I was "de-friended" by an actual friend of mine on Facebook last week. We'll call her Angela. Now truthfully, I don't follow my updates on Facebook but I decided to check on Angela's status updates because we had exchanged "words" with a few weeks ago. So it wasn't until I went to find her Facebook page I was told she was no longer my friend. Hmm. I felt some kinda way about that. I could have picked up the phone or fired off an email but in reality, I was okay with it. We have been friends for over ten years but talked to each other less and less in the past few.
Long story short, a few years ago Angela called to tell me she was worried that her young daughter was becoming sexually promiscuous. I bit my tongue (darn near in half) but she kept asking and asking my opinion. "Do you really want to know what I think?" I asked her. She assured me she did. I told her it was not going to be pleasant but she said she really wanted to know. Finally, I just said it. I told her that perhaps (just perhaps) moving random men in and out of the house as her sexual playthings during her daughter's most impressionable years had not helped.
It's hard to preach abstinence or restraint from a "do what I say, not what I do" position. When you daughter has a front row seat to your sexual escapades, that has to have an effect. In six years' time, she had no less than twelve much younger men that moved in with Angela and her daughter for various periods of time and then left. They always left with some drama. I mean drama like Police Interventions and Restraining Orders.
We had actually argued about it back then. I thought it was a terrible idea for her daughter to witness all of that and be exposed to a string of strange men. Needless to say, she didn't appreciate my viewpoint, told me I didn't have any kids and to mind my business. Maybe I should have but since I listened to her tales of woe day in and day out, I felt I had to say it. Bearing witness to the revolving soap opera that constantly swirled around her was too much for me. I started keeping my distance a little bit.
Fast forward to last spring, Angela had met a nice man. I met him. He was extremely nice. He was decent looking, mature, employed, and refused to move in with her. He had his own house, carried his own weight, stood up for himself yet doted on her. He was great with her daughter and her mother, had a great relationship with the child he had from a previous marriage and there was no baby mama drama. He was in fact – perfect for her. She said so, I thought so and all was good.
So when she called me a few weeks ago to tell me she was thinking of breaking up with him, I was dismayed. "But why?" I gasped in astonishment. "What did he do?" She went on to explain to me that he hadn't done anything; she just wasn't "excited" by him anymore. I was speechless for a second and then said, "Wait - what? Seriously, why are you breaking up with him?" She repeated that the sizzle was gone, she had met some younger guy and life was too short to stay with someone who bored you. I tried ya'll, I really did. "So by sizzle you mean you're not attracted to him anymore?" She said she was still attracted to him but she was MORE attracted to the new guy.
Before I could catch myself, I went off. Something along the lines of, "Are you kidding me? You have what everyone is looking for and you want to throw it away for more sizzle? At some point you need to grow the eff up and do the right thing. You're like a child at Christmas only excited by the new toy, once the novelty wears off you toss it to the side for the next new thing. I mean, come on. What do you really want me to say?" She said, "I expect you to not to judge me." I told her I wasn't passing judgment but pointing out a pattern that. Something she should think about for her own good. She snapped, "I expect you to just be my friend." She hung up and did not call back. I thought I was being a friend. Or is friendship only good when you blindly support each other regardless of behavior? Maybe I was preachy but I wasn't wrong.
A week after that I heard from a mutual friend of ours that she went ahead with the break-up only to have new dude get picked up on a parole violation THE VERY NEXT DAY while they were out on a date. That's SO not bougie. That's just tragic. To toss aside a good man for what? You know the next woman that good man dates is in for some blow back. Le Sigh.
So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she "de-friended" me – she probably thought I was going to berate her with an "I told you so" – I wouldn't have though I certainly thought about it.
BougieLand - Do you know women or men like Angela? (Never satisfied with what they have? Always thinking the grass is greener? Expecting you to go along with their decisions even when they stink?) Isn't it hard to hold your peace when you see a friend engaging in the same destructive behavior over and over again? Any "de-friending" "un-following" stories to share?