Rewind to high school graduation. You take pictures, flip through the year books and reminisce with your friends about how you love them and will be friends forever. This was my friends and I; in fact this was pretty much every typical girl in my grade on graduation. However, my situation was a little bit better. I thought I was one of the lucky ones because one of my “best friends” was attending the same college as me. We knew each other inside and out and spent almost all of our time together. When it came time to say goodbye to people at the end of summer, I was jumping for joy because I didn’t have to say goodbye; my best friend would be right down the hall. It was a new adventure that we were facing together, and what an unexpected adventure it has turned out to be.
When we arrived at college it was all a rush. We were meeting new people and having new experiences, but something was different. After a few weeks in I found it hard to see that she was practically avoiding me and was only concerned with her new friends she was making. She was deliberately blowing me off, breaking plans and lying to me about what she was up too. I wasn’t used to this. I was still in the mindset that we were going to spend so much time together like we did at home. But, the fact was we weren’t at home, we were at college and part of college is meeting new people, so I let it go and did my own thing while she did her own thing as well. I will admit, I became a little too dependent on my friend from home, I am a little shy and she was kind of like a security blanket. She was way more bubbly when meeting new people while I am more quiet, so it made sense that she was making more friends than me. I would try to tag along with her, but I wasn’t a huge fan of whom she was hanging out with and how she was treating me.
This is the part where one of my greatest faults comes into play. I am the type of person who thinks that people cannot be all that bad, that people mess up but you shouldn’t write them off for a couple of mistakes. AKA; I used to give people way too many chances and they would basically end up walking all over me. But, I hit my breaking point in the middle of this school year. I had spoken to some people about the issue I had been having for the past year that had only seem to have gotten worse. Everyone seemed to say the same thing to me in response, “she isn’t a very good friend, you should branch out to a new crowd”. To me, this proposal was insane, I was in the middle of my sophomore year, everyone has their friend groups and I lean towards the introverted side, so “branching out” was not my ideal plan. So, I continued to put up with being blown off, being lied too and not being “cool enough” to get invited places. I hate confrontation so I shrugged it off and continued to suffer in silence as they say.
One night I went out to a bar with a group of people (“best friend” included) and a guy I had been talking too for about two months. I liked him and wanted something more than just friends and my “best friend” knew that. I had told her about it over and over again, I had texted her non-stop about what to respond to his texts; all of the things girls do when they like a guy. In order to spare you the drawn out details of the night and sending me into a passive aggressive rant, I will just simply say that when we got back to campus she went to his room and slept with him.
I would love to tell you all that we talked it out and made up and everything is fine now, but that would be a lie. Truth is, it hurt, really bad. I was backstabbed by someone who I thought was my best friend and would never hurt me, or so I thought. I put so much of my love and trust into a six-year friendship that was thrown away in one night over a stupid boy. It felt like I was going through a break up, and in a way I was. She lied to my face about what happened and called me “pathetic” and “dramatic” to be making a big deal of it. It was my breaking point. I wasn’t going to take a backseat and let it slide, this was something that hurt me and she didn’t seem to care at all. She continued to text me that weekend telling me that it was ridiculous that I was letting this come in between us and that we should forget it happened. She was trying to justify her actions by putting me in the wrong when I wasn’t at all. The more she texted me the more I thought, ‘if I let this slide, what does that say about my own self-respect?’ I had to stand up for myself and cut the chord, which was the hardest thing to do. Six years of friendship isn’t something that you can forget with the snap of your fingers; things remind you of memories and you get a little sting in your heart about what it used to be like. Losing a friend is something I think is almost worse than a break up because you aren’t just losing that person, you feel like you are losing pieces of yourself. Who was I supposed to turn too with my heartbreak, when the person who I used to turn too is the one who has caused it?
Needless to say, I’ve moved on and haven’t spoken to her or the guy since, better off that way. Thank god I had listened to the upper classmen on orientation day of freshman year and had gotten to know new people. Without the people I met I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through all my drama. I met great people, genuine people. I met and grew close to people who constantly have their best interest in me and people who have made me stronger. I thank God for those people every day.
The experience I went through was horrible, but it taught me a few things that I would like to share:
1. People change. It is inevitable, especially in college. People meet new people and grow from where they were before, sometimes with you and some times without you; don’t beat yourself up if it is the latter.
2. Pain is truly only temporary. There are moments of sheer pain that come with life and we never really know when they come, some of them come out of nowhere and devastate us, but there is always good in the world that will make you see that things get better. This may take time but, as the saying goes, “there’s always a rainbow after the storm”.
3. Be strong enough to walk away from something that no longer suits or benefits you. Know your breaking point and don’t continue to give chances to those who constantly burn them and you with it. Be strong enough for yourself to change your direction and find something new that will let you thrive.
This story isn’t a story to tell you that your friends will backstab you one day, because that hopefully will not be the case. This is a story to tell others that you need to respect yourself enough to know who is looking out for you and who is only looking out for themselves.