I admit that this recent episode was my fault, but at the same time, I don’t believe that I should take 100% of the blame. Often I try to let things roll off my back and not dwell on them too much probably because 1) I’m afraid to confront the truth and 2) I know that if I don’t, my thoughts will be consumed by them. I am very much prone to obsessing over things, which is why I try whenever I can to nip them at the bud. Sometimes I’m successful, and other times it’s a real struggle (see: Vicky). Perhaps my two fatal flaws are being simultaneously overly passive and overly aggressive.
I visited my friend Lynn over the long weekend, which eventually led to a full blown, drunken argument at the end of the last night I was there. It was completely blown out of proportion on both our parts, but I was the one who committed the fatal fault of calling her a “fucking idiot,” which she held against and probably will hold against me for a while. Now, I think with my other friends, like Diana, they would probably forget the whole thing by morning time and write it off as a drunken, irrational argument where people said things they didn’t mean. At least that’s what I did. But not Lynn. She held it against for the last two days and made sure I knew exactly what she was thinking of me. I tried the best I could clarify my stance, apologize for my behavior, and to see things from a sober perspective. I felt that I had outlined my arguments clearly and fairly. The response I received was so intense, so rigid, and so… callous. It was not a response you would expect from a friend who can forgive and forget and rise above a ridiculous, intoxicated situation. It has been bothering me for the last 12 hours, and I’m not sure why. It might actually be the first time in a long time that I’ve encountered an argument with a friend in which a sincere and heartfelt apology was taken in such a disregarded manner. I know she was furious with me, but my apology was obvious and deliberate, so I’m not sure what the problem was. Maybe I’m a little taken aback by the fact that a person whose friendship I valued was unable to overlook 20 minutes of a drunken argument in favor of 2 years of a meaningful friendship. In my view, a true friend is able to look past a petty situation, take into account the mental state of said situation, mindfully accept a sincere and deliberate apology, and move on. By the end, I felt as if I were in the middle of a relationship fight, not a friendship fight, and I had no words left.
Although I think we’ve resolved our differences and moved past this particular episode, I have a feeling that I won’t be talking to or seeing Lynn for a while. I walked away from the resolution feeling a bit… jipped. I know I had overreacted and hit below the belt with my comment, but what led me to that mental state wasn’t completely of my own doing. She had an equal hand in all of this. I am not going to try to analyze rationally and logically what went on during that argument because, honestly, drunken arguments aren’t meant to be revisited in a rational and logical way. They are meant to be tossed aside as momentary lapses of judgment. Regardless, even though I voiced these concerns and made clear what offended me in the first place, she cast them aside and focused on the end result of my comment. Fair enough it was a shitty and thoughtless comment, but how we got there deserves to be looked at as well, doesn’t it?
This whole episode just reminded me of the temper problem that I am constantly struggling with. I hate blaming situations like this on PMS, but I think it really is PMS this time, as I got my period yesterday. It’d been a long time since I “saw red,” so this really caught me off guard. I was, of course, embarassed by my behavior, which is probably the sole reason I wanted this to roll off my back and to be forgotten with. I really have to work on being mindful of situations like this when I know that my temper can flare and I can say something that I regret. Things like this happened with Spencer all the time toward the end of our relationship, and I vowed never to let it happen with anyone else I dated. Even though Spencer was an asshole in the end, I still shouldn’t have acted the way I did with him. Friends are no different, but I need to remember times like these so that Brian, or anyone else I date in the future, doesn’t become victim to this sort of abuse. Because really, this is abuse — verbal and emotional abuse.
