in-law beat her to the hospital by 10-15 minutes. We didnt let either of them in, because she was in full labor by the time we even got to the hospital, so she literally missed 15 minutes of sitting in the waiting room. But she held a grudge for months.

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Its been over a week since I mailed the letter. Typically it wouldve been delivered within 2 days, normally the next day. But, apparently Columbus is one of the hardest hit areas for mail disruption, which completely has nothing to do with being a blue county surrounded by a sea of red.

 

So, really, I dont know that its been delivered, but its also long enough to assume I definitely wont get a response.

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I got the following response. So, at least I did it. I don't think there's any need for me to respond, or for things to go any further.

 

Hey man,

 

Wow.

 

First of all I just want to say how relieved and thankful I am that you recovered. Covid is horrific and I can only imagine what that must have been like for you and your family. A former coworker of mine passed away from it about a month ago. Here's wishing you nothing but good health moving forward.

 

I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to the rest of your note, but I wanted you to know there wasn't any lingering animosity on my end. Maybe the best thing to do is just start from seven years ago. When I got married a lot of things instantly changed for me in my life, and I'm sure you can relate to that. I honestly can't say that I was "hurt" so much as I no longer cared as much about what anyone thought about me or my wife. My purpose was clear, and I began to recognize how yours was as well.

 

In short we both started families and I felt like that should be our focus. Of course I look back on our friendship fondly, but I also recognize through the lens of maturity that we brought out our worst tendencies in each other. I noticed it back then but it really started to make sense the more time passed.

 

I had honestly assumed you had reached the same conclusion in your life and that was why I stopped hearing from you aside from scattered birthday wishes. So I apologize for not being more clear at the time, although I think by that point we were both just trying to avoid drama as much as possible. Anything you did that hurt me I forgave you for years ago, and believe me I know I did some ****ty stuff as well. Regardless of anything I'm very grateful that our friendship happened. We got each other through some of the darkest points in our life and I will always be thankful for that.

 

I still "burn it louder" from time to time but I think these days you and I are much more focused on "following through" and I think that's pretty badass.

 

- Jason

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There wasnt going to be any type of satisfying answer, and any response at all was more than I expected.

 

So, yeah, this was about as good as it would get.

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Yeah, that seems like a fairly solid letter to get in this type of situation, especially when you were thinking you wouldn't get one at all back. I hope that, while it isn't fully satisfying for you, it can at least help you put a bookend of some sort on it as you move forward.

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Interesting. It kind of sounds like you two were probably immature guys together and he was a little embarrassed about it. Or his wife didn't like how he acted when he was around you. I mean, I get that we all did dumb stuff in our younger years and its a little hard to look back on. Seems a bit harsh on his behalf but also sounds like he realizes he ghosted you for a kind of dumb reason, but he's also not regretting it because he likes where he is. I'm glad you have closure that you didn't do anything specific, hopefully deep down you already knew that.

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After digesting, the response makes no sense. If he had ghosted me a decade sooner, it would have. But by the time I was in my mid-twenties, our relationship had changed and we were different people. Definitely by the time I was in my 30s. Hell, I am WAY more immature here than anywhere else in my life.

 

But, whatever, maybe there was something in our relationship that kept him from being the person he wanted to be. Either way, the door is definitely closed and I absolutely do not need to respond or dig things up anymore.

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The last woman I dated thought I was weird for not having a unified circle of friends. Like, she has a solid group of 5-6 people that are her only social life. They do things in pairs, trios, full group-- whatever hanging out any of them does, it is with another person from that circle.

 

I don't do that. I have a lot of acquaintances, and maybe 6-7 close friends. Some of them know each other. Like a couple are friends from school, and we'll hang out, with other acquaintances from school. But mostly, it's people I know closely one on one. Now generally, we have friends in common.

 

I guess it's like, I have a series of pools of acquaintances. There's people I went to grad school with, people I have worked with, people in the indie horror scene in LA, family, etc. Groups come and go-- like people I went to high school with tapered from a big pool down to one or two.

 

And while I can navigate these groups, be friendly, hang out, and talk to a lot of people inside those groups, I am generally only truly close to and hang out one on one with one or two from each group.

 

And I have a few friends that are outliers I met some random way. If I ever had a party it would probably be awful. Is this weird?

GAWD I am glad I don't have to date anymore. People have such weird, judgmental expectations, now. If something ever happened where I was single again, I think I would just be a hermit.

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I ended up responding, because I wanted to ask for contact information for a mutual friend. But I also realized that I dont really have space in my life for Jason. My new best friend is a way better friend, and has been for most of the past 7 years. Beyond that, I have too many friends that I never see. It would be cool to see him in a group setting, with people that I want to hang out with, but I really dont have any intention of inviting him into my life in any way.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/17/2020 at 3:28 PM, Iceheart said:

What do you call responding when contacted, but otherwise not initiating contact in any way?

 

I have this former friend who doesn't realize she's a former friend. We became friends in college, and were tight for a few years, but she's always been a very high-maintenance person, and honestly, I kept the friendship going longer than I probably should just because she throws awesome parties with well-connected people. She decided to re-invent herself as a "business coach" a couple of years back, and she just became a self-absorbed monster.

 

I went to a concert with her about two years ago where she pissed me off so badly I basically decided to ghost her. I stopped initiating contact, and I muted her on all social media platforms. I fell away from any mutual friends we had more because of my job loss and depression than anything, but that lessened our contact even more.

 

But, every so often she'll text me. Usually to ask me something for her own benefit, without even a "how are you?" Occasionally she'll text me articles, or to ask me about things that I was into two years ago, but that I haven't thought about once in the two intervening years. I'll answer those texts, and they've only ever produced some very short and awkward back-and-forths. She'll comment on my Instagram or LinkedIn posts every so often. And she shows zero signs that she is aware that the friendship died two years ago. And I've turned it into a game, to see if she ever notices. Is that bad?

 

So, this "friend"...

Noticed some of my insta posts about my etsy shop yesterday and texted me effusive praise about my branding and marketing and all that. And I said thank you. And she asked if she could do anything to help, and I asked her to promote if she could and she said she would. Not a terrible interaction.

But she always knows how to put her foot in it. She texts me just now that she went ahead and added me to her small business collaboration group on fb. I text back "thanks, which account?" thinking maybe she had sent me a friend request. Radio silence. I check my new fb page. She added the one I haven't touched in over two years.

I have told her, point blank, repeatedly, for two years, "I don't use Facebook anymore." Not to mention, you know, I haven't responded to a single thing she's sent me on fb for over two years? She just really knows how to show that it's all surface.

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