Lessons In Friendship

“A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.” - Author Unkown

I know I seem to be talking about my friends a lot lately but stay with me here. Today I'm going to tell you a story about someone who claims to be a friend yet doesn't know nor understand the meaning of the word.

This person, I'll call Martha, lives in her own little world. Remember yesterday when we discussed narcissism? Well that is Martha in spades. But not only is she a narcissist, she is a manipulator of her ‘friends’ and that people is what really gets me fired up.

I have a brother who likes to drink and he is also a manipulator so I’m familiar with the type. Martha though seems to have a unique approach. A year ago you would have thought she was at death’s door. Yes she was ill, yes she couldn’t keep weight on, yes there were some issues. Were they as bad as she claimed? I don’t think so. According to her today she is healed.

Call the Pope a miracle has occurred!

Now, she has gained weight and all her disease and life threatening infections are gone. It’s just plain amazing.

Now why am I being so sarcastic and hurtful to someone so ill? Well because she manipulated people I care about into dropping everything to run her around, take her to the grocery store, doctors visits (some of them quite a great distance), ER runs in the late evenings, etc.

Now when she did this she didn’t care what time it was or what was going on in the lives of those people she was interrupting. Yes as a friend those people dropped everything and helped Martha. But at what cost? Well they thought they were being a good and true friend. How did Martha repay them? By shutting them out of her life, telling them that they are not friends and don’t care about her, etc and to not bother poor Martha again.

Well sorry Martha but friendship is a two way street. But let’s not forget that pesky narcissism, it allows Martha to be ok with the fact that she uses her friends and then runs them off when she either can’t manipulate them or their usefulness has expired.

Sad isn’t it? Because not only has she run away friends she has also alienated family which we always thought was odd but to hear Martha tell the tale she is the victim. My brother has that same problem, he is never wrong he is always the wronged party.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all blame our issues on others?

My friend who Martha recently told off in no uncertain terms was dumbfounded at first and then in the replay of events she realized how badly she had been manipulated by Martha. And then she said something I thought was funny. It bothered her because she “never had a friend "break-up" with me before!”

The point I’m trying to make and one we can all try to remember is that friendship is as I said before a two-way street. If you don’t want to be someone’s friend, fine don’t go there in the first place. But don’t pretend you are a friend and when you call on people and they don’t drop everything in their world and rush out to help you in record time you drop them like a hot potato. Friends care about each other equally. It’s a give and take.

Give and take, 50/50 no more no less should be required.

So Martha has one less friend in this world. Pity too seeing she is only alienating herself and will end up alone or possibly the crazy cat lady all the kids are afraid of. Hey, you know what? I guess the crazy cat lady has to come from somewhere right?

Here kitty kitty………


Totals for today

Calories 1800
Fat 86
Carbs 210
Protein 80
8oz. glasses of water 0