You are married, have responsibilities and schedules, but is that any excuse to go mess with your friendships with the friends who are single?
Yet another friend gets married. Yet another friend embraces motherhood. And with that, you strike off yet another name from the list of people you considered your own. Your heart sinks for a minute, even though you’re happy for them. Trust me, I know, you are.
Then you gather yourself, put up a happy smile and get ready for the ordeal you have to suffer for someone else’s wedding or baby-shower. While they’ll be happily enjoying their moment of thunder, you get to be a bridesmaid one more time, you get to be the one pretending to cochi-coo a baby regardless of the fact that they make you uncomfortable and you’re not particularly fond of them.
And no one will ever think twice about how you had to push your comfort zone to do those things. But, my darlings, this is just the beginning of a long long story.
It’s been a while since the aforementioned wedding and you know you’ve not been in touch anymore. You wait for it to settle down. You wait for the girl-friend to call up and make an impromptu plan for lunch. But, that’s not going to happen, my dear. So, stop waiting right now. Make your own plans while she contemplates how to juggle two families and work – where’s the time for friends anymore?
Another few months pass. Now, the rose tinted glass is broken and reality is not perfect anymore. Now, she needs friends to talk to. You’ll get a phone call and she’ll even want to meet up. But, don’t fall for it. It’s a trap. I know I sound like a bitch right now, but I am not lying.
So, the dates are fixed as per her convenience, because she has a thousand things to worry about anyway. And you don’t want her to bother about one more. Plus, you’re single, what responsibilities do you have? You can adjust your non-existent schedule according to her in-laws’ sleeping patterns and eating habits, so you could meet her and talk, right?
The time comes to decide a place to meet up. Obviously, it needs to be near her place. You don’t really mind travelling to the hills every weekend, so you can anyway travel the length and breadth of the city to meet her, coz she wants to talk! Plus, she is married and can use that in whatever ways she wants to. You – you’re just a friend who thought you were going to have a conversation.
And then you finally meet, at a place convenient for her, at a time convenient for her. But, she’s not the same person anymore. You find her on an entirely different wavelength this time. Her life is perfect, just that the in-laws or the new job she took to stay with the husband in the same city, is crazy.
Get ready for an hour or two of whining. Don’t dare suggest to her what she could do. You don’t realise but she’s suddenly turned into a pati-vrata and your opinion is not required in her matters. She is not here for the opinion, she is here to just blurt it all out and go back feeling light and relieved of the stress. And you will come back feeling sorry for her. Not that she even deserves that, coz she is anyway not going to take a stand for herself. So, no point pitying people who are not ready to put in efforts to make their own lives better.
The story keeps repeating. You’ve been taken for granted way too long. You know you don’t like it, but for the sake of friendship that once was, you don’t utter a word. You’re anyway too busy working or following a passion and juggling these strange guys your parents force you to meet. Plus, what’s the point trying to revive something that doesn’t exist anymore?
You think you’ve seen it all. Well, wait till you’ve been invited to the birthday party of a 1 year old. Life is a mess, I know. They haven’t met you for over a year now, but if you skip the birthday, you’ll be at fault. By the way, the invitation won’t mention this, but you will be poked about your relationship status by anyone and everyone who barely knows you. So, decide among the two, which one is less painful for you.
The saga is never ending. And maybe it is also a measure of who you want to keep in your life and who you want to let go. Choose wisely, because the ones you keep need to know that even if you’re single, you have a life and responsibilities, even if they are limited to feeding your own self. And that you need the love, the respect, the conversations that were responsible in creating that friendship in the first place. You, honey, deserve all of that and nothing less.
Image source: friends talking by Shutterstock.
A software engineer, a realist, and a cribber by the day. A chef, a writer, and a dreamer, by the night! read more...
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