Friday, August 14, 2009

Wasted Time

January. The month from hell. I don’t know if anything good can truly begin in January. Maybe it can, and I just don’t know it yet, other than births and weddings, of course. Those types of celebrations can happen any time of the year, and they are always pleasant. It was January when I first met M&M. I don’t remember it as vividly as I should, but I can still feel the dislike inside I had for him when we first met. Looking back, that should have been a clear sign; there is just something about that gut instinct that I don’t want to follow! My sister, Bestie, and I had decided to join a course through our church. It was one of those things you hear about and think “Pfft, I don’t need that! I’ve got it all under control” until, inevitably, your world is turned upside down and you’re left with no choice, but to follow that stupid gut instinct and join. So, that’s what we did. M&M had joined with his friend Jann and the four of us happened to be in the same group.

Over time, we slowly started talking to them more and more, and in February, (another fabulous month. Not!) our group went away for a weekend retreat. The four of us were inseparable! M&M had a very cool car, (but don’t tell him that I told you) and on Saturday we had some free time. Being the “rebels” we are, M&M took us into town for some ice cream and the bonding began. Who doesn’t love hot fudge sundaes? The way through a girl’s heart, is always full of chocolate goodness! And the ice cream is, well, heaven. We spent a half hour really starting to get to know one another, and there was something about him that made me feel really comfortable. When we left, hugs all around of course, and the one promise we all made was to add one another on Facebook. Don’t laugh too hard yet; this is the 21st century, and social networking is a way of life. It’s not an option of “Do you have Facebook or not?”; now the question is “How many friends do you have? Why do you NOT have Facebook?” (Or Twitter, MySpace, etc). That is exactly what we did when Bestie and I got home, and within a couple of hours, we were all friends. Yippeee!

Now, of course, Facebook has included this I-will-work-when-I-want-to-work chat application, that is very frustrating! One Sunday, in my complete boredom, I decided to go online, just for kicks, and my new buddy M&M was online. I instant messaged him, and much to my surprise, he replied! We talked for over two hours (well, twenty minutes before switching to the much more reliable MSN) about anything and everything. I even had to stop and make dinner, and came back and we talked for another three hours. Soon, cell phone numbers were exchanged and we became electronically inseparable. Over the next few weeks, we became best friends. Every day while I was working, he would be text messaging me during my breaks, and asking how my day was. We would log in to MSN and talk during the hockey games were on, and each night he was the last person I said goodnight to. We talked every night and I slowly began to trust him with a lot of personal information.

I remember the first night he called us best friends. We had become really close, and he called me his “best friend” one night on msn after a month or so. Talking to M&M made me feel on top of the world! He knew everything there was to know about me, and after being let down so many times by these alleged “best friends”, I was very hesitant to use that word with him. He told me he cared about me, and I knew that I cared about him. I felt as thought I had finally let my guard down, and I was free again to finally allow another person be called my best friend. That alone, was a very big step for me, but I knew that he and I could get through anything together.

He and I talked about everything together! The weather, favourite sports teams, family issues, money issues, relationship issues, past vacations, future plans, and even marriage. We even agreed that if both of us were still single in ten years we would marry one another. Save the date June 1, 2019, which happens to be a Saturday! He would text me about anything and was always there with a comforting word of advice.

Somewhere along the way, M&M stopped replying to my text messages. I would log into MSN, and send him a message with no response. I tried for a week to get something out of him, with no success. One afternoon, we talked on MSN for a short time, but he seemed different. Even when I asked him about it, he told me he was fine. I felt very odd leaving it like that, especially when my head was telling me he wasn’t alright or even close to it. The following week, I didn’t try to contact him. He didn’t contact me either. Tell me why, why, haven’t I, haven’t I, heard from you?! Why haven’t I heard from you?! Tell me why, why... (So, you get my drift or do I need to belt out the rest of Reba’s classic hit?) I think what hurt even more was when I found out that he wasn’t trying to get a hold of me. We had a few brief conversations after that. Please note the word “brief”. It is there for a reason. Our conversations were something like “hey” “hi” “How’s it going?” “Good. I got to run. Talk to you later” “K Bye”. See? BRIEF! After a couple of those half-hearted conversations with my heart the only one on the line, I gave up on talking to him. Hurt suddenly became anger, and hatred. I talked to my girlfriends about it and they helped me realized what was going on. I didn’t want to believe it, but there was no other way to move on. They showed me that he never felt the way about me he told me that he did. Maybe he did, truly care about me for a while, but then not. Is that possible? If you do care about me, prove it. If not, stop leading me on. I guess that’s exactly what M&M did. He began chasing his ex-girlfriend around again, and stopped thinking about me. I guess he forgot I existed. Now think about that for a minute. How can your best friend forget you exist? It’s like one day, he’s talking to me like normal, and the next minute, I’ve just fallen off of the face of the Earth? I’m glad to know I meant so much to him.

After M&M and I stopped talking, I broke down. I still do, in fact. I think somewhere along the way, I realized that I would’ve done anything for him. I don’t know how to explain it other than love. I think I loved him. It really shouldn’t be all that surprising to me, but it was, is, even. Once I admitted to myself that I loved him, I realized he didn’t even care about me. Oh, I know. He said that he did, so that means he must have, right? The boy won’t even reply to my text messages! Like I said, this is the 21st Century! You have to reply! Maybe he did care about me for a little while, but I guess he stopped?

Every day I still think about him. Why shouldn’t I? We’ve only been ex-best friends for a month now, so it is very fresh. The sad thing is that I took him off of my Facebook account, and removed him from my MSN and he hasn’t mentioned it. In fact, the only time he has talked to me is when I asked if we could go for coffee to talk. He said, and I quote because this is too good, “possibly, what’s up?” I’d like to relish in this for just a moment if I may. POSSIBLY! Wow M&M, I am so satisfied to know that you “possibly” have some spare time for me one day. Possibly is not an answer. It is more like “I don’t really want to, but if I have nothing better to fill my time with, I guess it wouldn’t be so bad. I’ll put you on my list of people to call, but you have to go at the very bottom.” I told him I wanted to “chit-chat” because I didn’t want to get into it through text messaging and he said maybe this week. I think that was code for “in your dreams!” but I guess we’ll see how much I mean to him besides nothing. If he wants to make this better, he will. Only time will tell and his actions will speak louder than anything he says.

FRIEND: A person who would never intentionally hurt you, lie to you, deceive you, manipulate you, abuse you and who takes great care to be kind to you, honest with you, dependable and loyal. Someone who you trust without question because they have never given you any reason not to trust them. Someone you enjoy being around and look forward to seeing. Someone who would sacrifice themself for you. This person is very hard to find. When you do, don't let them get away.

*Names have been changed to torture the guilty. You know who you are.

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