How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

I've lost my friends.

When my husband's affair came to light, a friend, a girl I used to live with, a girl whom i would have done anything in this world for 2 years ago - reached out to him.  I say two years ago because it has taken that long for our friendship to dwindle.  She decided all those months ago that because I am a blogger, I spend too much time on the computer and not enough time with my child.  She told me I was a bad mother.  And then went about cutting me out of her life, little by little.  I let her do it.  I didn't need a friend like that.  And yet, we remained civil - there is a lot of history there - and we share a mutual best girlfriend.

So I knew that she had had an affair herself in the recent past.  I did not speak of it.  I did not acknowledge it.  She thought our small county didn't know.  And then she reached out to my husband, instead of ME.  She gave HIM support, not ME.  To me, that brke the code of girlfriends.  She is NOT my friend.  So I wrote hateful responses to her.  I exposed her indistretions to my close family.  She became bosom buddies, yes, really, with my husband's mistress.  They loved talking about me on Facebook.  Stabbing, poking, laughing.  Two little cheaters, all up in each others business.

I found out who this friend cheated with. I wish I had told the world.  I do.  But I didn't.  It kind of matters around here, in this town.  She's in the "cool crowd" - those with apparant money, though I know she's struggling as much as we are moneywise.  And her lover? Married to white trash - his wife at the time of their affair was in prison.  As you can guess - this wouldn't look good on her record.

But I didn't have to out her.  She and her husband managed to do that all their own.  After a night of partying, though she openly despises her husband - this friend got into a fist fight, knock down, drag out with her drunk husband. Black eyes. Choking. Kicking.  In front of their 5 year old.  He, like an idiot, called the police when she left the house.  he has a very public, very respectable job.  And he called the police to tell on his wife.  What he didn't expect was to be arrested himself for domestic violence at the same time as she.

Everyone knows.

Everyone.

This has nothing to do with me.  But, this friend has been so upset by me, that she cannot stop talking about me.  Especially to our mutual best friend.  It's now forced that friend - my only true friend - out of my life.  She cannot visit me for fear of showing support.  She feels like she is betraying one friend if she talks with the other.  And so now, she is wondering why I reach out to others.  Why I look for any kind of acceptance, wherever I can find it.  Be it Facebook. Or Twitter.  Or reconnecting with old friends I let slip away so many years ago.

I have no one.

My husband, though trying to make things right, still isn't the best friend I once knew.
My best girlfriend can't be my friend.
My high school not-boyfriend-boyfriend-jackass just wants to fuck me.

Who am I supposed to befriend?
Am I that difficult to be around?  Am I that far gone?

Maybe I am.

Let's Get This Party Started.

Everyone thinks they know me.  Just because I have a blog, where the sun shines and we eat good food.  They think my little life is perfect.  Hell, even The Martha drops by sometimes.  Or her people do, anyway.  She follows me on Twitter, but that doesn't mean all that much.  I think she follows Snoop, too. So whatever.

What many people don't know is how flawed I am.  Partly because of the hand I've been dealt, and partly because of the way I've played that hand.  But life isn't really a poker game, either, I just happen to like analogies.  So today it's about poker. 

Over the weekend, I went to a festival in a nearby town.  While my husband was flitting around somewhere, I was walking with my toddler, looking at wooden knick knacks and homemade soap and other craft fair geegaw.  When, out of nowhere, a woman that I have never seen face to face rounds the corner with a floppy curl headed blonde child on her hip, a husband and older daughter in tow behind her.

This woman looked identical to my husband's mistress.

The affair is over, I have every reason to believe.  But, to be bulldozed in public by her face - it was...heart stopping.  I could feel the bile rising up into my throat. I could feel the sweat dripping down my arm, across the tiny fingers of my son, gripping my pinky. I couldn't remember how to breathe.

But instead of walknig away, I followed them.  Magnetic, almost.  I couldn't look away, but I stayed several yards behind them.  I had to know. Was it her? I had posted on my Facebook page that I would be there.  Did she come because of that?  She has pushed every single one of my buttons since the affair came to light - why not be brazen enough to show up where we were going to be? Why not??

As I approached them, I realized it wasn't her.  For one, the ass wasn't big enough.  And unless she's gotten a new husband in the past week or two, it certainly wasn't her husband.  So, I turned back around, found my own husband a few minutes later, and then proceeded to vomit my lunch.

I told a friend of mine about it.  And her advice was for me to get over it.

Huh.

In the beginning, I obsessed over it. The affair. The mistress. I cried. I whined. I found inspiration in the dumbest of places.  But I survived it and moved on.  I seriously stopped looking for clues in the woman's Facebook page as to what she was thinking, or doing.  And there are actually days now when the affair doesn't even cross my mind.  But looking up, seeing what I thought was her...I can't explain it.  And I would love to just get over it.

But you don't just get over your husband fucking another woman.  You don't just get over knowing they wrote love notes to each other while you were upstairs in bed.  While they were sexting.  You don't.

And I will also tell you this...

I can just as easily fuck the whole thing up myself.

There's a man I went to school with. Even dated a time or two.  I wanted him bad back in the day - the day being 20 years ago.  And now, he's wanting me.  He's a jackass.  But he's THAT guy.  Ladies, you know him.  The hunky guy. The untameable.  The one you wanted to tame. The one who maybe made you feel like shit for not being "good enough."  That guy. He texts. Emails.  He says all the things I want to hear, as long as I want to hear about how badly he wants me and how badly he wants to do all sort of grown up things TO me.  And I've been playing a long a bit.  But this will lead nowhere good.

Nowhere sane.

And I think I have broken it all off before it goes any farther.  Before there is an address and a time to meet him.  Because I am weak, and I want to be wanted.  And I am afraid I won't have the willpower to say no, and I'll find myself heading south, freaking out on the interstate.  I'll end up in a dark room with white sheets and a man who knows nothing about me, but wants the piece he never got in high school.

And he would be just like my cheating husband, and I would be the mistress.

And I hate that fucking mistress.

It's been 5 days since my last contact with Jackass. I don't know how I feel about it.



So, now you know.  Maybe since I wrote it all down, I will be stronger.

I hope.