Feeling Replaceable

I love my friends intensely. Fiercely. So you can imagine the depth of my concern when I received this online comment from a good friend of mine: “Today, I hurt so much. Today, I feel tremendously replaceable.”

How do you respond to that? Well, I’ll tell you how I did… I sought her out and made her tell me what happened. She was reluctant. The last thing someone wants to do is recount the events that would make her feel less than appreciated, less than special. But in this case, I wasn’t taking no for an answer. When she was finished, and when we had re-established firmly the fact that she is unique and precious and wonderful, she gave me permission to share this with you. Why? I’ll tell you at the end. (Stories are best when you reveal the moral last!)

My friend is single.  Let’s start there.  She’s wonderful and smart and beautiful.  She simply hasn’t found the right man yet... but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So my friend – let’s call her Jill, because that’s nothing close to her real name (as far as you know) – recently started to feel a little crushy on a guy she’s known for a long time.  As luck would have it, this man started to show interest in her at about the same time. Voilá!  Romance begins. 

Because Jill and this guy both hang out with many of the same people, often in group situations, the guy suggested that they keep their budding relationship quiet for a bit.  He made the cogent argument that they needed to determine on their own, with no friendly interference, if their relationship really had long term potential before “coming out” to their friends. This way, if things worked out, they’d know it was because of the relationship, not because of pressure from the group. Similarly, if things didn’t work out, no one – either of them, anyone in the group – would feel awkward about the situation.

No matter what the arrangement was, Jill was beside herself.  She was happy.  She clearly thought things were going well.  If I had to guess, I’d say she was falling hard for the guy.  She never said it in so many words, but to me, from the outside listening to her, it was obvious.

So this went on for a few weeks, when Jill started to notice a slight change in this guy’s demeanor. It was slight, yes, but Jill’s a perceptive woman. Still, he gave no direct indication that his interest was waning. In fact, Jill gave him several “outs” which were never acknowledged or taken. Then, in recent days, Jill noticed this guy paying the slightest bit more attention to another friend of theirs. A hint of it. A whisper of it. Nothing anyone from outside would notice. Nothing anyone else on the inside seemed to notice.  Anyone but Jill.

Jill thought about bringing this up with this guy, but she didn’t want to seem jealous when they’d barely started dating. That’s all sorts of uncomfortable, right? So instead, she took a circuitous route that you may question… she went to the other woman.

Now, before you get crazy, Jill did NOT let on to the other woman that she (Jill) and this guy had anything special going on. Instead, she lightly mentioned to this friend that she’d noticed the guy paying a little bit more attention to her (the friend), kind of in that wink-wink-nudge-nudge way that friends will do. I’m sure you can guess what happened next… the friend was beside herself excited to confide in Jill that she and this guy had decided to start quietly dating to test the waters, to see if their interest in each other was something worth pursuing further.

You know the rest of the rationale.  And I’m sure that by now you, like I, can completely grasp what Jill meant when she said she felt “replaceable.”  After all, the guy set things up with this other woman the exact same way he set them up with Jill – things he said to her, things they shared, ways and times they spent time together, including some details I can’t share here at risk of revealing to a select few who Jill is. Identical.

Is Jill going to say anything further to her friend, the other woman in this situation?  She considered it, more to protect her friend than anything.  But she also doesn’t feel it’s her place to presume that this guy will treat her friend with the same disrespect as he showed her.  It’s a crap shoot, really. 

And of course Jill is going to end things with the guy. That part is tough because she considered him a close friend for many years prior to this. Now she wonders if they can continue to be friends at all, since he lied to her and betrayed her trust.

So what is the moral of this story?  There are several, but these are the points I want to drive home with you:

1. Trust your gut.  Yes, sometimes your gut will be wrong, of course. Sometimes you may come across like a crazy person.  But listen to it.  Even a little.
2. Be direct and be honest.  Jill gave this guy many opportunities to be direct and honest with her if he felt he wanted to revert to “just” friendship or felt interest in someone else.  She would have been hurt, but she would have felt respected by his honesty, and their friendship could have recovered. Now, this guy likely will lose a friend, and by being dishonest he augmented Jill’s pain tremendously.
3. Trust people.  Just because this happened to Jill, it doesn’t mean that all men are dishonest or that relationships are fraught with disaster.  This happened to Jill.  Not to everyone.
4. Most important of all:  YOU are not replaceable.  Jill is not.  You are not.  You are unique in all the world.  If someone you desire doesn’t recognize all the special qualities you have or feel the same way about you, or if someone you care about betrays your trust, it doesn’t diminish you one iota.  It simply says something about that person. You continue to be wonderful, amazing you.   

This still leaves us with Jill’s dilemma. Does she go back to her friend (the woman) and let her know the full story related to the guy in this situation, or does she leave it to fate?  Any thoughts?

The Break-Up… or Say What You Need To Say

My best friend texted me yesterday morning regarding my latest post about my best date ever to call me out on being in a romantic, nostalgic mood. Well, she’s right. I’m in a pretty good mood lately, and it’s boosted by an upcoming visit I have with one of my oldest friends. Not that he is old, but he’s known me since I was an infant. Which I suppose actually would make him old. Anyway, I’ve been giddy as a Bieber-addled tween for a few weeks now looking forward to my upcoming playdate, so yes, she’s right.

Still, knowing my BFF, I know she’s hinting at me to tone it down a smidge. Hence this post is a sort of book-end to the other.  That post described my favorite date. This one talks about break-ups.

I suppose the ideal book-end would be a post about my worst break-up ever, but I’m not sure at my age there is such a memory, barring break-ups involving violence and cruelty. Fortunately for me, that’s not part of my history.

Still, I’ve learned something that I would like to share regarding how to make awful moments like break-ups, or really delivering bad news of any kind, maybe a little less awful. What is this magical advice, oh sage one, you ask? It’s so simple it’s scary. Ready? Be honest.

What, you ask? Be honest? Tell someone something unpleasant? Like, directly to them? In direct terms? And hurt them?  Here’s the easy answer: Yes.  As John Mayer says in his song that aside from the title and refrain has nothing to do with this post, "Say What You Need To Say."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQtGqmi2O2U

Let’s face facts here. If you’re going to break up with someone, or fire them, or get them to make a tough change of some kind, it’s almost a certainty that the other person is going to be hurt. Right? You may be able to soften the blow a tiny bit with a white lie of some kind. But the harsh truth has a way of coming to light eventually, and when it does, it hurts like hell to know someone wasn’t honest with you. Sometimes that hurts more than the tough message you were trying to convey in the first place.

And let’s be real. Rejection is rejection is rejection. Disappointment is disappointment is disappointment. Failure always eventually feels like failure. Just because that first moment is eased in some way and you don’t have to deal with it directly -- that you can lie to yourself and pretend you didn't actually hurt the other person -- it doesn’t mean that the pain won’t creep in for them. Sometimes that creeping pain hurts more, and longer, than that harsh, rip-off-the-band-aid, stinging pain of being given a tough message directly, with respect and honesty.

Long before I met my husband, I had a couple boyfriends in my time who played that game of slowly but surely allowing our relationship to dwindle until I finally broke up with them. Of course, each of these boys from my past wanted to end our relationship, but they took the coward’s route and tried to make things unpleasant or lonely enough for me to make that break-up decision, so they wouldn't have to. They were afraid I’d be upset or mad and would have a few words for them. And in almost every case, they didn’t want to be “the bad guy.” They were right, of course, about my potential reaction (damn skippy), and sure, by not initiating the break-up they avoided looking like they were hurting me. But in reality, those weeks of emotional turmoil and confusion were worse than a day of “ouch!” and the ability to start healing. And when I realized what they had done, that they hadn’t been direct and honest with me – because it would always come to light – that pain kicked right back in all over again.

These days, in my life this same advice applies to work and home and friendships. My husband used to try to address challenging issues with me “sideways” to avoid conflict, but now he just hits me over the head with both the compliments and the challenging discussions. And I do my best to give him the respect he deserves for treating me with such respect. My boss also is very direct with me, as are many (most?) of the people I work with, and for that I’m immensely grateful. 

My best friend… ah, what can I say about her? There are too many reasons to enumerate why I love her so much and why I feel so fortunate to have her as not only my friend but my BFF. But one of the primary reasons is that she is unfailingly honest with me. There have been many times during our long friendship when I have reached out to her with some admission or confession, looking for someone to help me feel better about whatever rough spot I’ve managed to create for myself. And you know what? While she has always stuck by me, she has never been afraid to tell me if she disagrees with me or is disappointed in me. She doesn’t pretend to be anything or anyone she isn’t. Not for my sake. In other words, she treats me with respect; she trusts and loves me enough to be honest, even brutally so. And I love her for it.

Well, this post has wandered through advice for break-ups and advice for treating someone with respect and has ended up on why my BFF is such a great friend. There’s a theme here that ties it all together:  honesty.  And considering that my BFF inspired this book-end post, ending this just after the paragraph about her seems fitting to me.

Do you have any advice to share for someone who needs to deliver tough news?