Friends...what does that even mean?!

Here we go then - a none Twilight related rant....though I can't guarantee it won't be mentioned at some point!!

My friends...or lack of them. I honestly don't know what I do to people, why they don't seem to like me. I mean, I can go for days with only speaking to people at work and my family when I come home. Friends just don't bother getting in touch - I get no replies to emails, no calls, no texts and no messages or anything on all these stupid network websites like facebook and myspace. Someone told me I should sign up to Twitter....why? So I can add another place online I'm ignored?!

Now, I used to think I was just being paranoid. Or that maybe perhaps it was my fault, that I wasn't making the effort to get in touch with people. But, then in February my phone broke and since I hadn't the sense (or phone knowledge) to store it all on the sim, I lost all my phone numbers and contacts. Some I managed to get back since a lot of them I'm in touch with in other ways - email, online or family. But there were a couple I couldn't get since I had no other way to contact them. Since my number hadn't changed (I kept my old sim, and would have had the numbers if I knew how to save them there!) I had to just hope they would get in touch with me eventually.

They didn't....three months and nothing - no texts or calls. So...it would seem that it was me who was making the effort to get in touch all the damn time after all!! It was me who tried to arrange to meet up and catch up and them who couldn't be bothered. After 3 months I suddenly had an idea and I managed to track them down via their kids and stuff on facebook and I have their numbers again. I got in touch with one via Facebook and we sent a few messages back and forth. She mentioned that we should meet up and actually do it this time, not just talk about it. So...in my next message I suggested a time and place I could meet - just let me know the day. She never replied again.

Now, if you really didn't want to meet, heck if you don't wanna be friends with me at all, then just bloody well say so - don't go making up crap that you don't mean! Why say you want to meet up and then totally ignore a suggestion? So I'm done with chasing after people who obviously don't think of me as much as I thought of them. I'm done with trying to arrange to meet up and stay friends and stuff when they have no intention of doing so. I'm through with the whole damn lot of it - why should I chase after people, trying to keep friendships going when they've already let it go? I've had enough.

I'm not claiming that I'm the perfect friend here. I know I'm lazy at times and I have slacked at getting in touch with people. But I do try. I know I don't call anyone myself, but damnit - they're not calling me either! There was one 'friend' who did call sometimes...she used to call a lot - but we'll discuss that in a moment. And she was possibly annoyed that I didn't call her much - but I have reasons. First, I live at home - it's not my phone bill - she always wants me to call on her mobile to save bothering her family with the house phone - that gets too expensive to call a mobile and my Dad would throw a fit and out where I live the signal is crap for my mobile - you move an inch and you lose the signal that just took you half an hour to find (and I'm not exaggerating - it's taken me about 10 minutes to send a damn text before just searching for a signal!) Not to mention the fact that she always claimed to have hours of free call time, so it didn't matter for her.

There used to be a time when I had post and daily texts, loads of emails and messages to reply to every day....now it's nothing and sometimes I get so upset about it. I know I'm pathetic - I even take it personally when I'm ignored on a forum!! I hate breaking into forums, they're so damn cliquey! I'm just convinced that no one really likes me. Maybe I am too intense...maybe I'm too weird, perhaps I'm hard to deal with - I know I get low sometimes...but I guess I have the wrong image of friends because I thought they were there for the bad as well as the good?

So, half the time I'm very lonely, bored and sad. My best friends are my Mum and my cat. I sit home alone every weekend because I have no one to do anything with. I've been to the cinema, concerts, travelled and been to conventions alone, mostly because I got sick of missing out on doing things because I had no one to do them with! I thought to hell with it, I'll go alone. But, sometimes it gets very lonely not having anyone to share it all with. I just want someone to like me.

I know that experiences in the past have made me wary of people. I don't have a lot of faith left in humanity having been used and abused by friends in the past...therefore I think I'm a little reluctant to get too close to people anymore. Probably a bad thing, I might come across as standoffish and because I hold back, afraid of being hurt, then I'm never truly going to let someone in.

This goes right back to my childhood, there were school friends I was close to whom I never see again at all...if I did see them in town we pretend we don't know one another. There was my closest childhood friend down the road who would play with me, until something better came alone and if her other friend was over she didn't want to know me. Ironically enough, when this friend moved away - her other friend who was deemed better than me, became my friend and we played together for a couple of years before we moved to different schools and I never saw her again!

There was the evil bitch that was the slag of Nottingham (I'm not naming names and she doesn't deserve to have a name!) The one who not only took me for a mug, but my family too. It's a long story, but basically she and I went to America for 6 weeks - this included 4 weeks in Boston MA (NKOTB stalking!) and 2 weeks in Orlando Florida with my parents. My Dad booked all the flights for us (inc the one from Boston to Orlando and back) she never paid him for them before we left, claiming to forget her money each time. We get to Boston, she's left her money at home. She tries to get it out the bank, ooops, the machine takes her card. her parents are going to send the money over, it never shows up. I'm paying for everything - food, travel, entertainment etc etc. We get to Disney World and my family kindly put together to buy her a ticket for the parks - I even felt sorry for her and loaned her $100 spending money so she could buy some souvenirs! What a bloody idiot!!

We get to the end of the holiday and agree that since I paid for everything else, she would pay for the last few weeks accommodation at the apartment we rented. Only, a few days after we get home, I get a credit card statement and a nasty bloody surprise to discover the whole amount has been charged to me - I think it was almost a couple of thousand dollars!!!! I ask nicely for her to pay me, she claims to be shocked and doesn't understand how that happened - promises to send me some money. I never get any. Promised again - I get empty recorded delivery packages. Says she'll come over and bring it - I wait at the station and she never shows up. I have cheques that aren't signed, so not legal. I have wrongly filled out postal orders I can't cash. I get annoyed and demand the money from her, saying I can't afford to pay this bill alone. She tells me I'm being evil! She turns mutual friends against me who also start saying I'm being evil and the whole mess gets out of hand. In the end I go to a solicitor about it - I need the money. The case goes to court, she's ordered to pay me the full price plus costs at a rate every month and for a couple of months she does. But then the payments stop...we look into other ways, send in bailiffs etc, but after that there's nothing I can do that won't cost me more money so I have to give up and she gets away with treating me like crap, lying to me, using me, stealing a whole load of money from me and my family and getting a bloody 6 week dream holiday that cost her little more than £100!!

After that we had 'friends' who announced they were, get this, 'disappointed in me' simply because I liked another singer and was going to his concerts! That was in 2002 - she's never spoken to me since! There was the friend who, when I was ill with depression, told me that if I was feeling depressed to just pull myself out of it and that she came online to be entertained and not to listen to me. Nice...friends like that, who needs enemies? There's the friends you thought you were really close to who have just drifted away, yet claim nothing has changed. Yep, that's why you used to speak to me every day, once sent me a letter every day when they had no internet access for a week...and now I get a message perhaps once in a blue moon - but yeah, nothing has changed *rolls eyes*

I know I lost touch or drifted away from people when my tastes changed in various music or bands or singers. When we lost that one thing that we had in common, the whole friendship went with it. I never got used to that, I thought we were able to talk about more than the love for some singer, but I was proved wrong again. And yet there was one friend who had remained there even when our tastes changed. We still talked, we still met up sometimes and we still could laugh together. At least until this past year. This is the phone friend I mentioned earlier.

I'm not sure what happened here....other than some old boybands we once both loved - Boyzone and then NKOTB reunited and began touring again. The friend got all over excited about it, wet her knickers excited. Me, I was like, oh, interesting - perhaps I'll go see them again for a laugh and old times sake. Somehow I let her talk me into going to see Boyzone last year 6 times. How the hell that happened I will never ever know...why am I such a push over and why did I do it? I must have been mad, or just bored and wanted to do something!!

I think this was the beginning of the end for us though. It was a disaster from start to finish. She was totally out for herself throughout the whole thing...crazy shit happened (such as me getting lost in London at 2 in the morning alone simply because she wanted to stand outside Wembley arena like a child and wait for them when I was tired and in pain (had recently severely sprained my ankle and couldn't walk or stand on it much)) We argued. She was just SO much more into it all than I was and it dawned on both of us how much I and my tastes had changed - this wasn't for me anymore.

And then she must have found some other people who did think the same way, who was still giddy about a 15 year old boyband and suddenly I was completely cast aside because she didn't need me anymore. I was no longer asked to go to concerts etc with her, because she had new friends who were suddenly her bestest best friends (even though we have known one another for over 15 years!) and esp because one of them drives and can cart her around everywhere - I was mean, I made her get a train! I just felt used...she'd only been friends with me and got me to go to all these shows etc with her because she had no other choice....at least that's how it felt. I thought we were friends and we were hanging out, having a laugh. But I have recently realised how important the boyband thing is to her....she has to meet them to show off about it or something...I don't know - it's weird. But I have been replaced, my friendship is no longer required and now she barely speaks to me because I'm not reverting back 15 years and being a giddy fan over some bands I grew out of!!

I think perhaps the last straw for her came when I told her I wasn't coming to the NK concert in Manchester anymore - leaving her with a spare ticket, even though I told her if she couldn't sell it, I would still pay for it. She was rather pissed with me - but I didn't see the point in spending about £200 (in hotels, trains and the cost of the ticket) to go do something I wasn't bothered about when they were things I wanted to do more. Not to mention the fact she'd have all these new buddies she liked more than me, and I would be billy no mates!

Since then we have spoken once and it was like strangers...was a rather awkward conversation. And she did comment on a few things on facebook/myspace. Until I got offended with her for ridiculing my love for everything Twilight (told you they would be mentioned!) and we got into a stroppy row about it...and that's the last I heard from her. Knowing her she has NO clue that she upset me or that I was pissed off with her!! Mind you, she probably hasn't noticed at all that she's not speaking to me or vice versa, because she's too busy playing stalker with her new pals! I'm not saying she has to like the same things as me...but she could respect it - I let her talk boybands to me, am I not allowed to mention what I love? I guess not!

*sigh*

Right now I have a small clutch of people I'm friendly with, perhaps a little close with a couple of them - but I wouldn't say I had any really good friends. There's certainly not that one person I can tell everything, no one I can call when I'm lonely and down at any time of the day and no one I can sit and laugh with about nothing or do things with. I know part of it is me because I'm afraid of being hurt and let down again, that I hold back. Every time I thought I had found the most amazing friend in the past, they've proved me wrong. So, I hold back now...I'm friendly with them, we share some emails...but that's about it.

But that's kinda lonely. I still do everything alone. I would like to go away this summer, but I have no one I could go with. Sometimes I would love a chat about everything and nothing...but there's isn't anyone - the one person I could perhaps moan to via emails is going through a personal rough time right now and my problems are nothing compared to what she's going through, so I ignore me and try to do what I can for her...even if it's only a distraction for her for a little while.

So, I don't know - maybe it is just me, maybe I'm simply unlikable...maybe there's something about my aura that scares them away. Maybe it's better to just depend on the likes of your Mum and a beloved cat? Maybe fictional people in books are better because they never ever let you down - they're always there, waiting in their pages to transport you to another world of escapism.

Perhaps I'm better off alone...perhaps I was meant to be alone.

Sometimes though....it's just a very lonely, depressing, boring place to be. There's no wonder I obsess over things!

xC