Choose People Who Choose You
I used to be friends with this girl. We had a pretty sweet friendship. Spring semester of our freshman year, we had gotten so close. I had no roommate, and she had issues with hers, so she’d hang out and sometimes sleep over at mine. Before she’d started coming over, we’d stand or sit in the lobby of our dorm, talking for hours after hangouts with the rest of the friend group. We’d talk about other friend drama or just anything tbh. It was nice.
We decided to room together sophomore year since we had already gotten used to living together in my room. It was pretty good at the start. Then one day, everything just felt different. I can’t remember if there were times before this, but this was definitely the beginning of the end.
I go to North Carolina A&T University. We do homecoming (we call it GHOE- greatest homecoming on earth) big there. It’s a week full of parties, events, fire fits, good food, etc, etc. It’s an amazing experience. Our team is pretty trash, though, so many people skip out on the football game and go tailgating, or they’ll go for the halftime show. I assumed none of my friends would want to go, so I didn’t get a ticket. I even texted our group chat and asked if we were going. I only got one response out of three, and it was no.
Fast forward. This friend, we can just refer to her as roomie from here on out, wanted to go. Our guy friend whom she was interested in had a ticket and would go if she wanted to go, and being the type of friend I am, I wasn’t gonna make her go and be with him and his friend group alone. My aunt let me get her extra ticket, and the three of us went together.
The whole time we were at the game, she was more concerned with our other friend getting there. With homecoming, there are hella extra people on campus in addition to the huge population of students, so the service is trash. Add DND on top of that, and you can imagine how difficult it was to get in touch with her. This friend didn’t want to go. Neither of our two other friends wanted to; that’s why they didn’t get tickets. I think she was too scared to hurt roomie’s feelings by saying no, so she just avoided it until she couldn’t anymore and just had to admit she wasn’t coming.
This upset her. Not in an angry way, just disappointment. Valid, but it let me know where we stood. When we finally got hold of our friend and she said she wasn’t coming, do you wanna know what roomie’s first words were when we hung up the phone? “If I would’ve known she (our friend’s name) wouldn’t have been able to come, too, I wouldn’t have come.”
Are you fucking kidding me? I had my aunt come back to campus to drop me off her ticket so YOU would have a friend to be there with you, and my presence didn’t even matter to you? It felt like a slap in the face, and what’s worse is I don’t think she even realized what she said was offensive. She had so little regard for me that it didn’t even cross her mind that what she said could have hurt me.
She spent the whole time talking about the friend who wasn’t there. Me being there with her wasn’t enough for her to feel happy and have a good time because I wasn’t the person she wanted to be with. That hurt me so much because we used to spend so much time together. We even had a conversation about how it was nice to spend time together, separately from the friend group. It made me feel like the friendship we once had no longer existed, and I wasn’t even sure why.
For the rest of the day into the night, she and that friend were attached at the hip, completely ignoring me and our other friend. She did many things that showed me my feelings as her “friend” didn’t matter at all as long as she had our other friend by her side. Over time, I started to feel like she only stayed friends with me because she liked having access to me. She didn’t want to put in any effort towards maintaining our friendship, but didn’t want to lose the benefits of having me as a friend.
Time and time again. Situation after situation, many things kept happening that made me feel discarded and invisible. Hangouts that me and our other friend weren’t invited to. Our talks were happening less and less. Our friend group hangouts became just three of us, and either I wasn’t there or she wasn’t. I started to feel like she didn’t even want to be around me.
Over spring break, something happened, and let’s just say the decisions we don’t make ourselves, God will make for us. I kept waiting to be chosen by someone I considered to be a close friend, and I was simply never going to be who she chose. I never wanted to be the only one she hung out with; I just wanted us to have a real friendship again. Our friendship became reduced to only talking when the whole group was together and a few late-night talks. She didn’t know anything about what I had going on anymore, and she didn’t seem to care. We hardly ever talked, and when we did, it was only about her. Then she was always gone again. I wanted us to go back to spending quality time nurturing our connection to each other. I kept wishing for something that didn’t seem to have even crossed her mind.
What is it you like about the people you call friends? What makes you continue being friends with them? What makes that friendship so valuable? For me, our deep talks, her bubbly personality, and those sweet things I learned about her are the answers to those questions. How much she cared about being a good big sister. How passionate she was about her talent. We could relate to each other and trust each other. We taught each other things and talked about things that mattered to us. But over time, those things started to wither away. A flower that isn’t nurtured correctly dies, and so did our friendship.
The point of my telling you all this is that I learned a very valuable lesson. Choose people who choose you. Choose people who think of you immediately when they want to go out and have fun or do something they know you also enjoy. Choose people who don’t only think of you when they need or want something from you.
This situation taught me that sometimes people just grow apart. As much as the pain makes me want to say she didn’t care about me, I know it’s not true. She did. She just chose to spend her time with other people, and I wasn’t one of them. For whatever reason, my presence in her life became less and less relevant, and that’s okay. It hurts, but it’s life.
We have no control over whether someone will want to keep us in their life. We have no control over whether someone is a good friend to us. A person will either be who you need or they won’t. It’s up to you to decide if you want to keep putting up with feeling overlooked by someone you love, or if you want to remove yourself and find better. I kept putting up with it and building resentment when I should’ve just walked away. I kept avoiding ending our friendship just for her to take the step and do it when I was at my lowest, most vulnerable state. It sucked but it was what I needed.
Don’t be like me. Choose people who choose you and do it continuously, not just sometimes. You deserve it.
Much love,
Ayannah <333