What Did I Do Wrong? by Liz Pryor

Author:Liz Pryor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The Irony of

Confronting:

Can This Friendship Be Saved?

“Resolve and thou art free.”

—H ENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

As I thought about the many stories I’d heard about women ending friendships, I realized that they were all laced with the common thread of avoidance. I couldn’t help wondering if we women were avoiding confrontation in general or just confrontation in our female friendships.

For me, confrontation in any area of my life does not come easily. In fact, whenever humanly possible I choose to flee rather than face the conflict. Though I do find a way to rise to the occasional challenge when inevitable, my overall knee-jerk reaction is to find a way around it. But after hearing the stories of women who faced up to the need to end troubling acquaintances and put old friendships on a new, different footing, I felt inspired to challenge myself. Maybe I’d gleaned some inspiration from Grace and her courageous confrontations with her mother and Shay. Under the influence of these straightforward women, I decided to confront an acquaintance named Hilda, someone whom I’d met seven years ago, who had resurfaced in my life and was causing some unpleasantness.

When I had met this woman at my daughter’s ballet school, I was in an unfamiliar new-mother, new-path time in my life. Another young mother, she was nice enough, but she had a manner that ultimately didn’t appeal to me. I saw her several times a week at the school, went to a few dinners at her home with other women from the school, met her at a beach club once with our kids, and that was about it. A few months after we met, she began calling and inviting me to join her for this or that function; I always politely declined. Yet her calls became more and more frequent. I continued to decline and tell her how busy I was, but she just kept calling. Shoot me, but I didn’t want to be her friend. I didn’t get a good vibe, and I didn’t want to hang out with her. She was clearly not getting my message, and the more I made myself unavailable, the more she pursued me. She extended invitations to everything from dancing at nightclubs to bowling. I just kept saying no thank you, but eventually I stopped returning her phone calls.

Several days passed before I received a message from Hilda that said, “Hi. Listen, I’ve called you five times in three days, and unless you’ve been mugged and had the five fingers on both of your hands chopped off, I expect a simple call back.”

Who would say that to someone? Was that supposed to be funny? To me it was completely creepy, and the few close friends I told were in total agreement.

In retrospect this was a perfect opportunity for an easy confrontation. After that message I could have called to tell her that I didn’t have the time right now in my life for another friend and I hope she would understand. But

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