Thread: Let Go of Best Friend?

I signed up for this forum, because I am going through a real difficult time with my closest friend, and I need an unbiased opinion on what I should do. And maybe writing the whole story out will help me figure out some things.

Six years ago, I met a boy who we will call Paul. We went to school together, he'd just moved into town, and we became friends through a mutual friend. Long sordid story short, he was my very first serious crush, and I chased after him in the usual high school stupid fashion for a good year before I realized it was never going to happen. So I decided if I couldn't be that sort of relationship with him, I'd tie us into a best friendship.

All through high school, I was by his side. We were conjoined at the hip. It got to the point that if one of us didn't answer our phone, someone would call the other's to get ahold of the former. If one of us was invited to a party, the other one had to be. He went on vacations with my family. I welcomed him into my home, and so did my parents (which is quite rare, seeing as Paul and some kid in third grade are the only ones to be let into the inside of our house. My family is VERY private). I'm a novelist, and I wrote one of my very first books all based around the thought of this magnificient friendship I had.

Things were difficult because people thought I still had feelings for him, and I did the first time he had a girlfriend. But by the second and third, it didn't hurt anymore. I moved out of town after graduation, and by the time I exited the building, there were no more feelings left.

However. There seemed to be a co-dependency. I really cannot sit here on a forum and explain six years worth of friendship. And I would rather not bore you. But. We had "spots" in town we went to, things we'd tell each other, and every time I would come in to visit, he would pick me up and we'd drive around having fun. He would come out to visit every semester, and we developed little traditions we did. For example, we had matching devil ducks we would trade every time we saw each other. One of them was named "Paul" and the other "John." My bedroom is plastered with gifts he's given me, and there are a lot of pictures he's put in frames that I display, right alongside my own brothers.

Everyone says I'm lucky to have him as a friend. That he puts up with so much from me. That I don't deserve him. Everyone thinks he's a sweet, wonderful person who couldn't hurt a fly. Well. Everyone but me. And my parents.

Behind the scenes of the perfect Sam/Clarissa act, there's a lot of selfish bull that's gone on. Once, when we were leaving for a trip we'd planned all year, he was two hours late with a made-up excuse. Every time I need him to really be there for me, it seems like he can't be for some reason.

And yet, he always pulls some trick out of his hat to make himself repented.

Tonight was a perfect example of that.

Paul has had a girlfriend for almost a year now. She does not like me. I had no particularly hard feelings toward her, until she started to pull things with him. Like, for example, threatening to leave him when I pulled into town and we'd planned on going out for his birthday. She made him call the whole thing off. After that, he ditched my birthday because he thought there was a chance he might need to be with her at a family reunion that he was not sure he was actually invited to (he wasn't). During his trip to my new home out of state last spring, he spent most of his time either texting her or calling her, and when I pointed out he'd been on the phone for three hours and left my roommate and other best friend, who we will call Lauren, high and dry with Zack and Miri only half watched, he shouted at me that I was not his girlfriend. Of course, he was drunk at the time, which gave him a perfect excuse to not remember such a comment the morning after.

But the real kicker was The Road Trip. The Road Trip was to have happened two days from now. It was where he and I would get in his car, drive up to Mt. Rushmore, and have a good time singing along to mix CDs and trashing hotel rooms. Like the old days.

My mom said this would probably not happen, due to the girlfriend now being in the picture. But I held onto a naive belief that me being his sister and her being his girlfriend would not end in some epic armageddon battle. That they were two different things, and just because someone else important had shown up, it didn't mean I was going to get moved out to the doghouse.

The Road Trip came to include Lauren as well. On his trip up to visit us, Lauren was invited to come along, and the plan was hatched. Lauren would fly into Paul and my hometown in August, and then the three of us would get into Paul's car and drive to Mt. Rushmore. The only reason why she was able to do this is because Paul is the only one with a license and a car (seeing as Lauren and I live in a city that thrives off of a subway/bus system), and my parents are private people and didn't want anyone staying at their house.

We all three took up extra shifts to pay for this trip. And the summer began.

There weren't any problems until last Wednesday, when Paul suddenly developed carpal tunnel (sp) in both his wrists. He said he couldn't drive more than 1-3 hours (funny, his girlfriend just moved to a town that was 1-3 hours away, and he lives with her thursday through tuesday before driving back home to work tuesday, wednesday, thursday). And that meant we couldn't go to Mt. Rushmore.

Lauren agreed we could instead go to St. Louis, which was closer. I wasn't happy about this, since St. Louis just has an arch, and I've seen that stupid arch like fifteen times, but I was okay with the idea that we still had a road trip. I considered myself lucky.

My father at this point warned me that he'd wiggle his way out of it at the last minute somehow.

So I get this call tonight. He's crying. He says he needs to talk to me. I think, "Holy , he's coming to me for help. Things are gonna get better. I hope no one died ..." And all of a sudden, he's telling me that no, in fact, he needs to talk to me about the trip.

He says it's cancelled. Girlfriend's uncle has died and is getting buried on Thursday, there's absolutely no way we can get around it.

I point out at this moment that we all have taken extra shifts for this. And that Lauren has already put down 200 bucks on plane tickets to come into our hometown.

He says he'll pay her back.

I point out Lauren is turning 21 this weekend and then leaving for Ireland for half a year, and this was supposed to be her farewell.

He says he'll pay for me to go out to the city where i now live during the school year.

We fly into a three hour argument. He isn't even sure if he's invited to the funeral. And even if he isn't, he needs to be there for girlfriend. When I tell him there's no way in God's good earth I'm not seeing Lauren before she leaves, and I have no where to stay in City because I have a subletter.

Finally, he gets the guts to call Lauren, and Lauren reams on him. In order to rid himself of this guilt, he offers to pay for our plane tickets to anywhere we want to go.

We tell him we won't let him, because that's his way of ridding himself of the guilt of doing the wrong thing and letting us down.

He does it anyway.

So now, Lauren and I have to impose on Lauren's parents out in Colorado, which is where he sent us. For 800 dollars. Which, the selfless thing he is, poignantly dropped before he signed off to go comfort Girlfriend.

Lauren is arriving in less than a day.

I understand that people die. I understand that girlfriends are a big part of guys' lives, and that as their best friends, we have to be understanding. But there was money involved here. There was half a year of planning. There was Lauren. There was a lot of things at stake. I'm sorry, I'm human, and after a long string of Girlfriend dramas coming from that corner of the room, my sympathy is dried up.

I was planning on ridding myself of this situation altogether after our road trip was finished. He continuously makes the wrong choices, puts me on the backburner, but like a divorced father, buys me out so I owe him and can't call him a bad person. This is not the first time he's done something like this, and it puts me in his debt. This continues the friendship until the next big blowout that makes me want to die and utterly disappoints me, and then he buys me out again.

But this time, it wasn't just me. It was Lauren as well. It was Lauren's family. And it was over Girlfriend, who has been a thorn in my side since day one.

I really don't want to be a part of this friendship anymore. I think it was based in outdated, ignorant, stupid reasons, and after those reasons fell away, I had to keep holding on in the thought that if it ended, it would be my fault. That's the way this friendship works. It is my fault and never his, because he can bail himself out.

Every other month, it is a gigantic letdown like this. And I just feel like if I let this friendship continue, it's going to continue to hurt me. But I also don't want to let go of someone who has been there since I was fifteen, and has seen me through everything from graduation to my grandma flat-lining. We have invested a lot into this friendship, but I'm tired of feeling like I owe him and like I'm the reason why this friendship is going to fail.

This incident seems like the perfect escape pod to dive roll out of a situation with Girlfriend and Paul that I do not want to be sucked into. I spent two years of my life pegged as the jealous Duckie bff, and I'm done. I've grown up, and I've gone through too much to deal with these whisps of high school all over again.

I know that was rambly and probably doesn't make any sense to anyone who took the time to get this far down the page. But what are your thoughts? When is it time to say goodbye to a friendship that just keeps Tantalusing right before it drowns?