Hmm...

"Whoever says Friendship is easy has
obviously never had a true friend!"

Bronwyn Polson

I have been marinating on this quote for a while now and I cannot believe how true those words are! I have a friend that I have known since the 1st grade. We did everything together. Talent shows, after school activities, sports. Life was great! Her mom worked at our elementary school and was like a second mom to me. We ran the school. All of the teachers loved us and all of the students wanted to be our friends. We always introduced each other by saying, "This is so and so, we have been best friends since the 1st grade!"

Middle school came around and things got a little different. We still hung out at every opportunity, and we still introduced each other as our best friend since the 1st grade. We danced at school dances together. Went to the skating rink on Friday nights. We were even part of the drama club at school. Sounds amazing right? Don't get me wrong, I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, middle school started to shape our personalities. Neither of us came from particularly fabulous life styles. I have an older brother and we were raised by a single mom who was in the Army. We stayed with my Grandmother and Aunt a lot while my mom was out doing Army stuff. She lived with her mom and her two sisters. Saw her dad pretty infrequently. Not exactly the stuff you read about in Glamour. Still, we weren't ashamed of who we were. That was until she started hanging out with the "popular" kids in the 8th grade. Okay, really- how popular can kids really be when they are 12 or 13? Not very by Gossip Girl standards. For the most part, this particular group of kids were the jocks, the loudest and the ones who's parents had money. Our groups of friends meshed pretty well though. We had different teacher sets, so that definitely didn't help. But we still managed to get a long with everyone. Her problem is that she is such a "people pleaser". She tries to conform to images of other people just to fit in. My friends liked me just fine the way I was so I didn't really have that issue.

High school started and I honestly believe that is where our friendships demise began. We didn't have a single class together and usually didn't have the same lunch period. This was because I also worked in the student store and we all usually ate lunch in there. She started hanging out with the rich kids- pretending to be one. She never really talked about her actual life or the things she had. She was a good actress. Then as high school went on, she started changing even more. The excitement left her face, as did the color. She began disappearing.. literally. She has always had a smaller frame, but her family was cursed with big hips. As the time went on, we started to realize that she had an eating disorder. She wasn't ever bulimic that we knew of. But none of us actually ever saw her eating anything. She was always so worried about what she looked like and what other people thought of her. The problem is that no one was putting her down. She is the type of girl that thinks if you wear a medium or large then you are fat. What's really sad is that through four years of high school, I never even had her phone number.

She started dating this guy she worked with at a grocery store senior. Her parents didn't really like it because he was older than her but they still let her date him. Things got serious and I saw her less and less. Graduated came and went and everyone went on with their lives. I took a year off from school and she bought a house with her boyfriend. Not her husband, not her fiance'- her boyfriend. Yes, I said bought. Bought as in we own it, signed, sealed and delivered. I still had never met him. I didn't meet him until my 21st birthday. I randomly came upon their house one day and we exchanged numbers. I had just gotten home from my first year of college in Denver, and it was good to see an old friend. She still introduced me as her best friend since the first grade. Funny, I wonder if she even knows what my major was?

Anyway, the birthday came and went, and so did their relationship. She moved back in with her parents and began what would become an almost two year long mourning session over this guy. I'm still not exactly sure what broke them up, but she felt like she wouldn't ever be the same. She moved in with another friend of ours and things looked like they were getting better. We hung out all the time and our friendship seemed stronger than ever. Then she started dating again. These "relationships" if you could call them that, would come and go and her heart would break more and more with each one. I would try my best to be the comforting and supportive friend, but, enough was enough. Someone needed to take charge. I told her she needed to grow up and move on. They didn't really care about her, so why should she waste so much time and energy on them? It didn't make any sense to me!

Things started looking up and I noticed her personality begin to change. Same girl, but less dependent on men. This was huge for her! It didn't last long though. She started throwing herself into these pretend relationships. She wouldn't actually hang out with these guys unless we were at a bar. When she did, it was either a group outing with HIS friends or just the two of them at her place. None of them had any real interest in dating her. One by one, they dumped her and left a mess behind. Finally it got to the point where her dating messes were interfering with our friendship. She started dating the brother of a former fling. Yes, that was awkward as it is, not to mention the fact that he was a complete asshole! She knew how much I despised him, but he would "randomly" show up wherever we were. Hmm... coincidence? Probably not. One night, we were out and he and his friends showed up. I was pissed. I know how she gets around guys, and just like I knew she would- she completely ignored me! She literally walked away with him and his friends, leaving me sitting there. I was livid at this point. One of the bouncers is our friend and even he was asking her what her problem was. She stopped talking to me about him and I knew she was hiding stuff. She confided in a friend our ours about how they slept together and she was ashamed. She didn't want me to find out. That same friend went out to lunch with them and his friends, again not telling me. We're going to call my friend Hayley btw. Hayley was acting like her usual goofy self and asshole made a comment about her saying, "no wonder your boyfriend broke up with you!" What's worse is that she took it! She didn't say anything back, she didn't defend herself!

So besides the whole guy thing, I feel like we are reliving high school all over again. She puts other friends as her priority. She doesn't return texts or phone calls. She has the lamest excuses I have ever heard. Once, she hadn't replied to me literally all day and when she finally did she said it was because she was texting someone else. Seriously? You're dumb for that... that wasn't even creative or believable!

I didn't really know what else to do, so I wrote her a letter. If you couldn't tell, writing is what I love to do! Here it is, in case you were wondering:

(On a side note- her name isn't actually Hayley, just keepin' it private!)

Okay so I have be writing and re-writing this for like 3 weeks now and I have been consulting people and letting it marinate and I think I am finally ready to say what I have to say.

Now that the rose colored glasses are off, I think it's safe to say we can't call
ourselves best friends anymore. Hell, I don't even think at this point
we can call ourselves friends. We don't talk- ever. Phone calls and
texts never get returned and we almost never hang out unless it's at a
bar- and even that only happens like once in a blue moon. I personally
feel like I have been completely swept under the rug by "boyfriends"
work friends and people who are only friends when it fits an image that
is trying to be portrayed. There are 50 million excuses that get thrown
out that are really lame. I fell asleep, I was doing laundry, I was
texting someone else; the list could go on forever.

Hayley I have called you my best friend almost my entire life. I have put you as a
priority over friends I see and talk to every day. I stick up for you
so much. I have defended you to my friends without a second thought. My
friends seem to think you are rude and stuck up. Why? Because when we go
out you drive separately or you leave early, or you ignore them. I
always say, "She's just shy around new people" or "Give her a little
while and she'll get used to you". Well, when it's still happening
multiple times later, I don't know how to defend you anymore. Yet, you
are able to hang out with Peyton's friend Dawn more than once and you can
hang out with other friends of friends, but not mine?

You call/text Peyton more than anything. I hardly know you anymore or what
goes on in your life. Maybe I wanted to help you pick out paint colors
for your room? But you don't even bother to ask. Why is it that when Peyton says shes hanging out with me, you reply, "oh have fun with that".
Why can't you reply, "oh what are you guys doing, mind if I join". Hayley if you don't want to be friends anymore, just say so. I'm tired
of these games.

Don't get made at Peyton either- this is not her fault, trust me, I have felt like this for at least the past year. I
know what you're going to say already. You're going to say your sorry
and you don't mean to act like that. You don't know what's wrong. You'll
fix it. Then your emotions are going to shift and you're going to ask
if everything is your fault and then again, Hayley becomes the victim.
Well, Hayls.. yeah it is. YOU don't return my texts, YOU don't return my
phone calls and YOU don't make any efforts to hang out with me. I am
tired of trying to pursue a relationship that YOU don't seem to want.

You hang out with Peyton all the time, you work out with Peyton. You guys go
out and go to movies and lunch and dinner and blah blah blah. But you
can't ever invite me? Saying you didn't text me back because you were
texting Peyton is a LAME excuse. I am tired of excuses Hayley. I love you
more than anything but I cannot keep being treated this way by you. I
have friends who lives in other states that are working and going to
school and doing God knows what else, but they manage a phone call or a
text or an email. You can't even do that. I'm sorry if I don't fit into
this "we're so perfect we have such perfect lives we're so popular" mold
that you try and fit yourself into. But that's not me. I live in the
real world and I don't try to hide the fact that my life isn't perfect.

You are more worried about what these guys, who aren't even in relationship
with you, than what you think about yourself. I am sick and tired of
playing second fiddle to your boyfriends and perfect friends.

So with all of that being said I am throwing the ball in your court
because I am done trying. I have gone to Peyton and Brooke and people
completely outside of our friendship to figure out what to do and if
there is something I am missing. But I have finally figured it out. If
you want to be friends still, then things are seriously going to need to
change for real this time. Not just for a couple of weeks. If not- then
say so. No more pretending.

Basically I just needed to vent. Hayley just read the letter so I am going to give her a call back so we can talk. I'll keep you posted, of course!