Friendship is Complex
I’ve gone back and forth in my head about how to even broach this subject, as it involves former close friends. I have something I want to directly say, but writing makes you think about it, make it make sense to the reader, and paint the picture, so here I go. I think you’ll pick up what I’m putting down. Let’s go.
The expectations of friendships tend to get muddied when there is past trauma (on both sides) and where the definition of what friendship means is cloudy at best. I’ve never claimed to be Mr. Congeniality or have it all together and I have always been honest about that. In the way I conduct myself, what I talk about, and how I am in relationships — platonic or otherwise. I am unabashedly imperfect, flawed, and wear my heart on my sleeve. That’s just the real me, I don’t have anything to hide. At the same time I like to think of myself as a sweet, thoughtful, considerate, and someone who always puts in their best effort to make friendships work. I highlight friendships here because I don’t have a great (or existent) relationship with my family, except my sister, so friendships are with whom I have an opportunity to create my chosen family with. However, what no one warns you about is the pain of not being chosen back.
It’s hard to write about this without mentioning people, so I’ll make names up. Jerry. I considered Jerry to be a close friend, one of my best friends actually, and I always joked that he thought I was annoying, kind of like a little brother/big brother relationship. You know when you say things that you know to be true, but say it in a half-joking kind of way? This is exactly what that was. He’d always reassure me that it’s all in my head and I’m just feeling insecure. It was a known truth that I can get in my head about my feelings and overthink situations, so I trusted his assessment of what I was feeling…not totally though. I still had that incessant gut feeling over the course of a few years that what I was feeling was spot on.
Jerry and I both had a mutual friend at one point, we’ll call him Sven. Sven was gregarious, welcoming, and had a particular penchant for bringing people together. What I learned, and what Jerry later learned, is that Sven has a very special way of luring you into his web of fabricated friendship and leaving you high and dry when your friendship no longer served him. I’ll give you one example — In 2019, me and a group of friends that included Sven and Jerry took a day trip to Joshua Tree to hike or walk, or whatever the fuck you do there. Sven had ridden in my car and the entire way, he was making snide remarks at me, criticizing my driving, and almost had me in tears before we even arrived at the park. This was extremely confusing to me as this behavior was completely out of the blue.
During our time at Joshua Tree, the snide remarks increased. I vividly remember stopping on a trail to see some snow and play with it. I’m from Miami, so snow is not something I’ve seen a lot of. I had stayed behind the group and had a friend take a picture of me touching the snow for shits and giggles. Sven harshly remarked in a sarcastic tone, “We don’t have time for this.” out of earshot from everyone else, and kept walking without waiting for me. If you’ve read my previous piece, you know how I have dealt with malevolent narcissists throughout my childhood. These experiences left me vulnerable to these sorts of narcissistic attacks in adulthood. Sven and I stopped being friends shortly after.
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Fast forward a couple of years and Jerry and Sven were becoming increasingly close. They even went on a one on one camping trip with each other. Like me, Jerry thought he had become close friends with Sven, only for Sven to lead him down a path that lead Jerry to questioning their entire friendship. It was a similar story to mine, Jerry had thought one thing about their friendship, only for it to be completely turned on its head by Sven. I recall Jerry was hurt, disappointed, and feeling like he was made a fool of. I offered him support and reassurance that I knew exactly what he went through with Sven, as I had gone through it myself.
Later on in the beginning of 2025, I was displaced by the LA fires, specifically the Palisades fire. I hauled ass down the freeway to a Motel 6 in Thousand Oaks with my dog to evacuate, but we had to sleep in my car that night anyway because the power had gone out in the motel. The next night, Jerry had offered for my dog and I stay in his living room — I am eternally grateful for this. Jerry is a person who likes his space; I just know that about him. He’d go to work and come back home with me and my dog in his living room. Naturally, anyone would feel like they were encroaching on someone’s space. I would try to leave whenever I could just to give him his privacy. However, that didn’t feel like enough, I could tell something about me living in his apartment was bothering him. That voice came back saying, “He thinks you’re too much.”, so I would just lay on the inflatable bed and try not to talk for a while. That nagging feeling persisted.
A couple of months later I was living at an Airbnb and in between jobs (I promise this will all tie in). Thankfully, I found a job shortly after moving into the Airbnb. A couple of months in, I noticed a previous $800 Airbnb charge to a credit card that I did not recognize. I was so confused. This isn’t my card, why is it on my account? I immediately texted my two closest friends, Jerry and Chris (not mentioned prior to now). Jerry and Chris are also friends, so we were on a group chat. Confusion ensued — Maybe I had logged into Airbnb on Jerry’s computer and it saved his card info to my account? Maybe it was saved from a previous trip we had gone on? All of these possibilities are still plausible to me. However, I could tell Jerry’s mind was made, I was a thief. I can 100% with full confidence say that I did no such thing. I would never steal from Jerry. For one, I don’t have many friends and my chosen family is extremely special to me. I couldn’t afford to lose a close friendship. Also, what a messed up thing to do to someone who let you live in their home when you had nowhere else to go.
I had sent Jerry my bank statements to prove there was no reason for me use his card without permission. I had a full time job and money in the bank at the time that the $800 charge was made to his card. I had also sent Jerry recordings of calls I had with Airbnb trying to find out WHY his card was charged. But, like I said earlier, his mind was made.
Looking back, I think he was already just looking for an out, which is painful to think about as I was under the impression that he was a part of my chosen family. This unfortunate situation was just handed to him on a silver platter and gave him exactly that. I was too much for him — too much going on in my life that he didn’t have the bandwidth for. I didn’t have all my shit together, at least it didn’t seem like it. I think the latter was more important to him than I thought. It wasn’t worth saving the friendship for him.
Despite receiving textbook narcissistic abuse from Sven, they became friends again. Perhaps it was Sven’s congenial, nothing is ever wrong, non-committal nature that drew Jerry back. Ironically, Jerry had just attended Sven’s wedding abroad. Despite me haven proven myself as a friend to Jerry over the years, I can only conclude that to Jerry, Sven presenting in a flashy outfit and offering group acceptance overrides his previous narcissistic abuse. However, an apology for something I did not do and being in an emotional rut cost me Jerry and I’s friendship. I still can’t make it make sense, but I can only have grace for what Jerry may perceive as a solid friendship with Sven after enduring emotional abuse earlier in his life, like me.
