Friendships

So I got to thinking about friendships over a game of tetris on Orkut... apparently that's the time during which I get my brain rolling about various things in life. So I was playing and I thought of an email that was sent to me by a close friend. So I just felt like posting about the topic she emailed me about and my experiences within that arena.
I have had "friends" steal, lie, and otherwise irreparably deceive me during the course of our friendships. Naturally, I don't speak to any of them anymore, but I will remain decent, meaning, no real names shall be mentioned here. But I will narrate some examples of what I mean by irreparable deception. When I was 13 or so, I had one friend who would look through my drawers while I was in another room. She would look for small change and anything she thought was interesting, like pencils, erasers, cute little things I like to own. And then she'd slip it in her pocket and I'd return to the room she was in, none the wiser. I had had my suspicions when things of mine would go missing after her having been in my room. One day I caught her - I stood at the doorway without her realizing, and saw her slip some small change from a drawer into her pocket. That was the point during which I made up my mind I was not going to speak to her anymore. Some people I have recounted this story to have told me, "oh but it was just a few coins, what's the big deal?" To which I usually respond that it wasn't the loss of small change that hurt me- it was the principle of the fact that she didn't consider herself close enough to me that I would permit her to take my money if I had been asked. And this was after we had been friends for a number of years. Come on now. I was deeply hurt by this. She has since tried to contact me on facebook, but I decline all her efforts to regain contact with me because I don't waste my time or energy on people whose offenses I know I can't forget, or people I know I will never be able to trust.
Another experience I had was kind of similar to this but the way I found out about it was pretty strange. I attended this acting workshop when I was 14 in New York City, and I had a friend from middle school who attended the class with me. We had been friends for a few years at that point. One day I saw her writing something down and I noticed that the case she removed her pencil looked exactly like one I had "lost" back in middle school. I asked her where she got it and she told me that a mutual friend of ours had given it to her. I realized then that that mutual "friend" had stolen it from me and given it to her as a present of sorts. I was so pissed!! And I knew it was mine because I told her that if she opened a secret compartment at the bottom of the case, there would be an eraser in the shape of a cat in there...and she did it (she didn't realize the compartment existed)... and there it was. It was a little sad because she wouldn't return it to me, but I was more angry at the person who stole it from me. That pencil case had some sentimental value because it was given to me by my family in Malaysia, who I had traveled alone to see when I was 12 years old.
The most recent thing that has happened to me was just about two years ago. I lent 50 dollars to a friend claimed he badly needed money. I lent it to him after making it perfectly clear that I needed the money back, ASAP because I was short on money at the time. Be that as it were, I still gave it to him and trusted him to pay me back. I waited six months, asked for the money back, never got it back... waited a year, never got it back... even after repeated requests over the phone, in person and on the internet. I left him alone, and he has cut off all ties with me out of sheer cowardice. I learned my lesson after that one.
Another kind of betrayal I have experienced is kind of hard to label, I guess. But I'll go on to explain it anyway, because it seems to be an issue in my life quite frequently. It happens this way: you become very close with someone, you might even have a relationship with that person. And then things don't work out and you resort to just being friends again. And then that person finds someone new and leaves you in the dust to pick up the pieces. It sounds like it could just be bitterness, but I'm talking about more than that- I'm talking about straight-up disrespect, like not returning things that are personal to you, or only calling you when something goes wrong with the person they're currently with. This has happened a number of times, with males and females. The first time, it was with a man I was seeing at the time. Horrible experience. We no longer talk, and he has a baby picture of me that I have been trying to get back from him for about 6 months now, which I only recently remembered that he had. The only phone calls I would ever get from him were during the time he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him. I had even warned him that he needed to be treating me better because I don't enjoy being taken advantage of. It is very stressful when you are the only person that someone who is having relationship problems talks to. Anyway, I TOLD him, flat out, that friendships are an investment and they require periodic deposits in the form of phone call, email, or face to face chat. Friendships ensure that the people involved will have all kinds of support whenever they need it. But unfortunately for him, he never listened and I got tired of listening to shit from someone who didn't even seem to care about what was going on in my life. I even called him after my grandfather died, to tell him about his death... and he didn't pick up. That was it for me, and I decided I was not interested in trying to maintain friendship with him anymore. That friend who emailed me... who I mentioned way in the beginning of this post.. is having a similar experience.
Seriously. What the hell. Don't take advantage of people you have in your life. Be thankful that you have people who are willing to back you up when times get rough, and let them know that you appreciate it. Don't be an asshole and forget about the people who went out of their way to help you in your time of need. Know better than to expect someone you barely talk to, to listen to you bitch about things going on in your life. If you don't let your friends know you love and care about them, they will not love and care about you. If you're lucky, they might pretend to, just so they can avoid confronting you about your shitty behavior. Friends are so valuable in life, and sometimes they can even be irreplaceable.