Because I Can’t Write a Novel – Day Three

I wrote this back in August. I felt kinda stupid for ranting some more, especially when it was all about the same damn stuff. I know I’m meant to be *writing* 1,667 words per day, but I did say I was going to share all my old stashed-away blog posts too! It still counts … right? 😉

**Warning** This post is over 2,000 words long. It’s basically a short story. I’ll totally forgive you if you give this one a miss – I just confused writing with therapy for an hour or so…

I’m not done yet, ranting about the whole Bestie and his BFF of 20 + years situation I mean. I’m really angry, and with each day that passes, I get even angrier about it. I don’t know how to sort this situation out, but I know the ball of anger inside me isn’t helping, so I’m tapping away in the hope I can vent some of it out.

Here’s hopin’ 

So here’s what’s been happening: I didn’t go to the wedding so now that entire group of friends probably hates me. Did I mention it was his BFF of 20 + years’ wedding? Nope, I didn’t think I mentioned that before, but I can just imagine them all talking about it now.

“Oh, why isn’t NSSITC here?” 

“Oh, erm, well …”

I’d love to know how my absence was explained away, although no doubt I look like an asshole.

I also didn’t go on the holiday that everyone (bridesmaids, best men, etc.) went on afterwards. Like a post-honeymoon meet-up they’d set up. I was invited but I could hardly go after this shit show could I? So Bestie went on his own to the place he knew he’d always wanted to go and spent the weekend with my ex-friends.

When I messaged him (Bestie’s BFF) to tell him that there was an atmosphere between Bestie and I since the “chat” he encouraged [forced], and I didn’t think it was fair to bring that to the wedding, he had the nerve to tell me he didn’t want me to separate me from my best friend, and he’d never meant to cause this. Ha! Sure you didn’t. He read the message he sent me, right? How else was I meant to take that?

I went on to say that I didn’t think Bestie could detach himself from ‘taking care of me’ (because he’s always been my safety net), and therefore he’d probably worry about me, my anxiety, getting upset, etc. It was easier all-round for me not to go with the current situation going on.

But let’s face it, that’s all bullshit. The real reason I didn’t want to go is because I’m angry at him too for fucking up my friendship. And yes, that’s exactly what he’s done.

The more I leave it, the angrier I get, and the situation just gets worse too. The reason I’m this mad? Because for the last three years (at least), I have been telling Bestie to go on Tinder, go on PoF, go dating, buy new clothes, go to the dentist, buy new shoes, eat healthier, go out more with his other friends, stop acting like he’s my dad and needs to take care of me all the time … We had rows over how overprotective he was of me, and how his opinion of every single men I dated had interfered with my relationships. By that I mean he hated every guy, whether they’d done something wrong or not, and he made it practically impossible to bring them home. It was like living with my dad.

But we’d discussed all of this at great length. He told me he didn’t feel good about himself enough to date and other such bullshit, and I did everything in my power to try and make life easier and better for him. I tried to be a good friend and actually, I think I was a fucking great one.

I may not have fucked the guy but I took him on holiday for our joint 30th birthday. I didn’t just pay for the entire thing, I booked it and his time away from work without him knowing, and kept the entire thing a secret for four months. It was the HARDEST secret I’ve ever kept. He’s always helped me out in the past, especially with the pre-cancer situation over the last couple of years, so I also gave him some cash too. £1500 to be precise. Not only that, but I paid to go on the trip we went on for my birthday a month earlier too.

None of these things mean anything to me. Not a drop. I don’t give a shit about money, or whether or not someone gets me a birthday present. I would give that man my last penny if it would mean him being happy. The thing that grips my shit, and I mean really grips my shit, is the fact that out of all that money I gave him, he couldn’t even be bothered to go out and buy me a birthday present. Yet he spent that money on buying new clothes and doing all the things I TOLD him to do over the last three years. And do you know why he’s doing them now? Because his friends told him to do all of that stuff. They told him to buy clothes, go to the gym and go on Tinder, and that’s what he’s done. Now he’s met someone and that’s made the entire situation a thousand, million, bazillion times more awkward. It’s blown the awkwardness right out of the water.

I can’t get involved with this, not only because I’m raging mad that he couldn’t do all those things for me when I was telling him to, but also because he couldn’t even be bothered to buy me a birthday present. It was too important to buy the jeans I’d already suggested he buy five times before and he said no to, for the date with a girl who I’m sure he would have no problems buying a birthday present for. And you see, now I just sound jealous.

It’s not jealously. I don’t want to fuck this man. I’ve never wanted to fuck this man. It’s the fact that he ignored everything I said, everything we had fights about, for the last three years and it took me getting drunk, being an asshole, and his friends giving me shit for things to finally sink in. And now he’s getting on with life, his friends all rallying around him like he’s going through a breakup because I broke his heart, getting it on with this new bird who’s probably enjoying the perfume he should have bought me for my birthday (because that’s the ONLY thing I wanted and asked for), and I’m sat here crying my eyes out for what feels like the hundredth night in a row because I’ve lost my right hand man. And that’s how it feels – I’ve lost a limb.

He was the man I text every morning and every night. Anything exciting happened, he’d be the person I would tell. Man problems, family problems, money problems – yep, I went to him every time, and in return, I was always there for him for everything and anything he needed. With he exception of fucking him, of course. And he repaid me by lying to me for years. He lied about not loving me because we DID have this conversation a few times before and it’s always been laughed off. By him as much as it has by me. And now everything he does feels like he’s doing it to spite me, which I know he’s not, but that’s how it feels. He bought the jeans he said no to me buying for him. He said no to the shirts I kept picking out yet he just went out and bought them last week. I tried to get him to buy new trainers and shoes, he kept putting it off and making excuses. He went out and bought those last week too. Why couldn’t he have done all those things over the last three years? It wouldn’t have made a difference to how I felt about him, but it would have made a difference to how this has all ended up. Maybe if he’d done what I told him to do, he would have met someone else and I wouldn’t be the girl who apparently led him on for 10 or 15 years and broke his motherfucking heart.

It feels like I failed him as a friend. He couldn’t do any of those things while we were close, but now I’ve run away from home and we don’t talk or see each other, he’s doing them all? And that’s what it’ll look like to everyone else too – that I was the bad friend who held him back, and now I’m out the picture, he’s got a new closet, a new girlfriend, and a much better outlook on life. And like I said, it doesn’t matter how I play this, I’ll come out of it looking like a cunt. If I said these things to him, he’ll ask me if I’m jealous of the new girl. I know this because I did try and talk to him about it, and that’s exactly what he did say. Not in so many words but, you know. And, we’re forgetting the most important fact here, this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t got drunk, we kissed, and then I started a fight. It was all my fault in the first place. I knew I never should have gone to that fucking party.

So now we’re in this position where I don’t talk to him because he wants to talk about the new girl, and I don’t know the line between not-involved-enough and too-involved. If I led him on just by being me and not knowing that he loved me, me being exactly the same around him now is not going to help him move on and get over me, is it? He’s just going to be dating this new girl and still wishing he were with me. Right?

If I give him an opinion and it’s wrong, everyone will blame me for fucking it up. And according to both my Bestie and his group of friends, I was the person who stopped him from getting with one of our other female pals a few years back. They almost got together and they didn’t because of his friendship with me. So why wasn’t I aware of this at the time? Why did no one think to tell me any of this? Why was I the last to know, and why am I the one losing out on everything?

I know I need to stop writing about this situation and actually do something about it, but I genuinely don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to him. I cry every time I talk to him and it’s because this situation genuinely hurts. He LIED to me. We’ve been best friends for 15 years, and at not one point could he tell me that he was in love with me?! His friends didn’t pull him to one side to sort it out, they pulled me to one side and said harsh things. They made me feel excluded and uncomfortable, although to be fair, I already felt that. They made me wonder what he’s been telling them for them to think this way about me? That I’ve been getting changed in front of him and leading him on? That we make out all the time? The exact words his BFF used were “Either get with him properly, or don’t.” What side of the story has he been giving them? Because it doesn’t sound like the side of the story that actually happened. We’ve never been “getting together” … Does that mean he’s lying?

“But please don’t keep leading him on with kissing, flirting, changing in front of him and straddling him if it’s not going to go anywhere.” 

The straddling and kissing may have happened ONCE on that ONE drunken night out admittedly, but the rest of it … I don’t know where that came from.

“I have watched on for years now whilst he follows you willingly, holding his heart in his hand and I’ve let stuff go. I’ve not gotten involved when maybe I should have.” 

What? What has he let go? The two times I got drunk and started a fight in the last god knows how many years we’ve been drinking together? Or the two times he’s seen us get drunk and kiss in the 15 years we’ve been friends? Because I’ve seen him lose his shit drunk on a night out more times than I care to remember. Hypocrite?

“My concern is, all the while he thinks there’s the slightest chance with you he will never show any interest in anyone else, and no one will ever take him seriously whilst he is hung up on you.” 

Wow. That felt like a kick in the teeth to read. I wasn’t aware that I’d given Bestie any hint of a chance we might get together someday.

Plus Bestie ignored all of my advice for years – me telling him to back off and let me make my own mistakes, to go and live his own life. If he’d listened we wouldn’t be in this position now. And that’s what really pisses me off – he’s doing everything now that I told him to do back then. He lied to me and he ignored me. I think that says a lot about how we both individually view our friendship.

For fucks sake, 2100 words later and I’m still no closer to figuring out how to fix this. I’m currently in the process of looking for a new home. I can’t live here anymore. Every time he comes home I actively avoid him, and I’m running out of rooms.

I don’t know how I found myself in this fucking predicament, but this is worse than any breakup I’ve ever gone through. Bestie is my soul mate. My second self. The other side of my coin.

Well, he was.

Therapy hour is now over. 

• Expected word count: 6,668
• Word count today: 2380
• Word count to date: 5,839 (Yay! I’m almost caught up!)