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April 21, 2002-4:11 p.m. It is possible that I may have lost what I considered to be a good friend by simply being myself. I don�t think that I have changed from the person she met and became friends with almost five years ago but she may think differently. We met in a training class at work as new hires. We spent ten weeks in training and became friends. She wasn�t assigned to the same team as I was but we talked everyday and maintained our friendship, even once she was transferred to another building. She has always been religious, to a degree, but in the last year or so she has made a concerted effort to become more faithful and do the things that she deems necessary in order for God to bless her house. This includes, but is not limited to, paying tithes, attending services, doing Bible study online, sending inspirational emails (which I am inevitably forced to delete because they make me want to retch) and generally trying to be more spiritual. Unfortunately, for me, this has also included trying to be more positive in her outlook and surround herself with people who are also positive. As anyone who is a longtime, or probably even short time reader of Sa-land would know, this is not the land of sunny platitudes and carefree joy. One of her attempts at changing my outlook was chronicled here and was met with something less than enthusiasm on my part. I did make a genuine effort at trying to talk to her about positive things. Communication dwindled and, if you ask me, I was downright boring without my usual sarcastic diatribes and cutting commentary about coworkers and current events but I wanted to preserve our friendship and secretly hoped she would just snap out of it. I was on vacation the week before Easter and I sent her an article about a topic sort of related but not exactly the same as one that she is interested in. She replied that she thought that it would have information about the subject that she was interested in. I just thought it was interesting, that�s why I sent it. I also forwarded this email to her and she replied, �Why don�t you just delete his emails� which was totally not the point of my forwarding it. After receiving those two snappish replies, I emailed her asking what was wrong and then tried to call her but she didn�t answer. Later, I got an email from her saying that she was just so excited about Easter that her mind was just racing around and she couldn�t really concentrate. Sounded like a cock and bull story to me, but I let it drop. I figured something was going on and when she was ready to talk about it she would. She�s had periods of time before where she�s just needed to drop out for a while so I thought this was another instance of that. When we talked again she brought up the subject of some proposed legislation that she had been reading about. I wasn�t too familiar with this subject and had not decided upon a position on the legislation. I had lots of questions along the line of who would pay for the program, what they were proposing, who it would effect and how these effects would take place. She didn�t have any answers for any of my questions, saying only that she didn�t care where the money came from as long as she got hers and that it wasn�t about a check. When I pointed out the inconsistencies in what she had said, she said she had been joking about getting her share of the money and that she thought I knew her better than that. I can only assume that she thought because I had questions, I was against the legislation. I found a website devoted to the issue and sent it to her saying that I was doing some research and should be able to discuss the subject with her intelligibly by the end of the week. She replied that the subject matter was extremely sensitive to her and that she was not willing to debate it with me, she only brought it up so that I would be aware, so I should just drop it. I was really stung by her response and replied with an email saying that the fact that I was doing research did not necessarily mean that I intended to �debate� the subject with her and that she didn�t seem to want to discuss much of anything lately despite my efforts to remain positive in my communications and I�m dropping it. That was two weeks ago and I haven�t heard anything from her since. I feel sort of like I was ambushed. Like she just used this issue to dump me. It sounds so much more reasonable to terminate a friendship over seeming disagreements on issues rather than the fact that the other person just isn�t cheery enough for you anymore. **Disclaimer: All characters in this diary are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, real or imagined, is purely coincidental and unintentional.** |
