Burnt bridges

I've been invited to a wedding and after careful consideration, I don't think I'm going to bother going.

The fact is that looking at my own personal relationship with this person, it's kind of hard to call us friends. Since we graduated, I have seen her twice, and before that we didn't spend much time together anyways. In fact, even as early as middle school I got the impression that if she had a choice, she would have rather not spend any time with me at all and only really associated with me because we had the same friends.

I've never been completely "normal" in any sense of the word. I've always dressed differently, listened to different music, had different and occasionally unorthodox tastes and aspirations. She was the sort of person to always ridicule people for that. It was done in a friendly sort of way, but it was nevertheless ridicule. It made her uncomfortable when people were different and unusual, so she put them down instead. I've always had the sense that she felt embarassed to be around me because I was so different.

So enter boyfriend, around grade 8ish. Overnight boyfriend became her entire social life. Every afternoon and weekend was spent with him and every conversation was about him. I can understand that happening at the start of a relationship, but in the subsequent years, it didn't stop. If anything, it got worse. She converted to his religion and then every waking hour not spent with him was spent at his church.

Personally I don't like boyfriend, for reasons which I can't put my finger on. I mean, he's a pretty honest person with strong values and he seems pretty nice to her and to others, but with that relationship came the out and out rejection of practically every other person in her life, including her own family. When people like me started to suggest that maybe it wasn't really all that good an idea to be spending so much time with him and neglecting all her other friends we'd get brushed off or ignored or ridiculed because our opinions were not valid in any way. So we kept inviting her to things knowing full well she'd find an excuse to not come.

Meanwhile I'd ended up in a film class with her in high school and we were in the same project groups together. When we sat around trying to decide what we wanted to do for projects, she was usually the one vetoing my ideas. In fact, any time anyone came up with anything that was kind of creative or unique, she did her best to shoot it down, while at the same time, not coming up with any better ideas. It's not fun to work under those conditions.

It wasn't much different when we were on a field trip to Italy. I would suggest doing or seeing something and she'd veto. I am of the opinion that if you're in a foreign country and you won't be back soon, if ever, then you should try to go and do and experience as many things as possible. She was of the opinion that one should sit inside the hotel room for as long as possible, and since we weren't supposed to go out alone, that's where I ended up spending my evenings in Italy.

So since high school I haven't seen her much. It's not through lack of trying. It's just that she won't come to anything we invite her to, and for the most part, she won't invite many of us to anything she's doing either. Not that she ever does much. Watches tv, uses the computer, sits around doing nothing.

Enter baby, who was born about a year ago. Baby at the same time represented one more reason why she couldn't do anything with any of us, but presented an opportunity as well. We offered to help out with babysitting and things if she needed it, all she had to do was call. She never did, of course. She preferred to sit around at home all day and blog about how she was so depressed and felt shut in and like she wasn't getting any help with anything and et cetera ad nauseum.

So, for her birthday in November, being the suckers we are, we all pitched in and bought her a gift certificate to a nice restaurant and offered to provide some free babysitting so that she and the boyfriend could have a nice night out, the first nice night out for them in at least a year. Once again the offer was refused, because "she didn't feel comfortable leaving him with any of us."

The question is when do you give up and stop trying? The moment she told us she didn't trust us with her child is the moment we did. In hindsight, we should have done it earlier, because that way we probably wouldn't have been as angry and upset about it.

So now all of a sudden we're all invited to the wedding this summer. It's the first thing she's invited me to since her 14th birthday party, and I get the impression that boyfriend has a lot of friends and family, and her side of the church is looking pretty pathetic in comparison. Otherwise why invite me? My presence alone will probably embarass her.

The more I think about it, the less inclined I am to go. I stewed about this all afternoon and when it was mentioned over post-bowling deserts it exploded into some pretty angry monologues because it seems that pretty much everyone feels the same way about it, so I feel better now, knowing that I'm not alone.