How long does it take to get the message that someone doesn’t appreciate a friendship as much as you do?  For me the answer is way too long.  I’m persistent…or, stubborn…and, even though I try hard I have expectations/hopes of others.

I have a “friend” who has disappointed me so many times and yet I continue to invite her to do things.  I think I do this in hopes that one day she will realize how valuable good friendships can be.  And frankly, I think we have a lot in common.

But, I think I got the message this time thanks to social media.  The funny part is that she is so social media unaware that she has no idea I know she betrayed me…yet again.

The Scenario

I’ve had a party scheduled for several weeks to celebrate my coming back from my 9+ week vacation.  Friends had been asking to hear my stories and see my photos, so I put together a party in which to share these and some of the food I was introduced to along the way.  This particular friend, seemed very eager to come and accepted the invitation.

Friday night (the party was on Saturday) she called me after she left work (a side note…we work together so she could have just told me at work) to let me know her husband, who she’s separated from and planning to divorce, has medical issues with his pancreas.  She said he’s not doing well because they don’t know if it’s pancreatitis which is serious enough or something even more serious like pancreatic cancer.  She said she really needed to be with him and help him out this weekend and I totally understood.  My goodness…that’s serious.  Her exact words were that she “needed to cancel all my weekend plans”.

So, Friday night I’m sitting at home editing the last batch of photos from my trip and a photo pops up on a mutual friend’s Facebook page.  It’s a photo of the two of them out and about in downtown.  She had the biggest smile on her face, like she was having the time of her life.

She wasn’t tagged in the photo, so I’m sure she is 100% unaware of it being posted on Facebook and even more unaware of how it made me feel.

I’m not at all upset that she cancelled coming to my party because of her husband’s illness (obviously that would be serious).  I’m only a little upset that later I found out she spent time with another friend.  The part that is most upsetting is that she specifically told me she was “cancelling all her plans for the weekend”, which was obviously a flat-out lie.  In fact, based on the timing of the photo, I believe she was on her way to that outing while talking to me on the phone.

To make matters worse, I had also invited our mutual friend to my party and after several nudges she never even responded.  I thought it was because of an illness she’s been going through.  Apparently not if she’s able to go out with someone else.

If you are thinking that I might be over-acting, this is not the first time either of these friends have acted like this.  Once friend #1 (the one with the sick husband) meant to send an IM to friend #2 and accidentally sent it to me.  It said…”I’d like to go to happy hour now, but Pam wants me to go see her photos” followed by a “hang-banging against the wall” icon.  Nice!  This was all because I had a couple photos in my car that I wanted to show her.

The Lesson

I need to pay attention to the effort that others put in being “friends” with me and not continue to get emotionally beat up by the same people over and over again.  Because of that, I’ve decided to put three friendships on hold (these two and one other).  The hold my be permanent…we’ll see.

Do you have “friends” that put little effort into your friendships?  How do you deal with it?