A friendship gone wrong

2 years has gone past since I last contacted Elizabeth. A really good friend at one point, but a strange misunderstanding occured in regards to many misconstrued communication and the playworks of political friends, and also her temperanmental boyfriend. As fragile and abrupt as it was - today we are talking, tomorrow, we are no longer talking. I didn't give up then, I tried to talk to her, even went all the way out to see her, but she refused to meet up nor pick up my calls.

No, no, no, it wasn't anything to do with 'getting in between' her boyfriend and her but I did make a call to her boyfriend at one time when I couldn't find her as I thought something has happened to her. Her boyfriend gave her such a hard time because "I was her friend, and I called him to find her". So, that was it, according to her, "the last straw" as she said, "Are you stupid or what? Can't you get the hint? I don't want to ever be in contact again. Stay away!!". All these were through text messages. I never got the hint, sadly, because that was not even in my mind. That was the last time I contacted her when she said wrote those mean words. It took me ages to get over it, buckets of tears, and to completely give up and let the whole friendship slide.

I was still in the dark about all these for months before her last words to me, sadly. However, everyone seemed to know that she's angry at me, except me. There I went, happily went about being myself, innocently going about things like the usual, with a dash of natural warmth and losing an arm and a leg each time a friend needs my help. After all that, I have withdrawn lots, and I share much less to this group of friends, and I hardly go out with them anymore.

For the whole 2 years, these common friends of ours either made the situation worse, or tried to help us to patch up. I got bad mouthed all over by Elizabeth, and indirectly, she even got my little Angeline to be rebellious towards me by whispering all sorts of nonsense. Other nosy people came up to ask as they couldn't believe that this friendship would ever fall apart, "you two are like sisters, how could this happen?". My answers were the same all the time to these people, "That's between me and her, and I think it's best not to discuss it with others". It's to stop these people who enjoy playing 'both sides' and 'watch a movie' ... terrible lot, aren't they? You won't believe the scitti politti that could occur between friends, in which I could never understand on the dirty bits on drawing support by having 'who is on who's side'. Anyway, it's funny that I still believe everyone is basically kind and good. Funny, isn't it?

I was contacted last week by all the same common friends, obviously nosy to find out whether I was invited to her wedding, which falls on this day. I wasn't, of course. Not a surprise at all when I got several phonecalls last night from common friends of whether I want to send my 'congratulations via them'. I got very upset at that, because I couldn't believe that the politicking bits are still going on, and it's so juvenile to do such a thing at this age. I said, "I'll say it personally if I do, don't worry about it, enjoy your time at the wedding tomorrow".

So, the hurt has reopened it's wounds again, just when I thought it doesn't matter anymore. Basically, the misunderstanding belong to the past, and I'll be happy and say a little prayer for her these days and not have fresh tears pooling in my eyes whenever I see old pictures. Even to this day, I still include her in my prayers and I still said a prayer last night for this day to be a good day with no rain so that it'll be a wonderful day for her wedding.

This morning, I woke up, thinking that I should be sending my congratulations to her personally. I toyed with the email a bit to send the congratulation message, but I clicked 'delete' in the end. Then again, my worries crept in that I could be blamed for 'spoiling' her special day if I do, but I kept it to myself. I can't handle more politicking, and I'm so worried about being misunderstood once again of a good act of kindness that could be read another way round. So, I made a choice of staying away. Perhaps it's my turn now to not pick up calls from these 'friends' anymore. A peace of mind is what I always want, and I don't want to complicate things.

It's interesting that how different perceptions of things can be from an individual to the next. I don't know if this is specifically tailored to the Asian mentality. The lack of 'easy going' ways, and the play of forgiveness and being open minded is just not part of it. Looking back retrospetively, we had many disagreements on ways of dealing with things, or solving problems. We also happened to work in the same office then, and spend lots of time with each others' families, common friends and siblings.

Anyway, what's the point of reanalysing this again? I'm closing the chapter today, and I can say this in this blog - "Congratulations Elizabeth and Terence" but will not be able to say it to them personally.