Because I Can Be.

Remember that line from the movie Heathers?  I’m not proud of this, but I totally pulled a Heather the other day.  I don’t know what got into me.

It was directed at a friend of mine.  I love this gal, but she has zero empathy for anyone. I was going through a hard time with a family member and just needed to vent a little about it.  All I was looking for was a kind word of encouragement from her.

Instead of comfort from a friend, I got a barrage of questions and a call to action of drastic proportions.  Long story short, she made me feel very small and was stressing me.  I told her that I would just keep things to myself from now on, and apologized for burdening her with my trouble.

She started back peddling, saying that I could always talk to her about anything, any time.  Uhm…no, I really can’t.  When I thought about it a bit more, I realized that she never would ask follow up questions to see how things were working themselves out.

I guess it bugged me more than I realized because when she started telling me about the possibility of rekindling an old romance, I stepped up to the plate and swung away with all the “how this can never work” scenarios I could think up

Before I knew it, I was telling her things like reunion romances don’t work, especially long distance ones.  I went on to say that men who call you out of the blue after a certain age are just looking for someone to take care of them.   In short, I totally deflated her feel good balloon.  My closing line was to just walk in eyes wide open and to remember there’s a reason it didn’t work out the first time.  But hey, have fun!

Then I heard that little voice.  “There how do you like a taste of your own medicine?”  That was so not like me.  Why did I take so much pleasure in pooh-poohing her news. Her reaction?  Radio silence.

I’m not proud of it, but a small part of me thinks she had it coming.  I’m not condoning my behavior, just taking stock of what went down.

Lesson learned in this?  You really have to pick and chose who you open up to.  Some things might be beyond another person’s emotional capacity.  Opening up to someone who lacks empathy only causes resentment in the long run.

Although blessed with a fair number of friends, I rarely mix them together.  Each one is so different and I enjoy my time with them separately.  Each brings something different to the table, so I can pick and chose who I go to for a pity party.  Those are short lived though.  No need to be a Debbie downer each time you see them.

At the end of the day, no real hard feelings between my bud and I, but I suspect she will be keeping her possible romance to herself.  That’s OK, I’ll be keeping my family issues to myself as well.