Friends ...

When I was at school, I had loads of friends. I wasnt the popular girl, or the unpopular girl for that matter. I was friends with everyone, took people at face value. I have never been one to judge people based on what others say about them.

The older I get, the more I feel that was the right way to be, even now in a world where most people just seem to want to fit in. I try to teach my children the same thing. I am trying to teach them to make their own decisions about things. Not to follow the crowd. To be individuals.

I dont have a lot of truly close friends anymore, but thinking back, I dont suppose I ever really did. I knew a lot of people, I guess I had, and have, a wide network of friends and aquintances. And you know what? Im ok with this. I dont want people to know me, I dont want people to be close enough to me to have the power to use that information to hurt me. Intentionally or otherwise.

I have recently 'lost' a person that I thought was my best friend. I dont mean they have died, just that we're not friends anymore. Havent spoken for a good few weeks now. The reason that this hurts, is because there was no argument. No falling out. Nothing. We didnt see each other for a little bit, and questions were asked. "What had they done to piss me off?" (Nothing, was just not in the mood for company), "What have they said thats caused me to not want to see them?" (Nothing, I never NOT wanted to see them), and so on and so forth. I dont know how many times I said that there were no issues (except my own) or problems, it wasnt accepted. So I stopped trying to explain, I figured that if this person chose not to believe me then it was their issue not mine and I waited for them to get over it and let me know when they had.

So I waited ... and waited ... then I found out that this person had been talking about me behind my back. Which in itself doesnt bother me, what bothers me is the person that they chose to speak to and what Ive been told has been said about me afterwards.

Apparently, I have said things that will cause us to never be friends again. Apparently this is my fault. Even though I have said nothing apart from the fact that I was bored with it. I was bored with the whole situation. Just wanted it to blow over and us get back to normal.

Guess that just isnt going to happen now. Im not entirely sure how I feel about that though. I dont really know if Im all that bothered that Im no longer friends with someone who will judge me, clearly, by what other people have said about me.

I thought they were better than that.