Someone else's slippers

Adventure Girl learns a lesson in friendship

‘Does this mean I’m dumped?’

In relationships, there are commonly accepted ‘rules’. There are statuses like ‘single’, ‘in a relationship’ or ‘f-buddies’. You form a ‘relationship’, you break up, and sometimes you make up. You have ‘the talk’, assign the appropriate label from the drop-down menu, and alert the rest of your social network via Facebook. All of this is clearly defined. We even have laws and ceremonies dedicated to officially sealing two people together.

Friendships aren’t so clear cut. The boundaries from ‘acquaintance’ to ‘colleague’ to ‘friend’ to ‘BFF’ are more subtle. They are also more fluid.

Friends can step into your life suddenly and intensely, or they can shift gradually into focus and back out again. A friendship can become strained, or a shared experience lost, causing distance to stretch between you.

Where a friendship does come apart, there is rarely a single event you can point to as the end. You don’t ‘break up’ with a friend; you just stop calling, but this can mean you both drift away, assuming a slight on the part of the other, when they are thinking the same as you. Leave it too long and the silence stretches into awkwardness and you may never know if they felt wronged or just got busy.

And if your friends are friends with each other (you may recall my post on mixing friends from a few months ago), there’s a whole extra layer of grey to worry about. There are issues of confidences, sensitivities when discussing one friend with another, entire areas of taboo which can place a strain on that friendship, too.

Post-rift, it gets more complicated. Social gatherings can become awkward when there is an issue left unresolved, especially when there is no rigid boundary or expectation that you will take sides, as you sometimes divvy up friends when a relationship dies.

With so much murkiness, it can be difficult to know what is reasonable to expect from the other person, and what they can reasonably expect from you.

There are rules, but we don’t speak of them. There are expectations, but we don’t acknowledge them, except as we navigate their fragile borders… oops, she got pissed off, I won’t do that again. And sometimes by then it's already too late.

Forgiveness is important, but for me it’s one of those paradoxes. The more you care, the more you are prepared to let things slide, but something can hurt more because you care so much. And then you get the flip side, where you let things go because you don’t care enough, or you forgive less because it's not worth the effort when you can simply walk away.

In the absence of defined rules, it can be more difficult to acknowledge jealousies and rivalries, slights and injuries. You suck it up and you move on, together or apart. You withdraw, or you extend, but it is all unspoken, at least between the two of you.

Most of the time when a friendship does end, it’s like an old jumper pulled out of shape, or worse, a borrowed jumper, stretched until it fits neither of you. You accept your time has come and gone, the season has past, you slip it into an unused drawer.

And when that happens I mourn its loss. Others come along and fill their place, but it’s never quite the same shape, like wearing someone else’s slippers. A lesson learned too late, or sometimes not learned at all.

-AG

Recipe for disaster... Part 1 – My Best Friend’s wedding

So your eternally single Cold Date* has finally got himself hitched. You’re over-the-moon happy for him (and her), even if it means you rarely get to see him because he still hasn’t crawled out from under the new-love covers for air.

The problem is you met him through your ex.

It was all a long time ago and so far you’ve managed to skirt around all those awkward ex-encounters such as birthdays and bar mitzvahs, but then comes The Wedding.

Obviously, this is a biggy. The groom was in your bridal party as a mutual friend, but in the post-break-up friendship war, you won. This makes you the equivalent of his Best Man.**

This could be a recipe for disaster… or a whole lotta fun. I’m going to try for the latter. Here goes.

Ingredients

You (alone)

Your ex (also alone)

A room full of people you barely know

A room full of people your ex barely knows (most likely the same few people)

Free alcohol (essential)

A dance floor (people willing to dance are preferred, but not essential – see Method)

Method 

1. Drink
2. Find people to socialise with. Typical openers include, ‘How do you know the bride / groom’, but you can also ask what people do, for pleasure, for pain, or for best effect, both***
3. Drink some more (very important)
4. Find some dance buddies
5. If there are no dance buddies to be found, apply steps 1 and 3 to your potential partner(s) until they agree to dance (this has the added advantage of making you look like a really good dancer compared with them)
6. When all else fails, play the Adventure Challenge Game (see below)

How to Play

Set challenges to earn points. Points can be lost as well as won. The object is to make it home with a positive score.

• (+ 5 points) If you look waaaaaay hotter than your ex
• (– 10 points) If he looks waaaaaay hotter than you
• (+ 2 points) For every compliment received from people who knew you ‘before’ on how great / young / slim you look
• (+ 10 points) If the same people complimenting you say to your ex, 'Oh, yes, you look um, good too....’
• (– 20 points) If this scenario happens in reverse
• (+ 5 points) If you speak to your ex before he speaks to you
• (+ 2 points) For every member of the groom’s family who offers to help you overcome this hurdle
• (– 5 points) If you let them
• (+ 3 points) If you discover your life is waaaaaay better than his
• (– 10 points) If you discover his life is waaaaaay better than yours
• (+ 5 points) If you realise your ex is ridiculously boring and wonder why you ever dated him, let alone married him
• (– 8 points) If he thinks the same about you
• (+ 25 points) For every person who confesses to you that they got ‘stuck’ talking to your ex until you came along
• (– 25 points) If they say the same to him about you
• (+ 2 points) If you can get the Mother of the Bride to dance
• (+ 8 points) If you can get the Father of the Groom to dance
• (+10 bonus points) If they are the kind of dad who wears his serious face for all occasions
• (– 2 points) If he is secretly a giant teddy bear
• (+ 2 points) If you manage to drop into conversation how young / hot / talented your current lover is
• (– 10 points) If you do it badly (e.g. Him: ‘So how have you been?’ You: ‘OMG you should SEE my new lover, he/she is AMAZING… SOOOO much better than YOU…’)
• (– 2 points) If his current lover is also young / hot / talented
• (+ 10 points) If he mentions this repeatedly in a way that lets you know he/she is really old / overweight / ugly / stupid
• (+ 10 points) If she IS old / overweight / ugly / stupid
• (+10 points) If she is pregnant
• (– 10 points) If she is pregnant and you want to be
• (+ 25 points) For every family member of hers currently living with them
• (+ 5 bonus points) If it is her mother
• (+ 12 points) For each boundary set when your ex gets protective / judgemental / annoying / flirtatious (e.g. Him: 'Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a water?' You: 'I'll have another vodka, thanks. Make it a double', or Him: ‘So… are you staying nearby?’ You: ‘Yes, with my new lover, Cassandra’)
• (– 20 points) Regretting the consequences of the boundaries you chose to set (e.g. when you have to be escorted to your hotel room by the groom’s family, or when you wake up beside some stranger named Cassandra who you think may have been at the local, but you’re not really sure)
• (+ 50 points) If Cassandra is hot
• (– 100 points) If Cassandra has no teeth
• (– 25 points) If you wake up naked in  your bed (alone) with your $400 Ted Baker dress crumpled on the floor, your make-up halfway down your face, and all of your jewellery still on, including your glasses
• (– 150 points) If you wake up naked in your bed (with toothless Cassandra) in the same scenario.

Result

If nothing else, by playing the game you get a night of free booze, a chance to catch up with some old friends, to perve on a Ghost of Boyfriends Past, and more importantly, see one of your oldest and bestest friends get happily hitched in a way you never could.

Happy gaming :)

-AG

*Similar to ‘Bromance’ but for a guy and a girl
**She-Broman (?)
***Tip: if you get stuck with people who are particularly boring, you can always try the ‘Dom/Sub’ guessing game, or make up lives for them. That way, when you smile and nod you don’t have to feign amusement / interest.