Letting People Go

So I’ve been thinking about this recently and having arguments with friends and family about the merits of cutting people off. I’ve been described as someone who doesn’t necessarily pick fights, but who will never back down from a fight. Which means I get into lots of arguments with friends and we often end up not speaking for weeks. Now the friends I’m going to discuss here are my female friends. I have a lot of male friends, some of whom are incredibly close but the dynamics of our relationships are different and not relevant to this issue. I think I’m just one massive paradox. Ok let me start from the beginning as I don’t think I’m making much sense.

I know a lot of people – I always remember faces and I’m relatively friendly. If I’ve met you before, I feel no qualms about saying hi when I see you out – even if it’s just to say, “I know I’ve seen you somewhere before but for the life of me I cant remember where” (and no I’ve never used that as a pickup line). I also like to keep busy, so I keep my diary filled with various types of events where I meet up with people or catch up with old friends. Add to that the schools I went to and how it is such a small, close knit, almost incestuous community we live in, … I know a lot of people. I however have a small select group of close friends. All with varying degrees of closeness and information they have on me. I no longer believe in having a best friend cos my heart was broken some years ago. You may well smirk and think how typical – females with their lesbian type of friendships. I am simply of the school that thinks we build relationships with the people in our lives and you can come to love these people almost like family; hence they have the ability to break your heart.

Over the last number of years, I’ve slowly cut off the people who were closest to me. This for most people would be very normal because, as you grow older you change and become different. You and your friend may find your choices and or aspirations take you down different parts. That’s fine. I however came to the realisation that I can count the number of close friends I have on one hand and none of them I’ve known for longer than 5 years. Even this isn’t so bad cos its easy to rationalise that at my age, the people I met within the last 5 years, have helped forge the woman I am today and so understand me better. What concerns me however is the fact that within the last 3 or so years, I have systematically cut off some of my closest friends who I’ve known since childhood. It just hit me that maybe it wasn’t them but it was me who had the problem (kinda like how mad people think everyone else is crazy?)

So here I am pondering the merits of cutting people off, wondering whether I’m too rash and unforgiving, if I would have it in me to help the people I cut off were they in trouble, or if I still have underlying trust issues which have now spilled over into my friendships with people – making me incapable of being vulnerable with even my girlfriends! Phew! Now that I got that all out (as Gail would say – I am loooonnng!), I am going to regale you with tales of the people I’ve let go and maybe by the end of it I’d be able to answer my own damn questions.

Unfortunately, I always seem to get my flash of inspiration to write at odd hours o’clock and right now I’m really tired – so I’m going to bite the bullet before insomnia kicks my ass and go sleep. I will definitely go into more detail on this later on.