The Loss of a Friendship

I remember the first time I met a guy online.  Jed* was 7 years my senior.  At 21, I had never dated anyone older than me and was intrigued.  Jed was so cool.  He was a DJ!  He was fresh out of a long-term relationship, which to me meant that he was emotionally mature, but not ready to date seriously.  After meeting in an AOL chat room (no, this actually wasn’t 1985) and IM’ing for a few days, Jed and I met up at a local bar, where I had lots of friends present.  He was every bit as cute as his picture and ten times as sweet as his chat personality.  We started dating quickly, but it only took a couple of weeks for things to start a downhill slide.  “Fresh out of a relationship” was apparently code for “still dating” and “so cool” turned out to be more like “what an asshole.”  We are still acquaintances today, but when I look at his Facebook profile, I can’t remember what I saw in him and what we ever had in common. I met a few other men online.  Some turned out to be nice guys and still friends of mine today.  Some turned out to be complete jerks, and while I got myself into some weird and potentially dangerous situations, I was lucky to never really get into trouble.

Years later, while engaged to a guy named Craig*, I joined the message boards at a popular wedding planning website.  After a few months of dealing with drama on the boards, I left.  Then at 24, pregnant with my first child, I found myself joining the sister site for newlyweds.  Even though I was becoming a single mother, I found a lot of welcoming ladies on the baby boards.  It was there that I met two girls who are probably the best friends I have ever had.  Tasha and Nicole** are nothing short of amazing.  I am so fortunate to have them in my life.  I can’t imagine anything that could happen to drive us apart.

I met my husband online.  We met on a free dating website and were 100% together within a month from “clicking.”  Even though we started out our relationship 500 miles apart and it being apart was very challenging, our bond was always easy.  I never doubted that we would somehow come through it.

Then there’s Lars*.  I met this photographer when he submitted a wedding to my planning blog and I discovered his amazing talent.  While talking about photography and blogging, we became friends.  We called each other, emailed, IMed, and texted almost daily.  I considered him my real, true friend and now, nearly a year after our first contact, he is all but eliminated from my life.  How could this happen?  Well, it’s business.  I guess for him, it always was.  In an effort to protect his identity and privacy, I won’t get into the specifics of what happened.  In a nutshell, I was promised something for my blog, then he took that away and gave it to another blogger.  I am a super forgiving person and I let him know that I was unhappy with what he did.  All I wanted was an apology, but what I got was laughter.  He laughed at me.  I was honestly and truly upset and he laughed.  That quickly, it was over.  I have since tried reaching out to him and I have gotten nothing in return.  It’s hard to accept, but that’s what I have to do.  We are still Facebook friends and follow each other on Twitter, but that’s where it ends, I guess.  I can only assume that he didn’t view our friendship the same way as him.  I guess it was always just business.

*Names were changed to protect the losers.  Um, I mean, the innocent.

**Names were not changed because these ladies deserve all my love.

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