How I Realized My Friend Considered Me a “Last Choice” and Why I Will No Longer Play Someone’s Lifesaver

The universe of modern psychology has a vast amount of material about toxic and destructive relationships between couples. However, relatively little is said about friendships with this profile. And we know that, just like breaking up with a friend or boyfriend, breaking up a friendship can be extremely painful.

My name is Olga and especially for the awesome.club, I’m ready to share the story of a friendship that was quite exhausting and that today, fortunately, is part of the past. I hope that, thanks to my experience, you can see who is by your side: a true friend or a person you need to stay away from.

It was half past five in the afternoon. It was my birthday. But I had neither the strength nor the desire to celebrate. First, I had the flu. Second, he had a lot of work backed up: a quarterly report, reviewing documents that were supposed to be ready “yesterday”, a lunch the next day to prepare, and finally, finding a bit of personal life in the middle of two jobs. I was thinking exactly about this last question, when, suddenly, the cell phone rang. “Tacia” appeared on the screen. I answered, still unsure where this conversation was going to lead.

Anastacia (that was her name) was once my best friend. We grew up in the same neighborhood, lived in the same building, went to school together. The first experiences of adolescence were shared. So life separated us for ten long years until we met again in a big city. We’ve changed a lot over the years. But Warm, nostalgic feelings for a common past bound us with invisible bonds.

“Honey, happy birthday!”, I heard from the cell phone. “I’ll stop by after work, okay?” I didn’t have time for visits. My head was bursting with fever, my nose was stuffed up, and a pile of tedious papers lay on the table, awaiting urgent review. To my firm arguments, she replied decisively: “Relax, I’ll just pop over to congratulate you. Well, are you really going to be alone on your special day?” I found their arguments reasonable and agreed. “She won’t stay here with someone who has the flu for long”, I thought.

Just 15 minutes later, I was sitting in the kitchen silently listening to my bosom friend vent. The formal congratulations part ended quickly. Tacia didn’t even have time to cross the threshold. My apartment instantly filled up with unsavory conversations: about the mother-in-law who drained all moral strength, about the useless husband, about the job with no prospects and about the “exploiting” boss. It seemed that all the injustices in this world had come together to savagely destroy the life of a small, innocent person.

So an hour passed. Then two. Three. The friend did not stop talking. AND, I suddenly realized that I was feeling “dirty”🇧🇷 And so much so that I immediately wanted to take a shower. As if they threw a bucket of sewage on me. Before, I had noticed the same feelings: a seemingly light-hearted conversation turned into a failure story full of negativity🇧🇷 And then, suddenly, I had an epiphany: I was actually the “last option” for her.

Tacia was never interested in my wants and needs. She didn’t care if I had time or not, how I felt. She only appeared when it was convenient. After all, she always had “real problems”. Nothing to do with my “little daily problems”. That’s why she had the right to call and write at any time of the day or night, to come into my house whenever she wanted, and, for hours on end, talking about herself🇧🇷 Not realizing the inconvenience itself. As it happened that night, when I, exhausted from work and the flu, looked anxiously at the clock, remembering that the next day I would wake up early. In fact, Anastacia hadn’t heard from me for a long time. Or she just didn’t want to hear it.

By the way, for my birthday she got me a shabby rug. Unfolding it, I noticed a huge burnt hole. When I asked what it meant, she replied, without the slightest bit of embarrassment: “We decided to give the house a makeover and this rug no longer fits us. But it will work for you. And the hole is completely invisible; with a little creativity, you can hide it.” Of course, that gift wouldn’t make sense in my decor.

I already forgot the last time I talked to her about myself. All of our conversations somehow turned into a discussion about his life., which, in terms of the intensity of passions, resembled a Mexican soap opera. The Machiavellian mother-in-law turned her relatives against her; the insensitive husband refused to buy the latest iPhone model; the boss tormented her with meaningless tasks. I was feeling a certain sympathy, until she blurted out: “I really wanted to trade my life for yours! You have no one: no husband, no mother-in-law. You live for yourself and don’t know problems.” When she said that sentence, an unpleasant chill ran down my back.

Realized that I haven’t shared any event in my life with her for a long time, neither good nor bad. In fact, she didn’t ask. She was only talking about herself. Once I tried to tell her about my problems: the family was in a difficult situation, and I needed friendly support. I was interrupted in mid-sentence. She said, “Oh, let’s not talk about bad things. By the way, I have a problem…”

The good news didn’t work either. “I passed an interview at a big company,” I said. And she: “they hire everyone”. I changed the subject, still in the realm of good news: “I met an interesting guy” and showed her. And her answer: “not very ugly, of course, but his nose looks like an eagle’s beak”. Me: “I bought a new dress”. Her: “how much did you pay?! Wow, I ordered the same on the website for 50 reais”. And finally, her favorite: “Don’t be offended. But who, besides me, is going to tell you the truth?”

Once, we were walking down the street when, suddenly, we were called. I turned around and saw a former classmate from school. We hadn’t seen each other for seven years. As soon as he asked how I was doing, the friend started to tell me that I worked at the checkout in a supermarket and could barely pay the bills. I hastened to interrupt her, saying that, in fact, I had been working as an economist for a famous company for several years. But the guy was clearly confused and didn’t know who to believe. When I asked why did she make that up, Anastacia replied that she just wanted to make a joke and that I seemed to have a problem with my mood. “And trouble choosing friends,” I mentally added.

The feeling that in this friendship I was giving more than I was getting, would not let me. But I immediately blocked her: it’s not right to make some kind of assessment of friendship. “I need help with translation, you are very good at English. It costs you nothing!” Or: “can you make a report for me? You are an economist”. Or: “Do you have any advice on how to deal with my husband? Besides you, I have no one to tell.” And of course I would help, advise, take her hand. After all, we were friends, weren’t we? And that’s exactly what friends do. The only alarming fact was that, in my rare refusals (which sometimes happened) Tacia got angry: “Do you understand that I counted on you? Besides you, there is no one.”

The energy spent on emotions is something impossible to measure, because it is intangible. Support cannot be touched, tasted, measured with a tape measure, or weighed on a scale. But, I was somehow contributing to that, even if it wasn’t measurable. Was nearby listening, nodding, muttering something in response! As little as it was, it must have made a difference in her life. It’s strange to charge the person close to you for empathy and foster care. But sometimes this needs to be done in order to realize in time if you’ve played the “listening ear” role—those situations where you’ve been there and offered to help.

Anastacia finally started to get ready to leave. The outbursts of her “beloved” husband and her “beloved” mother-in-law came to an end. That is to say, there was nothing else to do at a “birthday party”. She ordered a piece of cake to go and said she would call the next day. I nodded obediently, when suddenly, unexpectedly for myself, I blurted out, “Don’t call, I won’t pick up. I don’t want to be a ‘handkerchief’ for you anymore.” Tacia proudly mocked me and left. I locked the door, took a shower and realized: sometimes getting rid of the illusion of friendship is the best birthday present.

Have you ever been disappointed in a friendship? Or is there someone whose complicity and loyalty has survived all tests?