Friendship Breakup
I’m not new to challenges of this nature, but this certainly was sad.
This actually happened more than a year ago already, but this is the first time I’m writing about it; it just occurred to me that I can write about this experience here, since no one close to me actually checks this blog. I revisited my website yesterday to improve its homepage after a brilliant GenZer impressed one of my clients with her stunning portfolio and I realized how outdated this site is already.
Anyway, back to this friendship breakup I am determined to write about in here. I still love the old her. This is what I know. The NEW her who is running around with a narcissistic husband and almost 1-year-old toddler, I do not recognize. I actually don’t know which one is the real her: is it the one I used to know, or this one.
In any case, I really loved hanging out with the old her. I loved making her laugh. We spent so much time together and she was like a sister. We went to 3 or 4 ASEAN countries together, with common friends. Now that I come to think about it, I really wonder how in the world could she manage to have the heart to invalidate entire peoples and cultures, noting that she has seen much of other countries already. I even wonder if she even knows that this is exactly what she’s doing, by each post she makes about “the only truth” or “only way” or whatever. To us (her old friends) she is invalidating everyone who isn’t an Israelite and not a fan of Middle Eastern culture, to her, she is subscribing to “the truth.”
Whatever. Does she even know that all religious groups claim to be on the side of the truth? Of course, no one claims to preach and live a lie if they want the subscription of other people. Does she understand how there are levels of truth on a spectrum depending on verifiability, amount of tangible evidence, and whether or not the action can be repeated and observed? Is it possible for her to understand that the ‘truth’ can have percentages- level of veracity? More likely to be true, probably true, least likely to be true.
I scoff at her husband’s non-measurable accomplishments that he brags about on a daily basis, like “self-control” (really? him? who didn’t even wear a condom when he needed to?). According to a Christian writer like Elisabeth Elliot, this husband of hers has so many intangible achievements to make up for the lack thereof. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regularly check his posts, and I have zero interest in them. I have no access to his Facebook posts after he blocked me. Friends just tell me about what he is posting, from time to time.
He blocked me more than a year ago after I confronted them about the fact that she has not paid her proper taxes while she goes around telling people to follow Jesus, who told everyone to pay taxes. That was the incident that started this whole deal of us not being friends anymore. Blocked by the husband, and even encouraged by him to do the same, what kind of friendship or reconciliation would be possible after that?
Her husband has no understanding of the kind of friendship we’ve had for 16 years, to have suggested such a thing. Absolutely none. But she remained on his side after that. I guess, because the Bible says she should do that.
Before this happened, there were so many red flags already. She didn’t even invite our very close common friend, and my boyfriend, to her freaking wedding. These are both people she had known for years and even travelled together with. But she made my religious mother a “ninang” after she had a pep talk with them and gave them a Christian book. And also the fact the this so-called friend almost completely stopped talking to me at all for months. When before, we spent almost every day together and talked all the time. And the fact that, after I helped her get a job during the pandemic, she posted a “thank you” note on her feed. But thanking God, not me. I guess God taught her to use Photoshop to make Amazon listing images. God also connected her with a client in Hong Kong.
It was just all so odd, I can’t even begin to understand what happened. And now, I have stopped caring about trying to comprehend the reasons behind her behavior and these life decisions she made.
I can’t stand this current version of her, but I think that I will never stop loving the one that I had known intimately, who was like a ray of sunshine to my oftentimes weary soul. She was a perfect friend to me, before. She was, actually, quite an outstanding person who didn’t even need a partner who would only drag her down. She had everything, she could have reached for the stars if she wanted to.
That person will always be a part of me.
