Somebody that I used to know

Go on now, go. Walk out the door
Just turn around now 'cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye?
Did you think I'd crumble?
Did you think I'd lay down and die? 

"I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor (and a remake by Cake)

Late last night, I read this article about "how to cope when a friend breaks up with you." It kind of hit me and made me feel sad, because that happened to me a while back and it's something that still bugs me. I didn't write about it last night because if I'd started, I would have been up really late! It was also good to ponder it a little bit. So I'll give it a try today. 

The friend who broke up with me wasn't a "real life" friend (I'd only met her in person once) but she was a friend nonetheless. We confided plenty in each other and really "got" each other. We wrote pretty much every day. At one point she said she'd write soon and then...she didn't. It went on for a while, and I didn't bug her because I figured she was really busy, and then she started posting stuff on social media about how sad it is to lose a friend. Huh? 

So I wrote to her and said that if she was going to ditch me as a friend, I felt that at least she owed me an explanation. She wrote back and said that she thought I was the one who said I'd write back and she thought I was ditching her, but she looked back at our messages and saw that she had promised to write to me and never did. She apologized profusely and said that it was her fault and can we put this behind us? I said, of course, we can. 

But things weren't quite the same after that. The whole thing was just kind of odd. Then I started seeing some weird social media posts from her. One was about an immigrant begging for handouts (what he was seeking was a good school for his kids) and he could just take his filthy hands back to whatever hellhole country he came from. Yiiiiikes. I commented that it seemed to me that he was just looking for the best school for his kids, and I don't begrudge anyone who wishes for a good education for his kids. A couple of other people agreed with me, and my friend backed off. Said that anyone who knows her knows she has a good heart. (I'm not entirely sure her remarks really reflected that, but that's just me.)

All this went down during the 2016 election. She knew I despised Individual-1 and I was posting all kinds of political stuff. We wrote about it on occasion and she seemed to not care for Individual-1, either, but she also said she didn't like Hillary. Hey, that's cool. Just because you're my friend doesn't mean that I expect you to be in lockstep with me. 

But the real kicker is after the election when I saw her comment on a story from a news magazine. It was about how a lot of designers were refusing to provide clothes to Melania. My friend commented that she thinks Melania is drop-dead gorgeous, and "it's about time we had a First Lady with some class." 

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. 

I left a funny but sarcastic comment in response (I believe it was something about how since Melania loves to plagiarize so much, perhaps she can wear knockoffs) so she knows I saw her comment. 

Shortly after that, her messages became less frequent and more of the "I promise I'll write soon!" stuff. She never did, and I gave her plenty of time to do so. After a while, I decided enough was enough—not to mention this was the second time she'd done this to me—and I defriended her. Then she left Facebook altogether. 

I suppose this is a bit of "airing of the grievances" but it's also cathartic for me. I was very hurt at the time, and when I get hurt, I get angry. It's a self-defense mechanism and I make no apologies for it. It has served me well. I handled romantic breakups the same say...you don't like me anymore? Fine. Piss off. 

But as I've pondered this more, I still wonder exactly what it was. I don't think it was so much that she didn't care for my politics—I mean, we'd been online friends for literally years, so she knew how I felt about things—I think it's because I found out how she felt and that she had misled me about it. To what purpose did she mislead me? I have no idea. All my joy about Obama winning and how I felt about the Obama family, and she makes that crack about Michele Obama...and I saw it. 

I can't know for sure, but I suspect that she was embarrassed. And she should have been. I doubt that she reads my blog anymore, but if she does, I hope this embarrasses her. I wish her no ill will because that serves no purpose. But man, that was shitty. I continue to make friends online and there are some that I hope to meet one day. I treasure friends old and new. But it will be a cold day in hell before I ever again confide in an online friend to that extent.