Maintaining dignity

Who among us hasn’t invested time—perhaps years—into a relationship that we probably shouldn’t have been a part of? Significant (or not-so-significant, depending on how you now look at it) other, friendship, even family members that we invest ourselves in, spending time to make it work only to find out something that gives us pause and makes us realize that nothing was what we thought it was.

Sure, I’m ruminating a bit overmuch tonight, as it’s getting later and I’ve been ill for the past few months, so my brain has been on slow-speed and hey-um-what? mode for some time. So, getting back into reading the “rapid-fire reruns” of a strip I used to greatly enjoy has made for some interesting thoughts (as also combined with several occurrences in my life in the past year or so). I mentioned a realization that I cannot control what other people do or think or how they perceive what is going on around them. We all fall into traps where we think one thing is going on and believe we are presenting ourselves one way only to find out that our actions have been perceived otherwise—or that the other person has been acting with self-serving machinations. (Please read all four strips along with the commentary, which will better help you understand what’s going on there, I think. Unless you were a QoW fan anyway, of course.)

Sadly, I think most of us can relate to at least having one relationship where we found out too late that we weren’t befriended for the most innocent of reasons. In the case above, the catalyst for the relationship was the one-sided romantic feelings held by Angela for her “friend,” which in turn caused almost every action she had to niggle in her mind, “Maybe now I can be more than a friend.”

As Aeire has done with her commentary, let’s forget that these are two women we are talking about, shall we? Let’s look at this from anyone’s point of view. How would you feel if you found out that a friend you’d known for years was only friends with you—from the beginning—because he/she thought that the two of you would one day be more (not a new topic for me, by any means, eh**)? How would you feel if you had explicitly told your friend, when once they admitted these deep-seated desires, that you had no such feelings for him/her, but you were assured that the friendship could continue unhindered by these desires—until you realized (or were shown) that this sentiment was untrue: The person still has feelings for you and almost every action in your friendship was simply because he/she was wanting more and was hoping you’d “see the light”: if only he/she could just do more things that you’d like him/her for, say more things that made you laugh, be around whenever you wanted/need something simply in order to be more of a person that you’d want to date.

In case you can’t put yourself in Kestrel’s shoes, let me tell you that this realization hurts. And sadly, that’s understated because it hurts so badly to be deceived by someone that you thought cared for you as a person and not just as a project to work on for one reason or another.

How do you react? What do you say? do? Do you walk away, as Kestrel did? Do you try to patch things up? If you try to stay in the friendship, can you be sure that it truly is a friendship and not still some plot to get more out of you?

I don’t know the answer to that. I can only say what is true in my own life and that is this: I cannot stay in such a relationship where I have seen the proof with my own eyes, where I know that I have been deceived in such a manner. It’s hard throwing away years with someone but—sometimes it’s necessary in order to stop hurting them. I think Aeire’s completely honest with real-life feelings here, to say that someone would break a friendship—not just because one is hurt him/herself by the deception but also because one sees the pain caused to the other person by remaining in the relationship and seeing the other person in another relationship that he/she wishes to have with the friend (such as wishing to date a friend and having to see them date, fall in love, get married, etc.)—to avoid hurting the other person as well.

Just as in this comic, which has hit real-life, both in the relationship can go on to date (and even marry) others, but that doesn’t mean that the feelings have disappeared: It just means that they are settling for something else. I have always said that if you are interested in someone romantically—especially a friend—and you find yourself thinking about it, doing something about it, and being turned down, you need to remove yourself from the other person’s life until you are positive that your feelings have changed. It’s no use hanging around someone you’re in love with, knowing he/she doesn’t feel the same way and just hoping that those thoughts will change. Disaster results: translating a friendly “hello” hug or a “how are you?” phone call into more, finding fault in everyone your friend dates, trying to worm your way into your friend’s life more and more when he/she is happily in a relationship with someone else, becoming obsessed with the idea that you must remain in your friend’s life—no matter what the capacity of the relationship—just to keep hope.

I do, do, do feel strongly that time needs to be taken to get over anyone. The whole “let’s just remain friends” attitude may work—after you’ve had time to cool off, shake the strong emotions you’re harboring, and return only as a friend and nothing more. *sighs* Life is difficult enough without adding to your pain and woes by being around someone who just is unable to return the feelings you’ve expressed and feel strongly. If you like yourself enough, you don’t need to ever (read that again: ever) chase after someone. And if someone chooses to walk away from you, no matter what the reason, take the seeming affront with grace and dignity, losing none of yourself in the process.  To steal some famous words: “Let it be.”

**Just in case you didn’t click the link to my almost-a-year-old post, here’s a quiet excerpt (where I believe I might have just put all the above much more succinctly, albeit without a nifty comic interlude to illustrate the point):

I don’t understand women who befriend a guy just because they believe in the “friends until he falls in love with me” idea. Lady, get over it. He will probably never fall for you. Yes, it does happen but not as often as you’d like to think it does. Also, if he has many female friends, perhaps you’d better wonder how many of them are wondering the same thing. Divide your odds by this. Then talk to him about your feelings. And when he says, “Ummm….no…”? Yeah, he means it. He doesn’t mean to remain his friend only for that off-chance and he doesn’t mean “No, for now, but maybe in the future.” If you can’t remain his friend, with no ill will for any woman he might date or any designs on his time/attention, then perhaps you need to bow out quickly and as gracefully as possible. If you find yourself reminding him why you are not together, when he never asked you to be, then perhaps you need to re-evaluate who you need to be reminding: Are you reminding yourself of his flaws so you can feel better about having been turned down? One person’s flaw is another person’s endearing trait. If you cannot get over it, get out of the friendship.