{Friendship Friday} Have you been dumped by a friend before?

Hey , hey, it's Friday!

I have just a few minutes and then it's time to get ready for my talk. I'm talking tonight at a private school in Jhb. My topic is "live your time freedom" so that should be exciting.

I went to the hairdresser this afternoon and when I got back home, Kendra says to me, "Mummy, your hair looks pretty" and then later, "Kendra also wants to go to the hairdresser. Kendra also wants pretty hair". :)

Anyway, onto today's friend topic - being dumped!

I've been dumped by friends three times before in my life and am also currently in the process of being dumped.

Let's go back.

1. We were a group of 3 friends at high school.

M was going out with a boy who she'd first had a crush on and then he got into her too. She was the type of girl who would refuse to do anything on the off chance she'd be out if he phoned.

If you think I'm bolshie now, you should have met me then. Fiercely independent. And both me and L told her to get out and make him chase after her a bit.

Anyway, L had a cousin in a certain part of our greater neighbourhood and she was visiting this cousin one Sunday afternoon when she say M's boyfriend coming out of a neighbour's house, very "friendly" with the neighbour.

She asked me if she should tell M and of course I said an emphatic YES. So we did and M refused to believe anything, said we were stirring (we really were not) and broke up with both of us.

Ta dum!

2. A good friend of mine at university just suddenly went cold on me. We were in the same res, and got closer because we had boyfriends who were friends and those two were also in the same res.

We had a fun time during the first year and suddenly she stopped returning my letters. In "my day" we didn't have all this technology. If you had friends, you wrote letters and if you were very comfortable, you used the phone to call long-distance.

I had a problem letting go even back then so I think I kept on writing for months afterward. And ... nothing.

Eventually I had to face facts - she didn't want to be friends anymore.

Welll...... last year on Facebook she found me. 18 years later! And acted like nothing was wrong.

I didn't know that I'd done anything so I was friendly back but after a few exchanges I plucked up the courage and said something like, "listen, I've always wondered why you stopped being friends with me. did I do anything?"

And she said that university was just so hard for her and a horrible time in her life and when she left that place, she wanted to put EVERYTHING behind her.

Fair enough. I get that.

So now we're FB friends :)

3. This friend was my best friend, or the bestest friend I ever had. I was her best university friend but she had other best friends at home. Well, we plodded along nicely til she started going a bit psycho.

She had some man issues and seriously, it was bordering on stalking and I said to her (very nicely), "maybe you should hold off for a bit and see if he expresses any interest". She didn't like that. But we didn't fight - we just disagreed. We'd disagreed far more vehemently in the past at university on other things (as you do when you're young and opinionated) but it was never serious.

Just got home again from the talk - excellent crowd, really nice people and money towards my US trip :)

Anyway. I think the other people in her life had been saying the same thing to her because suddenly she wasn't returning phone calls or text messages (by this time we were well in the technology age and even had email!).

She basically cut everyone off.

I got in touch with her sisters on FB about 2 - 3 years ago and it's still like that. She speaks to them but barely.

However, I tracked down a blog of hers recently, read almost everything one night and then I felt weird so I haven't been back since :)

I sooooo wish we could be friends again. I don't think anyone except D's ever got me quite like she did and she also loved Seinfeld and we laughed at the same stupid jokes.

Oh, we met in the bathroom - I was washing my face a million times a day because I couldn't deal with the heat in Gtn and we got talking. We lived two doors apart in res.

4. Current dumping

Well, this one just went very quiet on me. Kind of suddenly. I was very shocked and hurt, to be honest, but I'm slowly starting to face facts.

As I do, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, making all kinds of excuses but it was a new friendship so maybe this person just wasn't as into me as I am into her.

I think the thing for me is that I'm such a strong J and while very unpleasant and awkward, I would ALWAYS rather know that things are off because of X reason ("I have enough friends, thank you very much!")

Anyway.

So those are the stories of when I've been dumped. They all hurt because I think I'm a good friend. A bit too straightforward sometimes but that's me.

I don't think I've ever dumped anyone (problems letting go, remember :)).

So back to you.

Have you been dumped by a friend? Tell me everything! Or tell me when and why you dumped a friend.

PS what do you think of the new badge? I LOVE the font so much - it's called The Great Escape. And the background is from Sprik Space.

PPS Rachel posted about friend breakups on the blog. I'm hooked on the comments :)