Friends.

We all make friends, and each individual friendship is born during specific times in our lives, whether it’s during elementary school, middle school, high school, college, work, or randomly through shared hobbies, sports, organized groups, or even through blogging. Which ones last? Why do some last longer than others? What makes a true friend? Do you have a few close-knit friends or just a bunch of acquaintances? How many people do you actually converse with on your Facebook friends list? How many of those are your actual friends? How many friends try to make you happy? How many do you dread seeing? Have you ever thought about any of these things?

Personally, I never REALLY thought about any of these things. I continued hanging out with the same friends who still live in the same town as me. Even as the years went by, our differences were more apparent, our political and religious views drastically different, we continued our strained friendship for the mere fact that we were friends to begin with. Because it’s the right thing to do, right? I don’t think so anymore. Obviously, friendship shouldn’t be an obligation, and we shouldn’t feel like we OWE a friendship to anyone.

For example, if a friend helped you through a rough patch in your life, but made you feel bad about yourself, even bullying you, I would think that the negative attributes outweigh the positive ones. An innocent friendship becomes a toxic friendship. And once you let that friendship continue, the vicious cycle continues.

And it’s sad that I needed something traumatizing to happen in life to test all my friendships. And what’s really sad is that I realized I don’t have as many friends as I thought.

Late last year, I experienced a miscarriage after being pregnant for 3 months. By now, I should’ve had a mommy blog, sharing pictures and stories of my 2 month old.  Instead, I have a food blog writing and sharing pictures of food, and using it to take my mind off other, more complicated things going on in life.

The minute I told friends about the miscarriage in early November,  1 of 3 things happened:

1) They fell off the face of the earth, then reappeared months later as if nothing ever happened.

2) They called me asking for favors, as if nothing ever happened.

3) They called me to talk about their problems.

I didn’t even get a simple “I’m sorry”. I didn’t expect a counseling session from anyone, but at least an I’m sorry would’ve showed they cared. When someone tells me someone close to them passed away, or that they just found out about a serious health condition, or that they just broke up with their significant other, I say “I’m sorry”. It’s not hard, if you have vocal cords you can say two words.

I didn’t make an effort to call my friends either. I wasn’t going to call THEM and ask for THEIR support, especially since I left the ball in their court after announcing the sad news. Also, they seemed to be a wee bit selfish. And months later, after checking my voicemail, e-mail and Facebook messages full of angry messages demanding to know why I haven’t called back, or e-mailed back after asking me for a favor, or go out drinking, or whatever it is normal people do when they haven’t faced anything traumatizing, I am at a loss at what to say to them. Do I really need to give them an explanation? Do I need to set up a formal ‘break-up’ session over coffee? As of right now, I look like a horrible person who abandoned my friends. But I’m not sure that they know they abandoned me a long time ago.

How difficult it must be for them to express sympathy or compassion to a friend when put in such an awkward, uncomfortable situation. I feel sorry for them.

Really, I do.