My Neediness, My Mess
When the person who knows you best in the world doesn't want you anymore, where does that leave you?
Happy Friday! For your afternoon procrastination purposes, here are a few recent posts that might be of interest (the first three are free, but you can click that subscribe button if you want to read them all <3)
My Little Pink Kitchen (Or: What it’s like living in an unfancy place in a very, very fancy zip code)
A Stroll Down Memory Lane (embarrassing/occasionally amazing videos, basically)
The Fifth Line (on post-divorce love potential)
Now, on to the post. It’s about neediness, and the messes I’ve made.
When I was younger, I never had an easy time making capital-F Friends. In high school, I always felt like I was on the outside of my little “group” — I was a working actress, so I was gone a lot, but it was more than that: I always felt (accurately or not, I have no idea) that I wasn’t cool enough to really be a part of things. I felt, so often, like my role was to be the ridiculous one, the emotional one, the one who everyone else got to make fun of but it’d be okay because obviously I’d get over it, so hungry was I for approval.
Boys were a part of the problem, of course: I spent my teens and twenties valuing male attention vastly more than female friendship — which seems insane to me now, but (thanks, therapy!) was the product of wanting desperately to be loved in a forever, no-matter-what way that I did not experience as a child, and had come to associate exclusively with romantic partnership. I didn’t understand until far too recently that it was the women in my life who were the treasures, not the assortment of shitty, often-abusive men with whom I found myself falling into serially monogamous (on my end) relationships.
I wanted to be loved so badly that I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, to my own tremendous detriment.
In my mid-twenties, I met a woman who would become my Official Best Friend for nearly two decades to come. I could see us in the distant future, spending our grey years rocking side-by-side on a porch with gin and tonics in hand, cackling like witches over our youthful misadventures. On my website I wrote about this friendship extensively, and what it meant to me to “finally” find a “sister.”
One day, I got a letter — a handwritten, snail-mail letter — from my college best friend, N, with whom I’d stayed only in mild contact…not because I didn’t care, mind you, but because (and I know this sounds crazy) I truly didn’t think she did. Not in a malicious way; I simply didn’t think my absence in a person’s life was something that would be missed, or that someone could love me if I wasn’t offering them something concrete — a companion for a crazy night out, a tab that’s on me, a cozy house to hang at. I always wanted to hand over a sort of goody bag that people could take home as a reward for having lent me their affection.
N wrote me that she was hurt by my post. She felt that it devalued the specialness of our own friendship, and cast a long shadow over our many, many shared memories. She was right. Not in that our friendship hadn’t been special to me — so special, I loved and still love her so much — but in that I hadn’t treated it as such. I’d been careless with the one thing I wanted more than anything: Unconditional, uncomplicated love.
Imagine, then, what it felt like when the aforementioned Official Best Friend — whom we’ll call “E” — broke up with me a few months ago.
Have you ever been broken up with by a best friend? I don’t mean “stopped hanging out as much”; I mean explicitly told “I do not want to be in communication with you anymore.” Well, let me tell you: This can feel like quite the indictment, especially coming from a person who knows virtually everything about you — so a rejection from them feels tantamount to a rejection of your fundamental self.
Afterwards, I spent many, many hours trying to wrap my mind around what had happened between us, trying to find ways to place the blame solely on my shoulders (I said the wrong thing/didn’t do this/should have done that). But — in a strange reversal of my usual pattern — I simply couldn’t find them, no matter how hard I looked.
I am a challenging friend to have, I’m sure. I can be self-absorbed, and my anxiety and depression mean that I have a tendency to disappear off the face of the earth from time to time. I have a lot of drama in my life, both because I cultivate it and just because, and that can be exhausting. I cry a lot, both happy and sad tears, and act out in irritating ways sometimes.
But I’m also deeply empathetic. I care enormously about those whom I love. I like to think I’m a pretty fun hang, and I know I’m generous with my home, my money, my cooking, my stuff. With E, I also was always there, always, even though this was not the first time she’s broken up with me. Nothing could have made me stop picking up her phone calls. I mean that: Nothing.
That said, I do tend to go away when told.
After the breakup text I scrolled back through our messages, pored through my memories, looking for anything and everything I’d ever said or done wrong. I wanted to make sure to take accountability, not play the victim. I called my other girlfriends, wanting to know if there were terrible, horrible things that “everyone” thought about me but didn’t tell me — so that I could fix myself, so this wouldn’t ever happen again.
And you know what? It won’t.
For the first time ever — and, as I said, this has happened with E before — I co-sign on the breakup. In the past, I might have prostrated myself, cast myself as the villain, what have you…but when I look at the events from a birds-eye view, what I see was much simpler than any massive, dramatic, friendship-ending mistakes: I may or may not have been a “good” friend…but I was not — maybe never have been — good for my friend. Why, I don’t know — but in the absence of grievous wrongs, relationship-dissolving anger tends to speak to a problem that exists somewhere outside of the relationship.
Why did I value this friendship so highly, when it was so volatile, so apparently disposable?
Isn’t it obvious?
Because that’s the kind of love I seem to prioritize: The kind that can be controlled and secured if — and only if — I do a good job. If this person thinks I’m great, then I am. In my child-mind, affection that can (and may!) be withdrawn in an instant holds so much more value than the alternative.
That’s what I learned love looked like, and so that’s what I looked for myself.
When I was little, my father often told me that I “couldn’t take criticism.” For years, I thought that about myself…and perhaps it was true when I was younger, but like I said: Therapy is quite the life-upheaver. These days, the ability to take criticism is something I am excellent at, to the point where I have to be careful not to absorb it too deeply when it’s unwarranted. When I see that I’ve hurt a friend, or been caught in a half-truth, or been clumsy or distracted or needy in excess, my immediate and genuine response is to own up to the misstep and apologize. Because really: What else can you do?
But while I can apologize for many things, I cannot apologize for who I am at my core — and trust me, I have tried. For years, I twisted myself into shapes I thought might be more palatable: Smaller, quieter, less much. But I couldn’t seem to find a version of me that was just right for absolutely everyone, and so I finally came to understand that chasing love by shapeshifting only leaves you lonelier.
You can’t manufacture unconditional love by performing worthiness, or by disappearing into someone else’s expectations. You can’t talk someone into loving you, or work your way toward it, or earn it like a gold star. You can only offer yourself as you are, care for them the best that you can, and hope they choose to stay.
Here’s the part no one puts on a throw pillow: You also can’t control how someone interprets your words, or how your presence makes them feel. You can speak with care and still be misheard. You can mean well and cause pain nevertheless. You can love someone fiercely, and still lose them.
You can also be sorry for things that you’ve done without being sorry for who you are.
So this is where I land: I miss my friend. I wish things were different. But while accountability is essential, I have no more room left in my little brain and body and heart for shame. For better or for worse, in this friendship, at least, I showed up as myself. And for once, I simply can’t — won’t — apologize for that.
Thank you so much for putting words to these human experiences! ♥️
This is progress, look who’s adulting now! ;)