Girls

This post isn't about my daughter. But someday it will be.

Girls can be really mean sometimes. Girls know how to mess with someone's mind like none other. And I'll reluctantly admit that if needed, I can run some pretty insane passive aggressive mind games. Cold shoulder? I'm on it. Being exclusive? I've done it. Not proud of it but I know exactly how to do it. And that's why I'm VERY good at knowing when someone is doing it to me. I'm ten steps ahead of any girl in that department. I will own you.

But I don't want to. And I haven't had to in what? 15 years?! That's why, at 29 I'm pretty much stopped dead in my tracks as I find myself dealing with girl drama. And, as it turns out, so are a few of my best friends (who live elsewhere).

I'm lucky to have some amazing best friends (aka my bridesmaids). I talk to them all almost each week and try to keep up with them as best I can. But only one lives close by ( an hour away). B has a huge group of very close friends from grade school. They are all still friends and even most of their spouses also grew up together. B is literally loyal to a fault and would do anything for these people. I struggled a bit to find my place with his group, but slowly did and became pretty close with a couple girls, particularly in the last 3-4 years.

I wont go into the specifics, but very recently it became clear that there was some sort of problem. The passive aggressive stuff started happening. "Forgetting" to invite us to things that we'd always been a part of. The silent treatment. The distance just grew and grew. I'm not at all afraid of confrontation. I prefer it to all the behind the back bull crap.  I tried to arrange a civil conversation, but was brushed off every time. I reached out to some of the other girls, but no one really gave me any insight. One of them felt really bad and tried to help out but it was no use. Finally, after about a month of begging, I got together with my friend and tried to have the big girl conversation. Unfortunately nothing was solved or answered as I was met with denials, lies and general ambivalence. It made me regret insisting on the meetup because it felt as though it just made things worse.

It's very hard not to talk about it with others, but as the "outsider" I don't know for sure if anything I say wont be twisted and repeated. I've asked if anyone knows what the problem is, but again I'm met with no real response. It's beginning to affect B's relationship with his life long guy friends and that's not what I want.

The hard part for me is that any other time this has happened to me in one form or another, I just move on, hang with my true friends, make plans with them, plan a party, keep busy, but here that's much harder to do. And with E in the picture I'm really caring less and less about these newer girlfriends. My only concern is that B doesn't lose his buddies.

It's been interesting to discuss this with my own life long friends. I've been surprised to hear a few of them tell me that they, too are having trouble with girls lately.

What gives?

I know first hand that my oldest girlfriends are amazing friends and wonderful people. It hurts me to know someone is hurting them for seemingly no reason. All four of us have no idea what we did wrong or how to handle the situation. It's hard not to get frustrated and upset. I've definitely shed a few tears over my own situation, mostly because I just don't know what to do. And I don't know what to tell my friends to do either. I've always preached the "talk it out method" and assume most people are good, rational people once you sit them down for a non aggressive conversation. But my own confrontation just left me feeling worse so I have a hard time recommending it. One of my friends was having an issue with her girlfriend for the past nine months and just this last month finally got to sit down with her and hash it out. They seemingly sorted out their (her) issues, but my girlfriend still feels so much frustration over it and it doesn't look like their friendship will ever be the same. That's how I feel about my situation. I just don't see how we can go back to "normal" now that we've had this crazy hiccup.

And like I mentioned earlier, now that E is here, I'm so wrapped up in my family that I just don't care enough to keep digging for answers. I'm cordial to this person and see her at various events, but our close friendship is no longer and we hardly speak at all. We used to talk every single day.

I'm looking forward to meeting new friends and also making some friends with babies E's age. That's a whole different post. Meeting moms has been interesting!

I just had to get this out and would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this topic.

I just wish we, as women, would be kinder to each other. It's hard to make friends, it shouldn't be so hard to keep them.

Make new friends, but keep the old. For one is silver, the other gold....so true right now!