polychromatic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
polychromatic) wrote2020-09-11 07:34 pm
polychromatic) wrote2020-09-11 07:34 pm
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When do you end a friendship?
When someone is taking advantage of you?
When there are irreconcilable differences in morality?
When you no longer share anything in common?
I have mostly been lucky in life - aside from a few bumpy patches - to have good friends in my life. At a (very) young age I was guileless enough to be charming and had two very best friends in pre-kindergarten and as good a social-standing as you can have at that age of 4. Moving away to the other side of the country in the early 90's meant the end of those friendships; at such a young age with no easy way to keep in contact and likely would not have been worth the effort. I found myself in precarious social-standing at my new school in Vancouver, being one of the very few Asian children, but found myself two new very best friends for the year and we became our own little misfit trio. But in the days of elementary school, your friendships were very strongly dictated by who you shared a classroom with, and so friendships started and faded every year.
High school was tricky in the first year, when one of my very best friends from elementary school suddenly decided she didn't like me anymore. I was baffled and hurt and incredibly lonely that first year. I remember being left to watch a circle of various belongings - backpacks, lunchboxes, etc - as members of my "friend group" each peeled away to leave me there alone, pointedly not inviting me to join them. I felt like a social pariah until Elaine unceremoniously breezed into my life and decided we should be friends. She is my Best Bud Forever to this very day and I will never forget how in that one act, she probably single-handedly saved my high school experience.
I came away with a few new strong friendships in university and had cemented some existing ones into what I expect to be life-long friendships. Vet school brought more of the same, and I walked away from my time in Melbourne with some friendships that would have made the whole experience worthwhile even if nothing else had come from it. I will never forget the feeling of loss when I left Melbourne, that things would never be like this again. I will never forgot how Joy immediately started sobbing and how loved I felt in that moment.
As my mother often says, "I count my blessings" with the people in my life now. I am very lucky to have good friends who I know care for me and will go out of their way to show it. Now more than ever, I appreciate those who've taken the time to check in on me in the midst of this pandemic. One group of friends and I joke about investing in a mansion together in our old age and hiring a caretaker to tend to our fragile, crotchety selves.
I've had my share of friendships that fizzle out, as we all do. Life gets in the way, schedules and commitments make it difficult to connect, and sometimes people just naturally grow apart. There are some people that I am not in close, continuous contact with, but I know if I was ever in need of help that they would provide it without question, and vice versa. There are people I think fondly of, but have not spoken to in many, many years. Facebook - while not without its problems - enables me to keep up-to-date with some people in small ways. It makes us feel connected even when we are ostensibly not really involved in each other's lives.
And then, I have had some friendships I have chosen to "end" in recent years though. I have garnered a bit of a reputation for being nice and patient, but what many of my close friends know is that I have a long memory and the unfortunate habit of holding a grudge. I can let little things lie, but when "infractions" increasingly pile on, my patience can start to wear thin, given enough time and incidents. When someone manages to cross beyond my "tolerance" threshold, I find that I am often unable to cross back over and will actively stop prioritizing that person in my life. It is not an admirable trait and it's one that I have tried to curb, by learning to speak up sooner than later about things that make me uncomfortable or unhappy.
It is interesting that most of the friendships I have chosen to "end" in recent years have been with men. One was a newer friend I'd made in Australia, a guy in the army who I ran into at a pop culture convention and we bonded over our shared love for Battlestar Galactica. He was fun-loving and outgoing and the kind of geeky friend I needed in this new environment. But we increasingly fought over a number of things (even joking about our friendship-break-ups) as we clearly had numerous different values and outlooks on various topics. Where I lost my patience was the time he point-blank told me that being stressed over my final exams in vet school was small potatoes compared to being pregnant and going through childbirth, so I should learn to handle it better. I was further pushed over the edge when he posted that only those of a certain body-type should be allowed to participate in cosplay at conventions, as the "non-ideal body-types" in costume disgusted him. There was such a heavy layer of misogyny and privilege underlying his happy-go-lucky exterior. How could I be friends with someone like that?
Deciding to "end" a friendship with someone I've known since high school was tougher. But I'd put up with over a decade of him showing up 1-3 hours late, which became increasingly hard to interpret as anything but a blatant disrespect for my time over his. He would only call when he needed to purchase food for his dog and then would expect me to be available to personally deliver it to him at all hours, regardless of my own schedule and commitments. He would cancel plans at the very last minute, forget to show up for things he had arranged, and would rely on others to pay for his meals. He was never able to step outside himself and consider other people, something that was frustrating in a teenager and intolerable in an adult. The last straw for me was when he wanted a last minute delivery of a large bag of dog food, and then was unable to pick it up from me because he had an "emergency situation" where he had forgotten to renew his passport ahead of his trip to Asia the next day. He had once sent me to deliver food to his house before, swearing to me that he had called home to ensure someone was there to open the door and take the food. They weren't. Needless to say, the dog food stayed with me until his return and then I told him in no uncertain terms that I no longer had time to be his delivery person and the he needed to find his own source of dog food.
I am now struggling with someone I have considered a close friend in the past few years. By virtue of us both being single, we had become food buddies and hung out quite a bit as a result. It had been clear that we do not see eye-to-eye on many topics (I had said that if he still wanted to be friends, then politics was off the table because we disagreed on so many things) but overall he has been a kind, caring, and generous friend. When he wanted to adopt a senior dog, I was wary and told him so, but since he had a regular 9-5 job now, he felt up to the task. Then he want back to his old job of jet-setting around the world and working odd hours, leaving his senior dog in the care of his neighbour for months at a time. When he didn't show for an appointment he'd booked for his dog, I called him and he told me he was at the pharmacy and was running late. We booked another appointment and I called him fifteen minutes prior to remind him of the appointment. He told me he wouldn't be able to make it, that he was caught in a work emergency and I told him how upset I was that he was not only disrespecting my professional time, but he was actively taking away an appointment spot that we could have given to a sick patient. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he did not show up for the third appointment, that it would be a mark against our friendship. After being away for a few months, he flew back into Vancouver right as the 14 day self-isolation recommendations were announced by the government in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. He put out a plea for someone to deliver toilet paper to him, which I did. I was anxious, going into a high-rise and therefore high-occupancy building, but I did it because he's my friend. When he noted that his dog had been vomiting and no one was able or willing to bring him to the clinic to be seen, I offered to pick up his dog in the morning before my shift. He told me I had to call his neighbour, and I told him I was not comfortable calling someone I didn't know to try and pick up his dog, especially that early in the morning. This was his dog and therefore his responsibility, and I was doing him a favour. He begrudgingly agreed. When I dropped his dog off at his apartment that evening, he had a cleaning lady in his apartment. Despite the self-isolation recommendation, despite the fact that I had - on two occasions - put myself in a position that was scary at that time to help him, he had broken the self-isolation rules for his own purposes. I went home and cried to my mother on the phone. When I received the labwork results for his dog (they were all within normal), I reported them, ensured the dog was doing okay, and then I reamed him out for being irresponsible in breaking his quarantine. When he lamely argued that his cleaning lady had told him it was fine, I was even more upset that he refused to take responsibility for his part, that he was pushing it onto her, someone who needed to make a living when I know it is fully within his capability to pay her and ask her to come back when his quarantine was over. I told him that taking these unnecessary and selfish risks was putting people like my parents in danger. When his dog became ill again, he would text me later at night to tell me his dog had been sick all day, when I was already at home and could not do anything about it. Despite my personal frustrations with him, I felt badly about Frank and the situation; it's not easy to have a sick pet. When he made the decision to euthanize, I met them in the parking lot because our protocols prevented me from being in the hospital when I wasn't at work. I told him to call me if he needed to talk about his grief over Frank's loss. However, I was still not at the stage where I was comfortable with him as a friend anymore, especially with his purposely inflammatory posts on Facebook during the pandemic. It is reaching the stage where I question whether our differences in values and morality are at the stage where continuing the friendship is no longer viable. I was hoping tincture of time would let my emotions about my various grievances settle down, but his actions continue to fan the flames and I wonder if it's worth it. I'm starting to think it's not.
When someone is taking advantage of you?
When there are irreconcilable differences in morality?
When you no longer share anything in common?
I have mostly been lucky in life - aside from a few bumpy patches - to have good friends in my life. At a (very) young age I was guileless enough to be charming and had two very best friends in pre-kindergarten and as good a social-standing as you can have at that age of 4. Moving away to the other side of the country in the early 90's meant the end of those friendships; at such a young age with no easy way to keep in contact and likely would not have been worth the effort. I found myself in precarious social-standing at my new school in Vancouver, being one of the very few Asian children, but found myself two new very best friends for the year and we became our own little misfit trio. But in the days of elementary school, your friendships were very strongly dictated by who you shared a classroom with, and so friendships started and faded every year.
High school was tricky in the first year, when one of my very best friends from elementary school suddenly decided she didn't like me anymore. I was baffled and hurt and incredibly lonely that first year. I remember being left to watch a circle of various belongings - backpacks, lunchboxes, etc - as members of my "friend group" each peeled away to leave me there alone, pointedly not inviting me to join them. I felt like a social pariah until Elaine unceremoniously breezed into my life and decided we should be friends. She is my Best Bud Forever to this very day and I will never forget how in that one act, she probably single-handedly saved my high school experience.
I came away with a few new strong friendships in university and had cemented some existing ones into what I expect to be life-long friendships. Vet school brought more of the same, and I walked away from my time in Melbourne with some friendships that would have made the whole experience worthwhile even if nothing else had come from it. I will never forget the feeling of loss when I left Melbourne, that things would never be like this again. I will never forgot how Joy immediately started sobbing and how loved I felt in that moment.
As my mother often says, "I count my blessings" with the people in my life now. I am very lucky to have good friends who I know care for me and will go out of their way to show it. Now more than ever, I appreciate those who've taken the time to check in on me in the midst of this pandemic. One group of friends and I joke about investing in a mansion together in our old age and hiring a caretaker to tend to our fragile, crotchety selves.
I've had my share of friendships that fizzle out, as we all do. Life gets in the way, schedules and commitments make it difficult to connect, and sometimes people just naturally grow apart. There are some people that I am not in close, continuous contact with, but I know if I was ever in need of help that they would provide it without question, and vice versa. There are people I think fondly of, but have not spoken to in many, many years. Facebook - while not without its problems - enables me to keep up-to-date with some people in small ways. It makes us feel connected even when we are ostensibly not really involved in each other's lives.
And then, I have had some friendships I have chosen to "end" in recent years though. I have garnered a bit of a reputation for being nice and patient, but what many of my close friends know is that I have a long memory and the unfortunate habit of holding a grudge. I can let little things lie, but when "infractions" increasingly pile on, my patience can start to wear thin, given enough time and incidents. When someone manages to cross beyond my "tolerance" threshold, I find that I am often unable to cross back over and will actively stop prioritizing that person in my life. It is not an admirable trait and it's one that I have tried to curb, by learning to speak up sooner than later about things that make me uncomfortable or unhappy.
It is interesting that most of the friendships I have chosen to "end" in recent years have been with men. One was a newer friend I'd made in Australia, a guy in the army who I ran into at a pop culture convention and we bonded over our shared love for Battlestar Galactica. He was fun-loving and outgoing and the kind of geeky friend I needed in this new environment. But we increasingly fought over a number of things (even joking about our friendship-break-ups) as we clearly had numerous different values and outlooks on various topics. Where I lost my patience was the time he point-blank told me that being stressed over my final exams in vet school was small potatoes compared to being pregnant and going through childbirth, so I should learn to handle it better. I was further pushed over the edge when he posted that only those of a certain body-type should be allowed to participate in cosplay at conventions, as the "non-ideal body-types" in costume disgusted him. There was such a heavy layer of misogyny and privilege underlying his happy-go-lucky exterior. How could I be friends with someone like that?
Deciding to "end" a friendship with someone I've known since high school was tougher. But I'd put up with over a decade of him showing up 1-3 hours late, which became increasingly hard to interpret as anything but a blatant disrespect for my time over his. He would only call when he needed to purchase food for his dog and then would expect me to be available to personally deliver it to him at all hours, regardless of my own schedule and commitments. He would cancel plans at the very last minute, forget to show up for things he had arranged, and would rely on others to pay for his meals. He was never able to step outside himself and consider other people, something that was frustrating in a teenager and intolerable in an adult. The last straw for me was when he wanted a last minute delivery of a large bag of dog food, and then was unable to pick it up from me because he had an "emergency situation" where he had forgotten to renew his passport ahead of his trip to Asia the next day. He had once sent me to deliver food to his house before, swearing to me that he had called home to ensure someone was there to open the door and take the food. They weren't. Needless to say, the dog food stayed with me until his return and then I told him in no uncertain terms that I no longer had time to be his delivery person and the he needed to find his own source of dog food.
I am now struggling with someone I have considered a close friend in the past few years. By virtue of us both being single, we had become food buddies and hung out quite a bit as a result. It had been clear that we do not see eye-to-eye on many topics (I had said that if he still wanted to be friends, then politics was off the table because we disagreed on so many things) but overall he has been a kind, caring, and generous friend. When he wanted to adopt a senior dog, I was wary and told him so, but since he had a regular 9-5 job now, he felt up to the task. Then he want back to his old job of jet-setting around the world and working odd hours, leaving his senior dog in the care of his neighbour for months at a time. When he didn't show for an appointment he'd booked for his dog, I called him and he told me he was at the pharmacy and was running late. We booked another appointment and I called him fifteen minutes prior to remind him of the appointment. He told me he wouldn't be able to make it, that he was caught in a work emergency and I told him how upset I was that he was not only disrespecting my professional time, but he was actively taking away an appointment spot that we could have given to a sick patient. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he did not show up for the third appointment, that it would be a mark against our friendship. After being away for a few months, he flew back into Vancouver right as the 14 day self-isolation recommendations were announced by the government in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. He put out a plea for someone to deliver toilet paper to him, which I did. I was anxious, going into a high-rise and therefore high-occupancy building, but I did it because he's my friend. When he noted that his dog had been vomiting and no one was able or willing to bring him to the clinic to be seen, I offered to pick up his dog in the morning before my shift. He told me I had to call his neighbour, and I told him I was not comfortable calling someone I didn't know to try and pick up his dog, especially that early in the morning. This was his dog and therefore his responsibility, and I was doing him a favour. He begrudgingly agreed. When I dropped his dog off at his apartment that evening, he had a cleaning lady in his apartment. Despite the self-isolation recommendation, despite the fact that I had - on two occasions - put myself in a position that was scary at that time to help him, he had broken the self-isolation rules for his own purposes. I went home and cried to my mother on the phone. When I received the labwork results for his dog (they were all within normal), I reported them, ensured the dog was doing okay, and then I reamed him out for being irresponsible in breaking his quarantine. When he lamely argued that his cleaning lady had told him it was fine, I was even more upset that he refused to take responsibility for his part, that he was pushing it onto her, someone who needed to make a living when I know it is fully within his capability to pay her and ask her to come back when his quarantine was over. I told him that taking these unnecessary and selfish risks was putting people like my parents in danger. When his dog became ill again, he would text me later at night to tell me his dog had been sick all day, when I was already at home and could not do anything about it. Despite my personal frustrations with him, I felt badly about Frank and the situation; it's not easy to have a sick pet. When he made the decision to euthanize, I met them in the parking lot because our protocols prevented me from being in the hospital when I wasn't at work. I told him to call me if he needed to talk about his grief over Frank's loss. However, I was still not at the stage where I was comfortable with him as a friend anymore, especially with his purposely inflammatory posts on Facebook during the pandemic. It is reaching the stage where I question whether our differences in values and morality are at the stage where continuing the friendship is no longer viable. I was hoping tincture of time would let my emotions about my various grievances settle down, but his actions continue to fan the flames and I wonder if it's worth it. I'm starting to think it's not.