A Contemplation on Friendship

She woke up angry.

It wasn’t exactly there, the anger, so she didn’t realize it immediately. It was just that – she didn’t feel like doing much of anything, she didn’t want to get up, make tea, have breakfast, or get dressed. She’d never been an early bird, no, she was rarely happy or chatty in the mornings, but today, it was as if she just wanted to sleep until evening came and it was dark again.

That wasn’t possible, though, because she was terribly hungry; she would always be hungry in the mornings – which was why she never actually slept until midday, her hunger would very quickly turn into a nausea.

She turned her head sideways, intending to grab her phone that stood just beside her pillow in the bed and look at what time it is. She did grab her phone, however, she got distracted by a quite recent text notification.

He had texted her, which sort of made the anger she still hasn’t realized yet to surface a little, but she was distracted by his words, so she didn’t get to ponder on her feelings. He was telling her that he did, indeed, boarded his train, everything was on track, and she could expect him to arrive as planned.

She pondered on that for longer than she liked. When she considered that morning much later, in her head, she will have understood what was it that made her uncomfortable at that moment. At that moment, however, she did her best to suppress the unpleasant feelings and write a pleasant enough, acceptable reply.

It was great. She would be waiting for him at the station when he arrived. No, he didn’t need to come home all by himself, he didn’t know the city well after all.

Moments later, when she accomplished dragging herself out of bed and into the kitchen, to boil the water and cook some eggs, she found herself dreading the next two weeks, in which she would have to play the happy tour guide for her friend. She felt a bit guilty, too, because he was one of her oldest friends, and she wasn’t good at making friends anyway, so it was really inconvenient that she wasn’t happy to be expecting him after all these years in which they didn’t see each other.

But that was it, wasn’t it? Secretly, she knew he didn’t come to see her. Not really. They were friends, and it was nice, they had all sorts of interesting and intimate conversations, and really, she couldn’t remember another friend she knew such a long time. But, and this was the issue, it had never been any sort of special relationship. They weren’t best friends, she thought they disagreed on everything, they had such different lifestyles, and they didn’t have any feelings for each other either, she wasn’t interested in him in that way, and he definitely wasn’t interested in her.

Because, you see, he would just express his affections as soon as he found someone that would listen. And a number of times, she listened to his crushes, his stories of his declarations of love, his relationships, and eventually, how and why they didn’t work out. These conversations always drove her crazy, because he was so stupid, so silly that he found people he couldn’t possibly make a relationship work.

Sometimes she wondered why she was so angry at his failings at love. She had been honest with herself and even wondered if she had feelings for him, or she was attracted to him. And again, honestly, she answered that she didn’t like him, not really. This was a realization that was both relieving and annoying at the same time because it didn’t solve her problem.

If she were attracted to him, she would know what was wrong in their friendship. Maybe even confess her feelings, get rejected or not, but then eventually move on, either with him or not. But she wasn’t, and she still didn’t know why she was upset about not being so special for him.

She was thinking about how to make the following two weeks less of a bother when she was washing her dishes when a thought occurred to her: Perhaps it wasn’t really about him. It was about her and how she never put herself first in, well, any of her relationships. It was really annoying if you have been listening to someone else’s quests in love, but never shared one yourself. That made the relationship about that other person, and their life, and that is why she was also annoyed at his silly behaviors, and stupid choices in his partners.

She wasn’t living her life. She was angry at others because they didn’t live their lives the way she thought they should. She had opinions, but she didn’t act on them. She didn’t share them either, she just would listen and try to contribute others’ issues in a productive way. That made her relationships mostly tiring and about the other person, and they eventually didn’t keep in touch because she preferred it that way.

She vaguely remembered another trip, years ago, with someone she then called her ‘best friend’. Her friend had just moved to a small, lovely European city for her first job after college. They were, of course, very upset that their future plans have put them miles away, but she was happy for her, because she seemed like she wanted this job and loved the place.

So, after six months of separation, she had boarded a plane, and gone to visit her for a week. She could still remember how exited she had been when she had seen her at the airport. But the whole week had nothing to do with what she had imagined how they would spend it. They had barely gone out, her friend claiming that there wasn’t anything to do there anyway and she had ended up boarding another train back home, extremely frustrated. Because, you see, it wasn’t about no having gone out, but more about not being asked about what she wanted to do, and also, having to spend the whole week listening to how her friend made a fool of herself by having a crush on a guy at work, and not realizing he had a girlfriend until recently.

People, it seemed to her, found it easy to make everything about themselves. She didn’t have that talent, apparently. What she was angry about, though, was that even though she didn’t make anything about herself in any of her relationships, she could never manage to be the person that drew attention so that people would want to get her attention back. She was just, sort of, there. Her best friend didn’t bother to keep in touch after that first trip except for a 10-minute call on her birthdays, and now she had an old friend coming to visit her for the first time in years because she happened to have moved to a city he found interesting.

Hours later, she found herself waiting at the station. It was a lovely summer’s day. She had worn her sunglasses for the first time that year, she didn’t bother to take them off when she was inside. The station was crowded, everyone apparently waiting either for someone or for their train to arrive. She sat in one empty corner, positioning herself so that she could see him when he arrived.

She took a deep breath and readied herself for what was to come.