Because I Can’t Write a Novel – Day Two

I’ve been writing, editing, and deleting chunks of this post for the last three or four months. I don’t know what I want to say, or why I want to say it, but I clearly need to say something otherwise I wouldn’t have started writing it …

In case you’re not up to date with the disastrous ending to the friendship of Bestie and I, you can find it starting here: The Monster Within …, before moving on to this little beauty: Shit Storm. Oh, and then this one: Everything Has Changed. And then you can check out this little judgmental number too, if you like: Bestie Dates.

I’m having a hard time explaining myself when it comes to this, I’ll be honest. I have tried to talk to Bestie about it, but all that comes out is a shit load of tears, which is why I think me going to your wedding was such a bad idea. But, in a nutshell, this …

When you said all that stuff to me I was shocked, but I thought I’d chat to Bestie about it, he’d laugh it off, tell me you guys had gotten the wrong end of the stick, and we’d figure it all out. He didn’t say that. He told me that there was some truth in what was said – that he assumed one day we would always be together, and he did love me like that. He told me he would compare, and had compared, every girl to me, and that I was his perfect woman – he wouldn’t be able to meet someone who was like me – who “got” him, etc. He basically told me that he *did* love me in that way.

That was like a slap in the face. I didn’t expect it. I always thought we were on the same page. We always laughed it off when people said stuff like that about us. I actually thought he might have been gay. I said that to him, and I apologised if he found it offensive. My mother and I had spoken about it a couple of times. I think we’ve established now that he isn’t gay. I just moulded him into my ‘perfect’ man, much in the same way that he’d moulded me into his ‘perfect’ woman.

But then I realised something. If you could think I was ‘leading him on’, then there must be an element of truth in it. Maybe I was leading him on? There was clearly something going on as I thought we were ‘just friends’ for the last 15 years … and he didn’t.

That’s when I got mad. Like real mad. I’d been actively trying to encourage him to go on Tinder / PoF for the last three years. I’ve dated. I’ve been trying to get him to date. I’ve been trying to get him to buy new clothes, go to the gym, do things on his own, stop acting like my Dad … All the things he’s doing right now? That’s what I’ve been trying to get him to do for the last three years. We’ve had little fights about it. How come he couldn’t do those things then? Why did it take me getting drunk and being an asshole, embarrassing myself in front of everyone, to get him to do those things? And then he came home with a pair of jeans – a style I’d tried to get him to try on every time we’d been shopping but he refused – and I got really upset. Anxiety or crazy bitch syndrome? I’m not sure. But it felt like a slap in the face.

And then one night I found myself sat at home by myself, crying. He was out having the time of his life, he’d met someone new, he had these new jeans and he’d been to the gym and he felt good about himself … And then I felt like it was my fault he hadn’t done those things over the last few years. It seems really coincidental that the second I essentially ran away from home, he did all those things. It’s taken me not being around, refusing to be around him, to get him to do those things. I’ll be honest, it made me feel like a piece of shit.

And now he’s met a girl and honestly, I couldn’t be happier for him. But now I don’t know how to play the game. I want to ask a thousand and one questions and get all excited for him but I don’t know the line between not-involved-enough and too-involved. And if I have an opinion, it’ll be MY opinion. If I’m his “perfect” woman, me getting involved at all is a very bad idea.

So now I don’t know how to talk to him. I’m aware that I can no longer send him “love you” and big red hearts at the end of text messages, or call him “cuntflaps“, or be too familiar, because if I were a new girl – his new girl – and I saw that, it would make me feel very uncomfortable. So now I don’t text him because I made it weird. We made it weird. In fact, YOU made it weird.

When I hug him, I feel like I shouldn’t be hugging him. When I talk to him, I find myself watching what I say, something I’ve never really had to do with Bestie before. It DID need to change – the way we were with each other DID need to change – but it’s weird now, and I really don’t know how to deal with it. I was angry at you for a while because it felt like you had the wrong end of the stick, and then I was really angry at him for not being honest with me all along when all I’ve EVER been with him is brutally honest, disgustingly so in many cases. And then I wound myself up because I didn’t see it coming. And then Bestie made all the changes I’d been trying to get him to make over the last three years in one go, and it felt like I’d failed him as a friend. Or that he was doing it out of spite. Now I’d cleared up the fact that I DIDN’T want him, he was doing all the things I’d told him to do before – every single little thing. From finally going to the dentist, to heading to the gym, going out more with his boy-mates, and actually going out dating, even stupid things like trying different foods or drinks, or wearing a new style of clothing. Every. Single. Little. Thing. Everything – everything I told him to change, or at least suggested he change, over the last few years, he’s done right in front of me now. But he couldn’t do those things before? It took me coming out of this more than a few friends down, and my best friend down, to make him realise and therefore change? How is it fair that I’ve got the bum deal out of all of this?

Bestie & I – our relationship has changed. It did need to, but now I don’t know where the lines are and that’s what we’re figuring out. We all know I’m weird. Anxiety doesn’t work with change very well, and what’s changed is everything I’ve known for a really long time.

I’m finding it difficult to be around him right now. I’ve told him that. I’ve told Bestie that after the New Year I still want to move out, but rather than move out WITH him, I want to move out WITHOUT him. I can’t live with him anymore, and YOU did that to us. You changed us. He went from being the one person I could trust implicitly with everything, to the person who didn’t tell me the one thing he should have told me for a really long time. I was very blind it seems, but I know I much prefer him being happy like he is now, to the broken man that night we made out and then I “broke his heart”.

Trust me when I say that I know not going to your wedding was a jerk move. I’m well aware of it. But the thought of getting upset or creating even the slightest bit of tension or awkwardness terrified me. I was already the bad guy. In our entire circle of friends, I’m the bad guy. I’ve always been the bad guy. I’ve never really fitted in. Now I’m definitely ghosted out, and that’s fine. But you should know that you have ruined our friendship. It’s five months later and things haven’t changed. He’s just getting laid now, and I’m at home by myself a lot. We once lived a bit like an old married couple, and he’s out getting drunk, being all testosterone-fuelled, and generally being a completely different man to the one I used to call my best friends. Even his jokes have changed. They’ve gone from being funny to completely chauvinistic in some way, and I guess that’s because he’s hanging around with you guys all the time now.

I hope he’s happy. Really, truly happy. I hope you’re happy too. Although I don’t suppose I’m even a feature in your mind these days. I’m just the girl who used to be Bestie’s female BFF until you came along and told me everything he was too afraid to tell me. Thanks for that.

For future reference, I appreciate the fact that you care for Bestie, but the way you did it was totally wrong. You should have had this conversation with him first, to get your story right if nothing else. The things you said to me – they were wrong. I’d never go out of my way to hurt anyone, not even my worst enemy, let alone string my best friend along for 15 years. How dare you even consider suggesting that might be the case?

But there, it’s been five months and I’ve not said any of those things to you. Or to Bestie for that matter. I hope you’re all happy, and not in a totally shitty way. You’ve won my best friend. You won. I lost. He’s all yours now. Perhaps he can move in with you and you can pay the phonebill?

• Expected word count: 3,334
• Word count today: 1738
• Word count to date: 2,188 (Only a tad behind already … )