I stopped being friends with Alice when she blew me off.

Alice and I met within days of starting at Mary Baldwin. We auditioned for and joined the Madrigals together, and just hit it off immediately–similar senses of humour, both smart and curious about the world, and rather similar politics (though her Catholic homeschooled background made it hard for her to admit she was liberal, let alone progressive). She was one of my very best friends for the three years I was in college. There were regular rumours we were dating, we were so close.

I left and went to Australia and my girlfriend (much to Alice’s annoyance) and tried to keep up our friendship. I wrote in my then-blog, I wrote emails, I called a handful of times. The burden of maintenance was mine, but it was okay: I’d get back to the US and see her again and our friendship would properly pick up where we left off.

Except that it didn’t.

Alice and I made plans as soon as I knew I’d be back in town. Kitty was with me. We’d meet for coffee and catch up and everything would be great again. But Alice didn’t come for coffee; she blew off our date entirely to make an “emergency” trip for cold medicine for her (adult, able bodied, car-owning) roommate and then never rescheduled.

I put my foot down. Alice had blown off small things with me in college, and I’d always forgiven it. I knew that I liked more concrete plans than she did, and that she had many friends who were cooler than I was, so there was always a chance of being left for a better time. At the end of our second year, she decided unilaterally we shouldn’t be friends anymore since I was just going to leave anyway and she was bad at keeping up friendships; it was only after I pleaded to keep my best friend that we stayed close for the last year. Being ignored to baby the person she lived with was the last straw for me, and I cut Alice out of my life. We’ve exchanged emails once since then, which were unproductive, and she emailed me in September. I haven’t opened it. It’s been two and a half years since I lost my best friend.

Stina and Dylan were there when we fought: Kitty and I were staying at their house on that trip to Staunton, before I moved back to my college town. They were there when Alice and I fought over email–hell, Dylan was the one who opened the first email for me and read it, so he could warn me if I wanted to read it or not.

I’ve known Stina and Dylan since about a week into my first semester at Mary Baldwin. We met when I joined the queer/feminist group on campus, which Dylan and I would eventually co-run. They were my other best friends, complimentary matches for me and each other. It was a little easier to keep up with them when I moved, because calling one meant getting both, and they opened their house up without hesitation for us when Kitty and I arrived in the US. They invited me to live with them while I figured out what the hell I was going to DO with my life.

I don’t know how to write the collapse of our friendship. It’s raw and it hurts and none of the paragraphs I’ve started in this space are accurate.

I felt left out, ignored. I saw patterns in their treatment of me that made my heart ache with loneliness. I watched them each grow more unkind and reassure each other that it wasn’t so. I felt entirely unrespected. I couldn’t talk about it, too afraid to bring up small hurts but dwelling on them endlessly until they became big hurts and then I’d explode. But by then they’d forgotten the small hurts and I was making something out of nothing. For a psych major, Dylan is fucking terrible at introspection.

I was told, explicitly, that I was not autistic because i didn’t match his expectations of what an autistic person should be. I was told I was a lesbian, and any attempts to restate my actual identity were dismissed as trivial. I was told that genderqueer people don’t exist or are just indecisive. I was told I was petty, and rude, and embarassing to take out in public. I was told I was mean and hateful. I remember every fucking word that was said to me. They inform my self esteem and my sense of who I am and sow seeds of doubt deep into my heart.

We fought again and again. My therapist told me they were poisonous, no good for me.

I wish I’d listened to her. I wish I’d been able to listen to her. I defended them vigorously and angrily. How dare she say that about my only local friends?

I moved away in April. It was for the best; they hurt me again and again and while nothing seemed to change on their side, I felt broken and tired. I ended up here. I saw them in September for their wedding.

“Come for Thanksgiving. We miss you!”

So I asked off for Thanksgiving. I asked when they wanted me to come up. Two weeks ago they broke it to me: I’d be welcome to come, but they had no guest bed and were planning to spend black friday on a prolonged date.

Wait. So I’m welcome to come up, but I have to spend one of 3 days with them by myself because I am less important than them–married to each other, living together–having a date.

I didn’t go. They got their black friday together. I got time to myself without being touched and harassed and quiet. Lots of quiet.

“Dylan Grey had an awesome black fridate. All of my shopping is done. ALMOST. Lovely day with Christina Scott Sayer Grey, with delightful guest appearance by Megan Kolano. Tangled was GREAT. Bella is cuddly. Dylan out!”

They let a friend join them after all.

I think this is the point where I say I’m done.