So what kinds of people are out there?
I have always thought I am pretty good at reading people. I sense danger quickly, and every time I've gone against my intuition I have paid the price later on. Sometimes years down the road, but always pay for not listening to what I know in my heart.
My first impression is often my last impression.
But there are times when I let that person in my life, out of a need to "fix" or help others, I took in the strays that people warned others against.
Now, I just can't believe that people are truly evil inside, or at least that they may have some evil but also lots of good to outweigh that bad. I really want to believe that inside everyone is good.
In high school I developed a bit of an anti-social attitude, stuck to my few friends in a small group and nothing more really. I think I was overwhelmed by the combination of high school math and balancing work and friends and violin and sports and I withdrew from the main social scene. Looking back on this I realize people probably just thought I was a snobby bitch and my attitude that I didn't care if they wanted to be my friend or not probably made them hate me more.
I don't really know.
Over the years I have had many friends come and go, and in my 20's I became a very social butterfly with hundreds of friends and just generally outgoing person. More friends you have, more deception and it can be hard when you are young to see who was your friend and who was using you and who was really your enemy.
I love my friends and treat all the same and would give them anything and do anything for them.
This sense of loyalty meant people took advantage of me and I may have not realized it until later on.
I had tons of friends when I lived in Vancouver from 18-23, and where are they now that they can't come over and drink my wine and eat my food?
Yeah, exactly.
So I really have no one to back and visit. In a whole crowd of friends, I retained a friendship with one for about five years after I left there, she moved to Calgary and I back home to E-town. Now anyone who knows what a death of a friendship is like- it starts slowly.
You talk less, you text less, you stop making time to call, and visiting doesn't happen.
Every once in a while, you get a text that says, "we need to talk soon!"
"I miss you!"
"How's it going?"
You may or may not even answer that text. Or you're driving somewhere and she calls.
Should I pick it up?
I'll call her when I get home.
Does this happen?
Well now the friendship is dying.
This particular friendship died on me last summer.
Basically the whole story is much too long and catty, so I'll give you the short version, or as short as you can make a long story like but I won't leave out any gory details, no worries, I'll spare you no drama.
So basically, me and this girl, (we'll call her J-Tits, for obvious reasons if you've seen her) met in Vancouver and I didn't like her at first, and she didn't like me. I thought she was self absorbed and snobby. Somehow through being drunk and with others we managed to make peace and become friends.
First I move to Calgary after 4 and half years in Van, then home to Edmonton in four months time.
Don't ask why I only spent 4 months there- that's a whole other blog entry.
I am home, and she is in Calgary, and we talked every day.
Well you'd think that if you were 3 hours away you could visit often, but in five years I visited twice a year 2 years in a row, once the next 3. How many times did she visit?
Not once.
Until I got engaged and she became my Bridesmaid.
How did she become my Bridesmaid?
Well I felt an obligation to ask her.
She also had assumed she was in the wedding party, saying to me, "OMG I CAN'T WAIT TO BE YOUR MAID OF HONOR!"
For all of you who have friends that are getting married, I urge you not to say this to a Bride. Planning a wedding is hard enough let alone having to decide who will be in your bridal party, or witnesses, she doesn't need the pressure from her friends to compete over maid of honour.
I had already made my long time sister in witchery KT my maid of honour, but Matt had two guys on his side so I needed another girl anyways, at the time I thought of my friend Jess here, but with pressure from J-tits I made her my Bridesmaid.
She came up here a month later to visit me for the first time.
After she spent one night, and texting two guys the whole damn time and talking with another on the phone in bathroom half the night she left the next morning.
Now during the next few months after this visit, I am diagnosed with metastatic melanoma, have surgery and start interferon. I spent a lot of time sleeping, and my wedding wasn't the first thing on my mind.
I had planned a simple wedding, and just wanted my ladies in black cocktail dresses.
I told her just to wear a black cocktail dress of her own choosing, and the first thing she said was
"BLACK? This is a wedding! You can't have people in black!"
I said, well it's my wedding and that's what I want.
She made a big deal out of needing to see KT'S dress to match, so finally I sent her pics of her simple dress.
She was seemingly having a very difficult time with the fact that they weren't going to be completely matching, and kept asking to see more pics of this simple black dress.
When I was having chemo four days a week, I told her, and she said, like, not real chemo is it? For skin cancer?
I'm like, yes, real chemo. Skin cancer is real cancer.
She acted concerned, but didn't seem to realize what was really going on.
I tell her I have to get better then I will let her know all the details, for now all she needed to know was the date of the wedding, where it was and what to wear.
Oh, and also that my bridal shower/staggette was the Saturday before the wedding.
I told her this months before hand.
So she kept calling me and saying she needed more details.
I kept saying, what details?
It was like, she wanted to know what colour of nail polish to wear and how to do her hair, all this, and I told her- whatever you want, J-Tits!
She said, well, this other bride I know is matching her nail polish to the cake and flowers.
I said to her, well you know me, and I don't give a fuck about those little details.
It's my wedding don't worry about it!
So this went on until she was trying to get me to find her a hotel, and I asked her what kind of hotel, and she said something nice so I gave her the number to The Westin.
She scoffed like she wasn't capable of calling and making her own reservation.
I started regretting having her in my wedding party because A. she didn't seem to get what kind of wedding this was and B. she didn't seem to understand I was very sick from treatment and was questioning if I'd even have to postpone my wedding at the time, I could barely lift my hand to my face.
There was a lack of understanding happening here.
I started to tell friends I was regretting having her in my wedding party and some urged me to cut her loose, but I was like, no I'm too nice to do that...
Well she decided her own fate, as people often do.
So remember how I said the shower would be the Saturday before?
(You remember it and you only read that once. Congratulations.)
So a month before the wedding, I give Kt J-Tits' email to get in touch with her about the DEETS.
Kt wrote a very polite email to J-Tits that pretty much went like this,
Hello,
This is Katie Erin's maid of honour. The wedding is coming up fast so we need to get going on shower plans. Erin wants her shower the week before the wedding, we can have the shower at my parents place and get some costco food and dollar store stuff. Let me know if you have any budget restrictions and we will see you soon!
Kt would say this isn't exactly what she said, but it is at least close.
Nothing offended me about this email, and Kt sent it to me to clear with her before she sent it.
I told her nope, that's fine, send it.
Well two days later I wake up to a shitstorm happening within my phone.
J-Tits sent me a text saying
CALL ME NOW YOUR FRIEND NEEDS TO STAY IN HER LANE
I'm like, huh, huh? Mm what?
Then KT calls.
She's like, listen to this email I got back from J-Tits:
Um, I don't operate this way. I have been asking about this shower for months and now, just a few weeks from the wedding we are talking about a shower??? I can't even be there that weekend, I have my kid. My parents travel schedule has been laid out for the year, I can't cause I have to take care of my kid.
Then Kt, asked if she could write this back to her:
This is Erin's day, she told you the shower would be the week before, this isn't about you. A simple no would have sufficed, you don't have to be a bitch about it.
Then she went on the defensive and started texting me saying Kt was being a bitch and asking her for money, and if she had known she would have had a shower for me IN CALGARY, with all her friends and family.
Yes, she actually suggested I have my shower in CALGARY.
???
Yes. I told this dummy, J-Tits, why the fuck would I drag myself, all my friends family and grandmother to Calgary for a shower? And if you so wanted to put on a shower for me in Calgary, who was stopping you? This is the first I am hearing about a shower in Calgary.
She's like, well you could have had it months ago.
I'm like, dude, I was having surgery and chemo months ago.
I didn't exactly have the ability to party.
She also said she was coming the afternoon of the wedding, (and is notoriously very late) after she got her hair done in Calgary before she came.
I could just see her showing up for the ceremony late this girl is so disorganized.
I told her that wouldn't work, I wanted my Bridesmaids by my side, and the rehearsal dinner was the night before. Getting up here for my shower, and the wedding even was seemingly so difficult for her.
She claimed over and over again she didn't know that my shower was the week before, even though I had told her more than once.
All day it was back and forth, until finally, that was it, I kicked her out of the wedding party.
I can't explain how much better I felt after.
After I kicked her out she said well, I already bought a dress and a present.
Which is funny because she then emailed kt saying she didn't know what to wear and didn't have a good enough picture of the dress!
I catch her in a bunch of lies trying to cover her ass, but really just digging a hole for herself.
I was like, sorry but this isn't going to work out.
I have no choice but to replace you.
That was that, except she was in denial or something, kept just texting, I can't wait for the wedding!
OMG you're getting married!
It was weird.
I had to make sure she knew she wasn't a bridesmaid anymore.
So I said it a couple more times.
Finally around a week before the wedding, she says she is going to come anyways.
I was like, ugh, this is awkward.
But you gotta give it to her, she is removed from the wedding party a month before the wedding, and looks like an idiot to all involved, and she came and swallowed shit to do it.
We had a couple awkward moments during the reception, which weirdly enough she sat with the husband of the girl that replaced her and the husband of my m.o.h. KT, and she turned up the charm and tossed her hair and played dumb with the guys, adjusting her tits and pursing her over glossed lips like a duck.
Ridiculous and strange all around.
Well she even came to the gift opening the next day, and brought this present she had said she bought a month ago.
It was tea cups and a big glass candle jug thingy, with a pillar candle.
I made sure when I got home to check the gift receipt-
she bought it on the way into town at South Common the morning of the wedding.
Yet another lie.
So she ate crow to sit at my wedding dinner, but do we talk now?
No.
The last I heard from her was a couple months ago, when she sent me a picture of a diamond engagement ring going
"I'M GETTING MARRIED!!!"
Now do you think I said, "OMG I CAN'T WAIT TO BE YOUR MAID OF HONOR!!!"
...Nope.
That's the end. The friendship has been put to rest.
I wonder if I'll get an invite to the wedding of J-Tits and whatthefuckishisnameagainsomelawyerfromthestateswowitsnotadrugdealeramazing
So this all played out all year, and I am at peace with the current state of our friendship, non-existent.
A new Erin exists now- one that doesn't waste precious psychic energy on vampires.
Vampires come in many different forms, and J-tits was a vampire.
I decided last year after my surgery for cancer, that was that, and I wasn't spending anymore energy on someone that only takes and never gives. I wasn't going to let them feed on my life force anymore.
FEWWW!
That was a long one. Well the moral of the story folks is- well, several things, but first off it is this- cut loose those who don't care. Those who are there in fair weather, but gone when the storm hits. Those who love you are those who matter. Don't waste your precious life force on people who are only there to drink your wine and eat your fruit.
Second it is this: Trust your first instinct about people. Most often the first impression is the strongest, and in my experience, the truest reflection of oneself.
-E.
I had planned a simple wedding, and just wanted my ladies in black cocktail dresses.
I told her just to wear a black cocktail dress of her own choosing, and the first thing she said was
"BLACK? This is a wedding! You can't have people in black!"
I said, well it's my wedding and that's what I want.
She made a big deal out of needing to see KT'S dress to match, so finally I sent her pics of her simple dress.
She was seemingly having a very difficult time with the fact that they weren't going to be completely matching, and kept asking to see more pics of this simple black dress.
When I was having chemo four days a week, I told her, and she said, like, not real chemo is it? For skin cancer?
I'm like, yes, real chemo. Skin cancer is real cancer.
She acted concerned, but didn't seem to realize what was really going on.
I tell her I have to get better then I will let her know all the details, for now all she needed to know was the date of the wedding, where it was and what to wear.
Oh, and also that my bridal shower/staggette was the Saturday before the wedding.
I told her this months before hand.
So she kept calling me and saying she needed more details.
I kept saying, what details?
It was like, she wanted to know what colour of nail polish to wear and how to do her hair, all this, and I told her- whatever you want, J-Tits!
She said, well, this other bride I know is matching her nail polish to the cake and flowers.
I said to her, well you know me, and I don't give a fuck about those little details.
It's my wedding don't worry about it!
So this went on until she was trying to get me to find her a hotel, and I asked her what kind of hotel, and she said something nice so I gave her the number to The Westin.
She scoffed like she wasn't capable of calling and making her own reservation.
I started regretting having her in my wedding party because A. she didn't seem to get what kind of wedding this was and B. she didn't seem to understand I was very sick from treatment and was questioning if I'd even have to postpone my wedding at the time, I could barely lift my hand to my face.
There was a lack of understanding happening here.
I started to tell friends I was regretting having her in my wedding party and some urged me to cut her loose, but I was like, no I'm too nice to do that...
Well she decided her own fate, as people often do.
So remember how I said the shower would be the Saturday before?
(You remember it and you only read that once. Congratulations.)
So a month before the wedding, I give Kt J-Tits' email to get in touch with her about the DEETS.
Kt wrote a very polite email to J-Tits that pretty much went like this,
Hello,
This is Katie Erin's maid of honour. The wedding is coming up fast so we need to get going on shower plans. Erin wants her shower the week before the wedding, we can have the shower at my parents place and get some costco food and dollar store stuff. Let me know if you have any budget restrictions and we will see you soon!
Kt would say this isn't exactly what she said, but it is at least close.
Nothing offended me about this email, and Kt sent it to me to clear with her before she sent it.
I told her nope, that's fine, send it.
Well two days later I wake up to a shitstorm happening within my phone.
J-Tits sent me a text saying
CALL ME NOW YOUR FRIEND NEEDS TO STAY IN HER LANE
I'm like, huh, huh? Mm what?
Then KT calls.
She's like, listen to this email I got back from J-Tits:
Um, I don't operate this way. I have been asking about this shower for months and now, just a few weeks from the wedding we are talking about a shower??? I can't even be there that weekend, I have my kid. My parents travel schedule has been laid out for the year, I can't cause I have to take care of my kid.
Then Kt, asked if she could write this back to her:
This is Erin's day, she told you the shower would be the week before, this isn't about you. A simple no would have sufficed, you don't have to be a bitch about it.
Then she went on the defensive and started texting me saying Kt was being a bitch and asking her for money, and if she had known she would have had a shower for me IN CALGARY, with all her friends and family.
Yes, she actually suggested I have my shower in CALGARY.
???
Yes. I told this dummy, J-Tits, why the fuck would I drag myself, all my friends family and grandmother to Calgary for a shower? And if you so wanted to put on a shower for me in Calgary, who was stopping you? This is the first I am hearing about a shower in Calgary.
She's like, well you could have had it months ago.
I'm like, dude, I was having surgery and chemo months ago.
I didn't exactly have the ability to party.
She also said she was coming the afternoon of the wedding, (and is notoriously very late) after she got her hair done in Calgary before she came.
I could just see her showing up for the ceremony late this girl is so disorganized.
I told her that wouldn't work, I wanted my Bridesmaids by my side, and the rehearsal dinner was the night before. Getting up here for my shower, and the wedding even was seemingly so difficult for her.
She claimed over and over again she didn't know that my shower was the week before, even though I had told her more than once.
All day it was back and forth, until finally, that was it, I kicked her out of the wedding party.
I can't explain how much better I felt after.
After I kicked her out she said well, I already bought a dress and a present.
Which is funny because she then emailed kt saying she didn't know what to wear and didn't have a good enough picture of the dress!
I catch her in a bunch of lies trying to cover her ass, but really just digging a hole for herself.
I was like, sorry but this isn't going to work out.
I have no choice but to replace you.
That was that, except she was in denial or something, kept just texting, I can't wait for the wedding!
OMG you're getting married!
It was weird.
I had to make sure she knew she wasn't a bridesmaid anymore.
So I said it a couple more times.
Finally around a week before the wedding, she says she is going to come anyways.
I was like, ugh, this is awkward.
But you gotta give it to her, she is removed from the wedding party a month before the wedding, and looks like an idiot to all involved, and she came and swallowed shit to do it.
We had a couple awkward moments during the reception, which weirdly enough she sat with the husband of the girl that replaced her and the husband of my m.o.h. KT, and she turned up the charm and tossed her hair and played dumb with the guys, adjusting her tits and pursing her over glossed lips like a duck.
Ridiculous and strange all around.
Well she even came to the gift opening the next day, and brought this present she had said she bought a month ago.
It was tea cups and a big glass candle jug thingy, with a pillar candle.
I made sure when I got home to check the gift receipt-
she bought it on the way into town at South Common the morning of the wedding.
Yet another lie.
So she ate crow to sit at my wedding dinner, but do we talk now?
No.
The last I heard from her was a couple months ago, when she sent me a picture of a diamond engagement ring going
"I'M GETTING MARRIED!!!"
Now do you think I said, "OMG I CAN'T WAIT TO BE YOUR MAID OF HONOR!!!"
...Nope.
That's the end. The friendship has been put to rest.
I wonder if I'll get an invite to the wedding of J-Tits and whatthefuckishisnameagainsomelawyerfromthestateswowitsnotadrugdealeramazing
So this all played out all year, and I am at peace with the current state of our friendship, non-existent.
A new Erin exists now- one that doesn't waste precious psychic energy on vampires.
Vampires come in many different forms, and J-tits was a vampire.
I decided last year after my surgery for cancer, that was that, and I wasn't spending anymore energy on someone that only takes and never gives. I wasn't going to let them feed on my life force anymore.
FEWWW!
That was a long one. Well the moral of the story folks is- well, several things, but first off it is this- cut loose those who don't care. Those who are there in fair weather, but gone when the storm hits. Those who love you are those who matter. Don't waste your precious life force on people who are only there to drink your wine and eat your fruit.
Second it is this: Trust your first instinct about people. Most often the first impression is the strongest, and in my experience, the truest reflection of oneself.
-E.
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