*grumble grumble grumble* Sometimes I hate people. I used to try really hard to please people. It kept everyone happy-- except me. And now I'm a lot happier overall but there's a lot more friction in my life because I stopped giving in-- especially when people are manipulative. Before and while I was drinking and doing drugs I would do whatever people wanted. And since I quit, I kind of stopped caring so much.
The current friction: I have started hiking a few times a week. They are decent hikes-- the trails are anywhere from 6.2 to 7.5 miles in length, through some small hills around a lake. A girl I know wanted to get in shape a bit so we've been hiking together. She was sick this weekend, but she went with me to the concert Friday night and a Renaissance Festival on Saturday. When I took her home last night she said since she wasn't feeling well she probably would not hike today, she wanted to take a day and rest up since this is finals week. I told her that was cool, but I was still going to go hiking.
Fast forward to this morning. Friend calls, offers me tickets to Fleetwood Mac tonight and since my plans for the evening involve me, myself, and I... well I figured it would be ok to break my own plans. I texted this girl to let her know I wasn't going and we could try the path I was going to take some other time if she wanted to. Big huge mistake. She's mad at me because I didn't double check that she might want to go, and told me if I was smart I would have realized that whenever she says she probably won't go she usually ends up going so I should have known she was going anyway and should not have made plans. Whoa. Really?
And here's the kicker. I am not best friends with her, but she goes around telling people we are best friends. She has another friend that she hangs out with all the time, she has broken plans with me to hang out with him and even when I've invited her out somewhere she has said she did not want to go because she thought he *might* invite her over. So clearly she likes him and even though she tells people she and I are best friends I'm always second place there (and yet gets mad that I don't always make her my top priority). So when I told her I was still doing something else tonight she sorta spat back at me, "Well I'll just hang out with him tonight." Like it was some sort of insult, i.e. "He's a better friend."
It's the most pathetic manipulation I have ever seen. I don't think she's my best friend so when she acts like we aren't best friends... how is that supposed to bother me, exactly? She's one of the most manipulative people I have met, but she's overestimated her ability to manipulate me on this one. I wish she would stop telling people we are best friends, actually. It puts me in an awkward position of either going along with it (and she's not someone I want to be strongly associated with) or looking like a jerk by telling people she and I aren't best friends, no matter what she has told them. Luckily most of the people we both know understand her personality enough that they realize she's kind of crazy.
I don't know why I suddenly stopped caring so much. I cared when I was sober. I cared when I did drugs and drank. And now that I'm sober again something in my head just snapped and I don't give in to it anymore.