Breaking up is Hard to do

     Seinfeld knew what he was talking about. He did an episode about  having a friend he did not want to hang out with anymore. His take was that its easier to break up with someone you are dating than with a friend. When someone you are dating breaks up with you well that's a clear message and that's that. It is so much harder to break up with a friend. Especially a friend that doesn't know that their personality is grating and you really don't want to hang out with them anymore. Its nothing specific but definite. I have that a lot. I meet people who would be OK if they just wanted to be a once in a while to get together friend but are so lonely they always want to get together. I try to make sure I sound really busy but sometimes I am bored so I get together with them a lot and then I realize they are really annoying . If only I could break up with this friendship in  a direct way. Instead I start to ignore their calls and not call them back so often or promptly. Eventually they get the hint. It would have been so much easier to be direct about it, but I think it would be more hurtful. So I usually go the indirect route.

love

ive always said that its better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. i still believe this. it just really sucks when things don't turn out like one would have liked them to. i hate the old adage "everything happens for a reason" , but being the eternal realist, i believe this to be accurate in affairs of the heart. there is a reason things may not work out , but we may not know immediately why this is. for me this is the hardest part. unfortunately sometimes i have found out later reasons why it was VERY good things had not worked out . how i had been saved from a life i would not have wanted. i would not have guessed it at the time.... but it turned out to be the best thing for me even though i had cried my eyes out at the time of the break up. so now is the time to stay strong ,ride the wave and have faith that someone better is just around the corner.....

friends that end

when you're dating someone if it doesnt work out , you discuss it with them, you tell them its not working , or you at least figure it out if they never return your calls, or if they just never call you after your last date. usually there is some type of ending, be it clearly defined, or assumed.

when you 've had it with a friend of the same gender it becomes a whole other ball of wax.

one of the first seinfeld episodes tried to reconcile this issue. the episode was male unbonding which aired june 14, 1990. jerry had a childhood friend joel who he outgrew , but joel still kept trying to stay in touch with jerry anyway. at one point jerry tells joel that he thinks that "they should stop seeing each other" and that they have nothing in common anymore. this of course doesnt work. in the end jerry decides to suck it up and tolerate when joel calls him even though he doesnt want him to . its just easier.

i find this subject so difficult. usually when friendship drifts its mutual. its just run its course. sometimes once i get to know someone i realize that they annoy the daylights out of me. and then what do you do? my so- called friend asks me what they have done to fall out of friendship with me. what can i say? i dont really want to tell them. it will hurt their feelings. its just the way they are. im not mad at them at all. i just choose not to spend that much time with them anymore because my mental state depends on it.

im a pretty patient person, but sometimes my patience runs out. some people are so sensitive that i feel like being friends with them requires me to walk on eggshells. which is okay. but sometimes i go back to being just average and not so accommodating, and then these same gendered friends get offended. im just too stressed to be their friend. if they were a guy id just break up with them. no problem . and im a good breaker -upper. but with my female friends i dont know what to do. its much harder to move on . its harder to "break up" .

the rabbi's daughter

during pesach i had alot of time to read. one of the books i read was the rabbi's daughter by reva mann. its an autobiography. while reva mann is a captivating writer, its unbelievable that someone would want to broadcast such a revealing self-portrait. apparently reva mann is the daughter of a modern orthodox rabbi in london. she was quite a rebel while she was in high school, but at age 25 wound up at a women't baal tshuvah yeshiva--- neve yerusahlayim. she doesnt outright name the yeshiva but by her description of it and where it was located (bayit vegan) and her naming of the neve "niche"(its real name) where the bt women would by their frummie clothing, its quite obvious. anyway, while at neve the author is trying to give up her old ways and get married to someone so she could live a torah true life. unfortunately the man she married was so frum he deleted the necessity for any romance even though they somehow managed to actually have three kids. sex to her husband was only a halachah , not to be enjoyed. eventually they divorce and the author finds a nice jewish druggie to hang with. somewhere along the way it is mentioned that the author has an older sister who is mentally retarded, and that her father was the son of the chief rabbi of israel. though reva's parents did not like her former life of a drug addict and sex fiend, they didnt approve of her yeshivish lifestyle either. in about the last two pages of the book i found out that after reva leaves her druggie rebound guy when her children are small, she takes an extended break from dating. it seems that even after the divorce she maintains some level of frumkeit. most of all she seems to be a lost soul. while i do admit that it was a riveting tale, i felt almost embarrassed for the author reading her story. even though these things may have happened , why tell the entire world?

shared custody

its bad enough when i have a relationship which breaks up, but to be honest, its no walk in the park when this happens to my friends. especially friends who break up who used to be part of my chevra. who gets the friends? even a relatively reasonable couple who breaks up can make this transition difficult for the friends. like who do you hang with saturday night when each calls you up separately and wants t0 get together? of course there are always those who were friends with one party or the other to begin with and will stay friends with their pre-relationship friend. what happens when you were equally close to either party? then what? i abide by the policy of whoever calls me up first. of course this is always difficult because the second party might call me up with more appealing plans. previously it wouldnt have made a difference because if the second caller had a better plan we could have all done the second plan as a group. now its more complex . thats why i abide by my rule. otherwise things can get sticky. this gets easier, but it takes time. of course i do realize that its worst for the couple who has broken up. im just saying that the friends are like kids who now have to contend with a broken family of friends. and that ain't easy either.