Perception

So then, get yourself a cuppa, put up your feet and lemme tell you this story...

I had this one friend (yes, past tense), eons ago, who was spectacularly needy, easily manipulated (by men), intensely focused on pleasing (men) and, as another pal put it, brittle.

Cheri didn't see herself that way at all — complete self-awareness fail. From her P.O.V. she was the strong, kick ass yet laid back survivor of a childhood filled with acres and scads of sexual abuse, neglect and the early death of her beloved mother.

Survivor yes, the rest, maybe not so much.

How did she and I become friends? Eh — we met at work. I'd recently jumped through my first 612 Nf2 hurdles and she'd just moved up to Boston from Georgia to escape a mega abusive, stalker-y beau.

We were both in our early 20s, rebooting our lives.

Cheri had seen a therapist in order to get an assist on working through all the giant pain she'd experienced. After a few short years she self-diagnosed as ALL better, ready to fly on her own and quit. Quit the formal, credentialed, paid therapist and found me, that is.

Convos with her were all about me listening, periodically making interested, I'm-taking-this-all-in grunts and suggesting hopefully helpful approaches on how she could handle her problem/issue du jour.

I liked Cheri — we did have a few things in common. Sometimes she could be fun or interesting but, if not for her showing up in my office, phoning and just otherwise being there when I turned around, we probably never would have ended up spending so much time together. Mind you, back then I was pretty damned insecure and felt alone — she was no Jen (who I wouldn't meet for another ten years) or Amazing Bob (who was four years into my future) but surely she was better than nothing. Right? Plus, isn't being supportive and doing a lot of listening part of friendship? Yes, but one way streets are just NOT cool.

Cheri had lived through/survived so very much. I wanted to be supportive, I WAS supportive, but well, I needed to put another lane in that one way street.

 As time passed and my insecurities ran out with the tide, I tried to, without directly confronting her, introduce balance into our friendship. Why not be candidly upfront? I didn't think that tack was a goer. Between her friable, glasslike nature and the just-below-the-surface-rage she carried,  I feared that being straightforward would set her off like a roman candle. I did actually, eventually, make a few piddling attempts. Her response, invariably, was complete silence and then either a change of subject or a bye, talk later as though I'd not said one word.

I didn't push — too nervous of her inchoate fury was I.

Years passed — she married, moved out to a far flung suburb and had kiddles. I figured that'd be it but no, she still called if less frequently. We'd still get together though this inevitably involved me taking three subway lines and the commuter rail out to her rural 'burgh where I'd watch her mind her tots. All my subtle attempts to be more than an observer/listener/adviser in her life fell flat.

The tipping point, the catalyst, the that's-it-we're-totes-done-here began the night before one of my big brain do ups. Odds were, I'd be deaf afterwards (I wasn't — my luck held for a few more years). Oni played his tenor sax for me that night, The Amazing Bob and I watched my fav cartoons together, Jen and I laid in bed reading comics. You know — we were all about chillin' me out and saying so long and thanks for all the fish to my auditory system.

In the midst of this, she called — it'd been maybe a year since we'd last spoken. Not knowing about my imminent op, she asked how I was doing. I told her that I was going in for brain surgery in another ten hours and would probably be deaf afterwards. Her immediate response? “oh, I’ve had a headache for two days now” and then went on and on about it.

Seriously. I tell her I'm about to get my head cut open like a summer cantaloupe and will likely come out of this big fun time without a shred of hearing and she responds, without pause, by complaining about a headache? I inquired — is this new? persistent? Has your doc scheduled you for an MRI? No, it's just a  headache. Maybe stress related. Oh.

I got off the blower as soon as I could without just hanging the fuck up with extreme prejudice.

She called again, maybe a year later and seemed a ton more engaged. That is, engaged without acknowledging that I'd gone through something HUGE and could, amazingly, still hear. Still, she seemed to get that she'd been about 60 miles outta bounds the last time or two we'd connected. She actually came into town, sans kids (!!!), and we went out to lunch — I even got a word in edgewise! I was cautiously optimistic.

Time passed. The next time she rang me up, I was just getting in the door after bringing TAB home from MGH and his very first go 'round with heart attacks and surgery. Again there was the cursory 'how are you' which was, I now understood, not an actual inquiry, just extra verbiage in her salutation.

She responded to my news and saying I couldn't talk since I'd JUST brought TAB home, by interrupting to tell me how she had a colonoscopy the other day and it was simply awful.  She proceeded to go into detail on the specific awfulness and how upsetting it was.

Fine. I cut her off and said gotta go. She eventually called again but this time I was done. All that we may have had in common and my empathy for her horrific childhood, was outweighed by not wanting, or having the time, to take care of her or tap dance around her intensely delicate self.

I no longer felt mercenary when I asked myself what the fuck am I getting out of this 'friendship?!'

With her brill timing and my stone MGH habit, she'd unsurprisingly called on the eve of surgery. This time for sure it'd leave me deaf — it did, as well as half blind for 6 months and in need of relearning how to walk. I calmly and clearly told her what I was up against, didn't let her steamroll over me, and said that I'd see her after everything was all over. She sputtered that she didn't understand. I explained that I needed a lot of support at the moment and would be back in contact when the worst was past.

Unsurprisingly, she didn't get it. Cheri proclaimed that of course she wanted to be there for me JUST LIKE ALWAYS! Ah...yeah...no thanks. When she pressed,  I allowed that support wasn't one of her more developed talents (No, I did NOT word it that way). She proceeded into full combat mode so I, still calm, brought up her past, callous, stratospherically self involved behavior. Well, turns out she thought she was being supportive because “misery loves company.”

Really? No, fer reals now, REALLY?
A) Who said I was miserable?
B) A warm, concerned, listening ear is more in line with what most folks, including me, want when in heavy times.
C) 'the fuck?!!!

She then dialed herself up to the Roman Candle on Meth setting. Not pretty. It was all about her and how she was a faultless, wondrous, giving friend and I was a — insert outraged invective here — awful, undeserving friend and maybe she should, essentially, put me on friendship probation. Christ almighty.

This was all via email since, by this time, the phone and I weren't on speaking terms. I didn't respond to Cheri. There was no point. In fact, I deleted all her emails — they were poisonous, there was no way I'd be responding and I SO didn't have time for that shit.

Why am I thinking on this past, oh-so-unfortunate friendship now? Eh, I've been pondering self-perception. How we view ourselves versus how others see us. Sometimes the two views aren't so terribly different and sometimes they're not even in the same galaxy.