I try very hard not to be jealous, because really, at my core I believe that there is enough of everything to go around, and just because someone has more of something doesn't mean you will have necessarily have less. So I wouldn't say I'm "ever jealous" of my friends because it implies you want what they have and don't want them to have it anymore--I am instead, "envious" maybe? Envious because I was to also have nice things? I think I made up that distinction and really, it's just semantics.
So for those of you who are anti-semantic, I'll just get to the point. Last night, as I was sitting with one of my best friends at Blind Bob's enjoying the hipster-watching and munching copious amounts of Blind Bob's delicious brand of kettle chips, my friend started talking about her new relationship. He is wonderful. He is everything she's ever wanted. And I am... trying to be a good friend. Really, I completely think my friend deserves a fantastic relationship, Lord knows she's kissed enough frogs. But here's the thing. The whole time as I was listening to her say how they have spent the whole week together in a love coma, it was all I could do to keep a smile clenched in my jaw and my eyes from watering.
As per my previous blog entry; I love love. My parents have been married for 30+ years and they still are both romantic and each other's right hands. And while I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, or what city I would want to live, or even if I would be a stay at home mom or career woman--I knew I wanted to marry my best friend and have a marriage like my parent's. I never had that claustrophobic fear of commitment or the panicky feeling that if I got married I wouldn't get a chance to do all the things I wanted to do in my youth.
But that attitude hasn't amounted to much. Now it seems like every person who has ever uttered the phrase, "I don't want a relationship" is happily paired-up. That certainly describes the attitude of my Blind Bob's companion who told me like a week before she met him that she didn't want a relationship and had given up on men entirely. And then there's me. I have been pretty badly hurt by relationships in the past, and yet I foolishly keep my heart open, just to let the next dip shit who doesn't deserve it tell me why I'm not good enough.
Because I have absolutely no ability to disguise my feelings, and because I didn't want my friend to think I wasn't happy for her because I was half-wincing through most of her gushing, I had to admit the whole situation was hard for me. I finally told my friend at dinner, in the most eloquent of fashions, "It's not that I'm not happy for you. You completely deserve this! And I don't want you to ever hide your joy because you're afraid I'll be upset. That's not what friends do. But I just can't help feeling like it's that episode of 'Sex and the City' where Miranda gets pregnant by accident and she tells Charlotte, who has been injecting estrogen into her ass in order to get pregnant with no result. I'm Charlotte and you're Miranda. And the whole thing kind of makes my ass hurt."
I don't mean to be a whiner. I just have to admit, every time someone at work says, "Well maybe you're just trying too hard at your relationships," I want to fucking throw something. It's so condescending and really unfair. Like, easy for you to say when you're sitting on the other side looking at your sad, pathetic, single coworker. The follow up explanation, "It just happened for me when I stopped looking for it," is basically the equivalent of saying don't think about a pink elephant and one will appear. Are you thinking about a pink elephant? What do you mean, now you are? Well, shame.
Maybe it's healthier to admit to that you're feeling envious when you are. Or maybe I'm just a terrible friend. Obviously, I'm not an authority on this matter--but maybe I will be if I stop thinking about.
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