Relationship Dynamics

Today was a huge revelation for me in terms of relationships.  I learnt that the world would want you to handle your life in a particular way. You can cry yourself hoarse from the rooftop that this is not your way but they would not leave you alone. So you have two options: Either you can continue to get mauled by people with their opinions, or ride the waves, rise up and declare, "Sorry buddy, I refuse to be abused anymore."

I was in a workshop, which ironically spoke about relationship dynamics. A very old friend: old in terms of the periodicity of the relationship (we went back twenty five years): was also there.  Now this relationship no longer existed on my radar. Though i know that relationships need not be purposeful, there definitely are times when you look to those people for support. In times of our greatest need, in times of crises when we are struggling to stay afloat, and this very person adds to the salt in the sea, well, then the loss is multiplied manifold. 

They say when it rains it pours... It really poured. Two years ago, when i felt lost, stranded and was swimming in the storm of life, this very friend disappeared from my life. I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy. But when this so-called "best" friend turned her back on me, for reasons best known to her, I wrote an elegy on the death of that relationship too, and buried it away. I know no reason would be good enough for her acting the way she did and I did not care if she had a good one.

So I understood that people view relationships differently and I was okay with that.  And then today, she comes up to me and catches me with a flippant remark of remembering old times when the facilitator remarked on friends.  Didn't she know that I had moved on?  Did she really think that with this huge chasm between us, created by her deliberate unavailability when I needed her the most, I could actually respond to her remark as a casual observation? And when I mentioned to her that I did not think of her when the trainer made the comment about friends because I had moved on, she says, "Yeah i know..."

What do you make of such people, who come across as plain callous and do not even think of apologizing when they stamp your feet? Not that an apology would have salvaged the relationship: it didn't exist anymore. But how do you handle the deliberate stampede? 

I walked away with the feeling of loss... Loss of the fact that I had wasted 25 years befriending someone who had no inkling of either human emotions or the tenderness that goes into handling them.