It's very early on the west coast but I can see my old boss (OB) is up. I want to ping him--and I just did and now I'm horrified because his status went from green to away. It doesn't matter really, if he's not really up then he will ignore me. But it bothers me. It takes a while to get comfortable in a relationship. There is a settling period and in that settling period your relationship norms are set. Those norms are reset every time there is a big change; getting married, moving away, having children. With the exception of moving, those big changes haven't happened in my life so I don't really understand where I fit when the dust settles on those other things or even how it works when those situations are present when I meet someone. With age, the demographics are really starting to work against me. We all have less time for everything and most of the people I know are married with kids AND moving every few years. There is a churn of new people in their lives that move them further and further away from the things we used to have in common and further and further away from our history and shared experiences with one another. It's hard to manage long distance relationships of any kind and most don't survive. OB may be my most favorite boss/friend since my first boss out of college (still the best person I have EVER worked for) but there will be others for both of us.
I'm always prepared to be left behind or dropped because there is only so much room and time in anyone's life. You simply can not take everyone with you and I don't understand why 9/10 of the people who talk to me would even call me their friend. I say this without an ounce of self hatred but I really don't understand what most people get out of being friends with me or what they even consider me to be. I don't understand invitations to visit and I am always, always nervous whenever I accept them that this will be the time I failed to understand it was not an invitation they ever expected to be accepted. That is a terrible feeling and I want to avoid that feeling. I basically have to be begged to visit. Not because I'm awesome but because people say things they don't really mean because they are polite and well meaning. If you have a wife/husband, kids, family, etc, I'm not sure what I'm adding to the mix that you aren't getting somewhere else and I don't want to add to the chaos in your life. Maybe one day I'll get over that and not fear that feeling of 'wow, I totally called that invitation wrong' but until then...
I think that's why I cried so much when OB left. I was absolutely crushed to break up our small team but I was also grieving the loss of him in my life. I don't think we'll survive. Being friends with married people is the worst, and especially married men because I am mindful/wary/careful about how my relationship may be perceived by their spouse. I've had issues with husbands being jealous of the time their wives want to spend with me too and that sucks just as much as a wife being wary of my relationship with her husband. I believe in both cases, I'm a catalyst for something bigger in their relationship but I'm not interested in being a catalyst or a lightening rod for some bigger discussion a couple needs to have. Most people aren't interested in digging past the 'why am I jealous of your relationship with Ava' to whatever the bigger issue is. It's easier to let me be the issue. And maybe I am the issue and their lives would be without strife were it not for me. This is why it sucks to be friends with married people. I'm in my mid-30's so almost everyone I know is married. I have one very close single friend. Thank God for her. She is the person I can call with all the insignificant minutiae of life that is the fabric of intimacy in a relationship. No one chasing toddlers or eating breakfast with the Mrs./Mr has time to hang out on the phone for 45 minutes trading notes on the individual threads that compose the fabric of my life. Further, it's actually not that interesting. We're both just really bored.
I have to make a note of the couple that is the exception to this general rule, not only because she's a faithful reader who calls me with comments when she objects to something or finds something particularly funny but because they really are unique. I can hang out with both of them. Her husband and I like a lot of the same shows, have similar senses of humor, I don't feel like we need to talk when we have nothing to talk about just to make conversation. We can hang out, watch tv, talk about whatever, and it's all good. I am not afraid that I need or like them more than they like me, I'm not afraid of any weird opposite sex vibe, they have stayed at my house without me even being there, and I treasure their unique place in my weird little universe. It may not stay that way but I do treasure what it is now. I know you're going to call me anyway but at least you're going to call to say you were going to call me to set me straight and then you got to the end of this and are now calling to say you are glad I am not "ridiculous" as it concerns you.
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