Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Blogger!

Damn, I was trying to upload my pictures, but blogger's being annoying this morning. I'll have to try later.

Instead, I'll share a different story. Yesterday, I sent a hard e-mail to a friend.

This is the gentleman that I knew long ago in DC. I had a crush...unrequited, of course. We had a good friendship, generally, although my crush was painful to me. I never spoke of it directly to him, and he generally tried to live in denial, even though it was obvious to pretty much everyone.

He moved on to become a priest. And moved away to begin his vocation. We lost contact, since he didn't really do well with e-mailing folks.

I'm the curious sort. I enjoy googling people from my past. I learned that this friend had moved on from his last teaching post and was somewhere else. But they still had an e-mail for him. So last year, I sent a random e-mail. I didn't even think he would receive it.

But he did. He did and he's living in this area attending his second round of seminary (those priest sure do get a lot of seminary education). He seemed happy to get my e-mail and interested in trying to get together sometime. I was curious to see what life had brought him.

So I e-mailed him back, telling him when I'm generally available and letting him think about specifics, since a student's schedule can be strange. There was no reply. I tried a couple more times and still no reply.

This last time, I sent him an evite for my birthday party. Now, I was perfectly aware that getting a priest to a birthday party on Easter Sunday was pretty much an impossibility, but I wanted to leave open the possibility. He viewed the evite, but never replied.

I may have had more tolerance, if this hadn't been a close pattern to earlier behavior (agreeing to get together, then bailing, etc). It feels kinda crappy to not have some acknowlegment. So I sent a pretty diplomatic e-mail saying that I valued our friendship in the past and was fond of the memories, but that chasing a friendship didn't feel good to me.

I'm glad I did this. I feel like for a lot of my years, since I first met him that I've been hoping that he will notice me or something. I don't like that feeling anymore. More importantly, I really don't need him to notice me anymore. As a result, I'm able to be honest about the feelings that his actions elicit in me without worrying that I might sever a connection. I find I don't care.

I guess this is what closure feels like.

6 comments:

Jessica said...

how freeing! congratulations, spinster!

Hyde said...

Good for you! Chasing a friendship is the worst...

Cody Bones said...

Tag

Aravis said...

Good for you Spins! All I can say is if he hopes to be a priest, he's going to have to learn to deal with situations a lot better than that! You handled it beautifully.

Sorry that you had to do it, though.

HistoryGeek said...

Aravis - he's already a priest, it's just that the jesuits do two different sets of seminary trainings...the first is their novitiate before they take full orders. Then they do service for several years, then they return for more theological training...the graduate degree basically. This friend has always been somewhat flaky, though, and I was never under the illusion that a collar (the priestly kind that is) would change that.

P'tit-Loup said...

Woohoo! Good for you to get the closure you needed, it must feel great. On the other hand, I'm sorry (more for him though!) that he did not value your friendship enough to put some energy into it.