Loooong Vent

I need to vent. And since this is my blog, I can do that! Sometimes I really struggle with friendships. I tend to expect a lot from friends. I don't want to be the only person making an effort to call or make plans. If something exciting is happening in my life (like my wedding for example) I expect you to at least try to be happy for me. Maybe that isn't expecting a lot, but I seem to have a really hard time finding friends that don't eventually lose interest in me and stop making any effort to be my friend. The most recent example was my friend, Annie. (All names have been changed to protect the individuals.)

Annie is a coworker. She was hired to take my job after I got promoted to another position. We really hit it off right away. We became so close that people started calling us each others names. We would get teased about how we were always together. We shared everything with each other. After being friends for a little while, Annie told me her and her husband were going to start trying to have a baby. I was so excited for her! So she started trying and every month that she found out she was not pregnant was horrible. She would come to work crying and I would try to console her the best I could. I knew I couldn't completely relate because I had never gone through what she was going through, so I went out and bought a really cute book on trying to concieve. It was funny and light-hearted and I really hoped it would cheer her up.

About the same time, we found out another coworker, Leslie, was also trying to get pregnant. Every month I would cross my fingers that one or both of them would get what they wanted so badly. Finally, Leslie became pregnant. Of course, Annie was happy for her but at the same time she was sad that she had not become pregnant as well. I once again tried to console her and reassure her that her baby would come soon. Sure enough about a month later, she became pregnant too. In fact, their due dates were only 4 weeks apart.

Once they were both pregnant I started to feel left out a little. I was working on planning my wedding and wanted people to be excited with. Part of the fun of having something like a wedding coming up is sharing that excitement with friends and family. However, all Leslie and Annie really wanted to talk about was baby stuff. I really tried my best to be happy for them. I worked really hard to maintain my friendship with Annie (I was not as close to Leslie). I asked her to hang out on a couple different occasions but she always had an excuse about why she couldn't hang out (too tired, busy, etc.) so I backed off for a while. I thought maybe she just needed time with her husband and family to celebrate being pregnant.

Originally, I had asked both Leslie and Annie to be bridesmaids in my wedding. When Leslie became pregnant she backed out and I completely understood. She would have been about 8 months pregnant on my wedding day. When Annie became pregnant I told her she was free to back out as well and I would totally understand. She insisted that she wanted to be in it. I gave her 3 or 4 more chances to back out and she refused. So I figured she was excited to be my bridesmaid and let it go.

As the wedding drew closer and I got more excited I did my best to not spend all of my time talking about weddings. I knew that my friends would get tired of hearing about the plans so I barely spoke of it. When I did though, Annie seemed to be so disinterested. I was a little upset that I was spending so much time talking about baby stuff and was so excited for her, but she really didn't seem to be excited about my wedding. But I didn't want to start anything so I just let it go.

When Leslie was about 6 months pregnant the most horrible thing happened. She lost her baby. Annie was really upset for Leslie and was scared for her own baby. I was there for Annie (and Leslie) the whole time. I held Annie while she cried in the bathroom. I went to the baby's funeral with her. Annie told me how scared she was to go to the funeral because she was pregnant herself and felt guilty. She told me to not leave her side and I never did. We became close again. We both tried to be there for Leslie as much as we could. Annie expressed concern over the fact that she was worred that with her being pregnant Leslie would have an even harder time. She was worried that if her baby was healthy, Leslie would be sad for her own lost child. I consoled her and worked hard to make sure that Annie and Leslie remained friends and worked everything out so things would not be hard or awkward.

Things became better and then Annie found out she was having a girl! I was so happy for her! I went out and bought cupcakes for the entire department to celebrate. I went out and found the cutest little pink headbands and bought them for her. I was just so excited!

As my wedding drew closer I felt like anything I asked Annie to do for the wedding was a pain for her. I asked her to make sure she bought her dress before the cut off date. I had to remind her multiple times before she finally did it. She never told me when the dress came in. When I found out that it had come in and she had tried it on, I asked her how it looked and she said, "fine." That was it! The only other thing I asked her to do was pass out bubbles at the reception before JJ and I were to leave, and she said no. She said she didn't want to be obligated to stay until we left. Ok then!

On the day of the wedding, I arrived at the church to get ready. My sister, sister-in-law, cousin and mother all came in to help me get ready. Annie sat in the church alone, waiting for me to be done. My entire wedding day she barely said anything to me. She looked irritated and miserable the whole day. She tried to leave the reception before I even cut my cake (which was about an hour into the reception) but my mom begged her to stay. She didn't get me anything (a card would have been wonderful) for the wedding. My mom and dad even asked me after the wedding whether something was wrong with her. My mom said she talked to her throughout the ceremony to help her out (it was a Catholic ceremony and Anie is not Catholic). She said Annie never answered her or even acknowledged my mom was speaking to her. My dad said he kept trying to joke with her to get her to smile and look happy and she pretty much blew him off.

At that point I got pissed. How dare you treat my parents that way? Yes, I understand she was pregnant. I know she must have been tired. I knew she was uncomfortable about how big she was (because she told me over and over and over that she was going to look so fat). However, is it really that hard to suck it up for ONE DAY? Can you not pretend to be happy for me for one freaking day? Everyone was going out of their way to make her comfortable and tell her how great she looked and she couldn't muster up one ounce of effort for me.

Since the wedding day things have just gotten worse. I showed her my wedding pictures and all she said was how bad SHE looked. I posted them on facebook and she did not comment on any of them. Her and Leslie are now best friends and leave me out all the time. I see them leaving for lunch together all the time and I am never invited. I hear Annie go into Leslie's office and talk about their weekends and laugh and laugh and then goes back to her office without saying anything to me (my office is right next to Leslie's). I asked her before the wedding if everything was ok between us and she said I was being paranoid and that everything was fine. I asked her after the wedding if she felt ok on the wedding day and she said yes and that she had just been a little tired. The weekend I got my wisdom teeth out, she had a baby shower and I had to miss it. The day of the shower (the day after I got my wisdom teeth out) I texted her to tell her to have fun and I wished I could have been there. She never answered me and never even checked to see how my wisdom tooth surgery went.

I truly feel like I have done everything I can to save this friendship. I know that having your first baby changes your entire life. I know that she is excited. But I also feel like she just doesn't think our friendship is worth anything. Did she ever care about me? It doesn't feel like it. Now every day at work I feel left out and lonely. I don't have many other friends so that makes it even worse. I have decided to put myself out there are start making new friends. I can't keep wallowing in what Annie did to me. I can't start resenting her. I have to move past this. I am determined to grow from this and make new friends that truly care for me. And I feel that writing this all out will give me closer and help me move on. So those of you that actually stuck this through and read this entire long, boring post, thank you!

Edit: This was written a few weeks ago and since then I have really started to move on. I talk to Annie every now and then and we are still friends. Not close friends, but friends. She should be having her baby any day now and I hope everything goes well.