Friend? Or Faux?

I'm sitting here staring at my computer and trying to figure out what it is I want to say. My emotions have been on a roller coaster these past few days and putting two thoughts together isn't easy.

Let me ask you this. Have you ever found someone online that you just clicked with and within weeks or months forged a great friendship with? Someone you cherished, revered, looked up to?

Now let me ask you this. If you answered yes to the above, have you ever had that same person turn on you in such a heartless and cowardly way that it left you stunned?



This happened to me just a few days ago. For 2 years I was what I thought very close friends with this person. We had an email loop with three other women and we generated hundreds of emails every week, just sharing this, that and whatever. If you know me at all, you can probably imagine that I shared everything.

From marital problems, to parenting things, to give me advice on this vase. From what's for dinner to your hair looks great, to can you believe I have the squirts again?

What I learned this week? Is that the same people who commend you for your honesty, for your non-filtered way of expressing yourself and who you thought accepted you for your quirky personality, frequent crudeness and varied faults? They lied.

Another thing I learned this week? Not everyone wants to know everything about you. Not everyone wants to hear both the positive and the negative. Not everyone wants to know if your farts smell from one moment to the next.

I also learned that sharing your everything, your very soul, the essence of who you are, can be used against you to make you feel classless, worthless, inelegant, and cheap.

Does this mean I'm going to change who I am, how I convey myself? Put a filter on my thoughts? Nope, you bet your ass I'm not. Because in this instance? It was not a fault of mine, but a fault of the person in question.

She's a fraud. For two years she befriended me. She gave me advice, praise, admonished me when she thought it was due, shared her family, her vacations, her struggles with me.

How was I to know that all along I was was looked upon as beneath her? I suppose the signs had been there for a while. Gee, your name isn't showing up on my friends list on Face Book. "Oh, it must be a Face Book glitch." Uh huh, right. Little jabs here and there on my brand of parenting, my role as a wife, my makeup application.

I should have known. But really? It's my fault in a way because I put it all out there and demand honesty from people. So, I tend to get brutal honesty. And that's fine, that's what I want, as long as you truly like me as a person.

Why spend two years of your life pretending to love me, showing generosity and kindness to me and my children if all along you've had no respect for me? You made me love you. You made me look up to you, and feel honored to be your friend. And the reason you give for denouncing me from your life? Because I used the word "poop" too many times. Because, and I quote, "I'm over the drama and the grossness and all the me me me of Justine's world.
She burnt her bridge with me, no turning back."

Do you remember my mentioning my new friend here in the neighborhood, Ethel? Well, this past week she had a very major surgery and of course I was sharing all the updates with my loop girls because I figured they cared because it was something I cared about. How wrong I turned out to be! I told them how she was faring once home and how she was still unable to go potty. That one innocent update was the trigger for this person's scorn. I received a rude email about "not wanting to know about your friend's bowel movements or lack thereof..."

I wonder now had I used the term "bowel movement" instead of "poop" if this could all have been avoided. But no, this was just an opportunity to discard me. A most cowardly way to sever the "friendship" without owning up to her true feelings.

Of course there were several more emails exchanged, my words twisted so she could cry foul. I can't share those with you. I won't share those with you. See, many of you know this person and truly like her. I can't blame you. She's really sweet and giving. But just be warned that if you have a potty mouth and/or she finds you lacking in social graces, you may just be next on her list to be tossed aside. Oh, and did I mention that when she flipped me the equivalent of the online bird, she also did the same to Jill? Yes, Jill, my sister who has never done a bad thing to anyone.

Don't ask me who it is. I won't tell you. I'm not here to cause rifts between friends. I'm just here, on my very own blog, expressing my feelings.

I leave you now, my heart torn and bloody, ravaged by a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Oh shit, was that too dramatic? I do apologize. It's just, I'm so very classless and uncouth. I can't seem to help myself.

Pssst! If you love me, you might love my sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!