“Unfriend” #1

I had a friend who stopped talking to me. Not recently; this was some time ago.

I suppose she's my first "unfriend" due to my being naked. Wait, actually there was another girl a few years earlier. In fact, there may be others even further back. I don’t recall.

Anyway, this girl wasn’t a facebook unfriending; it was a real life unfriending. She was never friends with me on the facebook. That’s actually how I became aware that she wasn't talking to me. She wasn’t on the facebook for a long time, even after “everybody” was. Then a few years ago I saw that she had joined the facebook, but she ignored a few friend requests from me and some messages.

I didn't know what the deal was at first, and I wanted to know. She wouldn't return my calls or messages. I realized something was wrong and heard second hand sort of what it was.

Then I ran into her and she was all, "Oh, hey! How are you?" as if nothing was wrong. So I said (something like), "No. That is not acceptable. If you wanna talk to me about this, fine. But don't act like nothing's wrong." She said "Okay," and just stared at me. I said "Okay" and walked away. And nothing since then.

Sadly, she and I had been pretty decent friends in the past.

I used to hang out sometimes at her place. Then I moved away; when I came to visit, I’d stay there. (There was an extra room.) And she saw me naked sometimes. It never seemed to be a big deal. She seemed okay, or at least not upset, about it. It was something I did to be funny, amusing, "for a lark". 

But then one time I asked her out to dinner. And she brought a friend along. Later I told her that I'd meant dinner with just her. Now, I wasn’t feeling any particular romantic urgency toward her. There had been a time when I was sort of interested, but I didn’t pursue it. And at that point when I asked her out, I wasn’t really interested anymore. I was only in town for a little while, and didn’t know when I’d be back. And I certainly wasn’t trying to get laid. That’s just not me. To be perfectly honest, I thought it might be a nice gesture. And I thought we might have a nice time.

I think what happened is that she was uncomfortable with my invitation. That’s why she brought her friend. So, sometime after that, she saw me naked again. It may’ve been a day or two or a week or month, maybe that time I was visiting or the next—I’m not sure about the timing, ‘cause to me it wasn't a big deal. Well, apparently to her it was a big deal. Apparently she felt that it was some kind of sexual advance.

It wasn’t. 

As far as I was concerned, It was no different than any other time I’d been there. 

But(!)...

She has issues. With men. Well, with sex, and relationships. I just didn’t get how serious those issues were. So, now she has issues with me.

I haven’t written about her before, but a few things have reminded me of her lately. So...there it is.

It makes me sad that she decided that we couldn’t be friends.

It makes me angry that she didn’t talk to me about it. 

The 60-something facebook “friends” that I’ve lost sometimes make me upset, but honestly the loss of her friendship was more upsetting than losing all of those people combined.

At this point, I don’t know if we could ever be friends again—maybe at some future point(?)—(and I don’t expect her to ever see this), but I might be willing to consider it. I’d be willing to listen if she wanted to have an actual conversation about it. But I’m not willing to pretend that everything’s fine, when clearly it isn’t.