The Friend That Nearly Was

Those who are constantly accusing others are often the ones doing exactly what they're accusing others of doing.

~ Unknown

My blog is like the buses: no posts for ages and then three materialise all at once! Not that anyone reads it, of course, as, despite starting it four months ago it has yet to be considered worthy of inclusion by the almighty and omnipresent Google in their search results. I will persevere, however, as, one day, Google might decide that I am not a total insignificance in which the users of its search would have no interest and decide to start including my blog in its results. That's when you'll find me!

As regular readers of my blog will know (and, as we've just established, there aren't any!) I often write about my social adventures (read: disappointments), experiences of trying to meet new people, and endeavours to improve my human interactions, all underpinned by a real need to make meaningful and long-lasting connections. I've got to a point in my life, albeit very late, where I am dysfunctional and crave connection with others to feel worthy and human. I also feel the need to do as much as I can for others and that is one of the reasons I set up Talk & Listen and did a course in counselling. My motivation for these choices was that, by genuinely helping others, I too would benefit by feeling better as a result. This is something I had not appreciated earlier in life but, as I have practiced extending empathy and compassion to others, I have noticed I feel better for it.

My social activities result from searching for things to do on Meetup and Eventbrite. I've mentioned this in a previous post on my blog so won't go into detail again here, suffice to say that that is virtually my only source of finding things to do that involve meeting other people. Occasionally I might do something outside of these two websites but not often. The social stuff I've been doing over the year, through Meetup and Eventbrite, is a bit random and a bit hit and miss. I've been to some meetups and events where I've been able to talk to some people and others that have been quite a disaster. It's a mixed bag and depends on the crowd, the ambience, the environment and the type of event itself. A pub social night on a Friday feels different to a Saturday afternoon coffee shop meetup, but neither is better than the other necessarily; it depends who turns up, what the mood is and a whole host of other, often unpredictable, factors. Even the rain can put a bit of a dampener on things!

One of the social activities I started going to early on, at the start of the year, was a baking class. It was great! We made some cakes! It was fun; it was a small crowd of around ten people, more women than men, perhaps unsurprisingly, mostly youngish, all in positive mood and there to have fun, meet new people and make new friends. I did enjoy the experience and made it a semi-regular feature of my weekly social calendar. During some of the weeks that I went along, a woman who was also a regular attendee and I became quite good friends. We shared a sense of humour on a level that appeared as if it was one that only we could understand; we got each other's jokes where nobody else did. There was something very connected about that and, whilst we hadn't known each other that long or knew all that much about each other, we got on very well and I felt there was a definite beginning to what felt like a genuine friendship.

We probably met around six or seven times at the baking class and, in addition, another couple of times on another event run by the same organisers at the same venue. During our very last encounter, which was around five months ago, I wasn't feeling very well. I had been in two minds about going along to the social event on that particular day but somehow I decided to go nevertheless. I didn't have a great time but did my best to conceal it while I was there and I probably gave the impression mostly that I was ok and that everything was fine; but I was in fact feeling mentally very unwell throughout the evening. I did share some banter with people and with the woman who I'd go to know a bit from the baking class (I'll call her "Jane"), so on the face of it I may have seemed almost my "normal" self, although I know there were incidents that would have given an impression of indicating otherwise.

The next day I had some anxiety as to whether I may have come across as a bit off with anyone. This worried me and I texted Jane to explain that I hadn't been feeling very well and didn't enjoy the socialising as much as I would have liked. She replied to say that she was sorry to hear that but that she hadn't noticed anything to indicate I wasn't interacting as normal. We were now in June and the events venue was closed for the Summer. A few weeks later I was going to go to an art trail event which I felt would be a nice event to go to and thought to ask Jane if she might like to come. She replied to say that I was rude because I didn't reply to her messages; her response shocked me. I replied to ask what she meant. Days went by and, when I didn't hear back from her, felt very dejected. After a while I concluded she just didn't want to talk to me anymore for reasons that seemed a mystery. As time went on the memory of that friendship gradually faded.

Six weeks later I received a message which seemed to suggest that she might be looking forward to seeing me at the baking class! I felt quite perplexed and emotionally all over the place. I just couldn't reply. Two weeks later I received a similar message to which again I didn't reply. A week later I received a third, this time a very aggressive message accusing me of being offensive for ignoring her two previous messages. This time I wrote a very lengthy message explaining how I felt about the whole situation and what I had gone through as a result of everything that had happened. I'm not sure what sort of response I expected in return but it wasn't what I received: Jane did not want to have any further interaction with me ever again. Once again, I felt awful. I replied simply to say that I held no animosity towards her, respected her decision and wishing her well. I didn't hear from her after that.

Until three weeks later. Jane sent me a message to say that she expected that we would bump into each other at the baking class and suggested that we should try and get on with each other. I replied to say that she'd already told me she didn't want to have anything to do with me. I received a somewhat miffed but non-committed reply. Our paths crossed at the baking class a couple of weeks ago and there was certainly an awkwardness between us. After the class had ended, Jane wanted to speak to me. What I then experienced from Jane was a lot of pent-up animosity but I remained calm throughout. During what felt like a barrage of her points of view I could not get a word in edgeways. I asked her if we could just talk through everything calmly and properly but she said she didn't have time. She had said she wanted to speak to me but it was clear to me she had no intention to listen in return; she turned and started to walk away, angrily shaking her head as she did so indicating what I perceived to be her disapproval and contempt towards me.

Projection is a psychological phenomenon that acts as a defence mechanism. When someone has issues that are too painful to deal with the path of least resistance is to project them onto someone else and to then perceive them as having those issues. If someone has a fragile sense of self then they will do whatever they can to protect the integrity of their self image. If they perceive a threat to the way that they see themselves, they will seek to deflect that threat back onto its source. My guess is that Jane has had some past experience which resulted in destabilising the way she needs to be perceived. When faced with a danger that threatens to expose any gaps in the integrity of her self-image, which in turn might damage the illusion of her sense of self, she will deflect the threat by projecting it onto someone else. This is an attempt to avoid the emotional pain that she would experience by acknowledging the flaws in her character.

When she spoke to me at the end of the baking class she said I was angry; I was actually calm but she projected her anger onto me by denying it for herself; she said I accused her of something; I hadn't, but she was accusing me (of accusing her); she said she was making the effort to talk; perhaps, but she wasn't really talking, not if that should also include allowing me to speak and to listen to what I also felt I needed to say. I experienced projection as a defence mechanism unravelling right before me. I was amenable to making amends but that brief encounter felt laced with a toxin that brought what had started off as a promising start to a potential friendship to a fatal end. I really liked Jane, while it lasted, and I really wanted us to be friends. I felt we could both have potentially benefited hugely form each other's friendship; we've both lost out. I am very saddened by the whole affair.

It usually takes two to tango and I need to own up to my flaws too. Jane is not the only guilty party in this conundrum of behaviours and events. When I reflect back on how everything unfolded, I can see that Jane did send me a follow up message to the one that she'd sent me after a six week gap. I could, and in hindsight, should have responded to that. If I had been consistent in one of my own key values, that of authenticity, I should have taken that opportunity to explain that I'd felt dejected when she hadn't originally replied to my message where I had asked what she meant when she said I had been rude. I could backtrack further, again, easy to say in hindsight, and possibly even suggest that I could have followed up my message asking about the rudeness accusation with a second message. That's not so clear cut but could have been a possibility at the time. The trouble is I'm not very good at following up on things; if I ask something once and don't get a response I then usually suffer in perpetuity until the issue dissipates from my system, only to leave behind remnants to come back to haunt me in the future.

If we were to apportion blame then Jane and I would both be guilty parties. Jane's projection of her anger and insecurities onto me was probably the final blow to the friendship that nearly was.