Best Friends Forever - Irene S. Levine [18]
When Julie studied abroad for a semester in her junior year, Rachel found out that Rob had moved on to another relationship, probably before her friend had time to unpack her bags. “I wanted to tell Julie but felt I couldn’t e-mail something like that to her while she was in another country,” says Rachel. So she kept the secret to herself, knowing she would have a heart-to-heart with her friend the moment she returned.
By the time Julie returned, she had already found out on her own that the relationship was over and she was devastated. “She was a mess like I had never seen her before. So I made the decision, perhaps stupidly, not to tell her what I knew,” says Rachel, who was thinking, “Why throw salt on her wound?” Not totally unexpectedly, as sometimes happens in volatile relationships, it wasn’t long before Julie and Rob got back together. He apologized for messing up a good thing with her and she quickly forgave him.
“She knew I still hated him so much and asked me why,” says Rachel. Not quite knowing how to handle it, Rachel dodged the bullet. Before long, Julie also saw qualities she didn’t like in Rob and had second thoughts about him, so she enlisted Rachel’s help in composing an e-mail to Rob explaining why the relationship wouldn’t work. The two women wrote the note, clicked “Send,” and went to sleep at Rachel’s apartment, where Julie was spending the weekend. They had a relaxed brunch on Sunday morning, and Julie left for home.
A couple of days later, Rachel called Julie at her office to find out how things were going and her friend said she was too busy to speak. “I e-mailed her, called her, wrote her a letter. She never spoke to me again, or to any of our other common friends,” says Rachel.
Rachel had been dumped by her best friend. Perhaps Julie had second thoughts about shooting off the e-mail and couldn’t face the humiliation of telling Rachel, who she presumed would never understand why she wanted to get back with Rob. Julie’s reaction was nothing short of perplexing, says Rachel. “We were so inseparable that it took me a long time even to tell my family. When I finally did, I was hysterical.”
Julie experienced what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. After she made the decision to keep Rob in her life, most likely based on his persuasiveness, Julie knew that Rachel would not agree with the wisdom of this decision based on their previous conversations. When such a mismatch (cognitive dissonance) occurs, people tend to find a way to minimize the psychological conflict; in this case, Julie got rid of Rachel.
Now, almost six years later, both women are 29 years old and happen to live in the same neighborhood in New York City. They run into each other from time to time, Rachel always wondering if she should nod and say hello or pretend she doesn’t see Julie. “She always looks away, pretending she doesn’t see me,” says Rachel. Through a mutual friend she learned that Julie had gotten back together with Rob for a few years. Then, when he pulled the same thing again, she finally ended it for good. Through another friend, she heard that Julie got married to someone else about a year ago.
“I never stop wondering if she ever thinks of me,” says Rachel. “She shaped my life so much, and there was no closure or mutually agreed upon ending. No fight. Just my own theory on what she was thinking. And, as good of a person as I always believed she was, I learned that she had her shortcomings too.” Rachel never had the grit to confront Julie directly. She thought she would have gotten over this disappointment by now, especially since so many years have elapsed since college. But almost all of her college memories involve Julie in some way, and all of those memories feel tarnished.
However it occurs, losing a once-close friend, someone you hoped would be your friend forever, is like getting punched in the stomach. Commonly, women are stunned when this happens, and the abandonment