In all friendship, there is room for failure…

So just in the nick of time, I reconnected with an old friend with whom I had been out of touch for quite a while.  I was looking forward to speaking with her again, anticipating sharing our life changes and stories since the last time we’d talked.

And then I remembered why I have been so remiss in staying in touch.

Our friendship has a fatal – or at least potentially fatal – flaw.  It is unbalanced, and with each passing year it is less based on shared understanding and mutual appreciation, and more on a unilateral need to dominate the conversation at all times.

Let’s just say I’m not the one dominating the conversation, or the friendship in general.  I suppose this failing in our friendship is as much my fault as hers, but I’m not sure she even realizes the state I believe our relationship has entered.  To her, I think, things are much as they ever were.  I could be taking a big leap, here (but no one’s reading this anyway!), but I imagine to her I appear the same semi-flaky, interested but busy friend.  She is even busier, I think, but she finds the time to call and talk at least.  The problem is, she is the only one talking.

If I felt more comfortable, or closer to her, I might try to fix this uneven tendency in our relationship, but I think it has almost always been there – I just didn’t notice it as much when our time together lasted long enough for me to get a word or two in edgewise.  I should have acknowledged it and addressed it when she dampened my wedding day, but hindsight is twenty-twenty, after all…

So I feel that I may end this first month of the Friends Forever Friendship Endeavor on a sour note – a note of failure.  A sad recognition of the fact that maybe not all friendships are worth saving, rekindling, nurturing.  Maybe sometimes there are unhealthy relationships, friendships that don’t promote the growth, happiness, or well-being of either party, and these relationships are better left to fade away.  Perhaps this could be a lesson that not all friendships are intended for the “forever” status; it might be best for both of us to let it confine itself to Christmas cards and school reunions.

Despite my attempt to reconnect with this friend, I can’t help feeling like this particular experience was a bit of a failure.  At best it was a difficult lesson learned in friendship.  No progress on that measure of the Friendship Meter, it seems, but at least I have one day left…

Who Doesn’t Love a Wedding?

So in many ways, Friday’s wedding was a success. First and foremost, the couple is now married.

My friend, who I first met in 1st grade, is now a wife!  We have both changed in many ways, and our friendship with it. Over many years of going to different schools, my traveling abroad, our interests diverging, and my sister taking my place as BFF of my old neighbor, we have perhaps grown (quite) apart.  I still think we share a cherished history, though, and I feel some friendliness and familiarity with her that I can’t imagine ever changing.

Despite our differences, I am happy for her and the future that is ahead of her. I am pretty positive we won’t return to the closeness we once shared, but I can accept that. She will remain a treasured, if distant, friend.

The party was awesome, and it was a truly convenient way to reconnect with old neighbors and even friends from grade school who I haven’t seen for ten (plus!) years…An open bar may have facilitated my conversational skills, but I found on the whole that I was successfully making conversation with plenty of true potential friends in the broadest sense.

In a more particular sense, the wedding was a success in that I reconnected with a single potential forever friend and hit it off tremendously. We chatted for quite a while at the wedding, and promptly set up a reunion the next evening. We grew up around the corner from each other, but since she more often played with my sister I always assumed she was quite a bit younger.  We are only a year or two apart in age and I feel like now there is no difference.

Even though we live in different cities, I feel that I have someone I want to hang out with every time I am in Pittsburgh. Progress, surely, on the Friendship Meter.

Here’s to the bride and groom, and here’s to a rediscovered potential forever friend! (Photos to come soon!)