Frenemies

What do you when one person within a group you belong to is making that experience distinctly unpleasant for you? When something that is supposed to be fun, becomes so difficult? Do you give in and walk away, losing the good and the bad? Do you quietly stay and put up with it? Do you make a stand and force people to make a choice, you or them?

It is particularly hard when that person is someone you used to be close to. He was to be Van's best man, if we had married a couple of years back. He is someone I have known for 5 - 6 years.

He is, on the surface a lovely, jovial person, with a great sense of humour. One of the best of people. Underneath however is someone who can not move on from a disagreement. Whose perfect memory never lets the past be, but who can not see that his memories are always coloured by how he perceived them at the time, how he felt then. He can never be truly objective, but can not see that....

The result is that, difficulties and disagreements from our entire friendship have slowly piled up, like someone saving a pound a week in a bank account for all that time. He can't get past all that and doesn't wish to.

An ex-friend is worse than some one you don't really know. With an ex-friend you both know too much. I know the hurtful things he has said about other people, who we are all still friends with. I know the role he has played in other peoples disagreements. I know the secrets he has repeated.

And slowly all the anger he holds in his heart has won through his lovely personality. The fierce discussions / rows became more frequent. They resulted in me choosing to stay away for periods of time. Then it became obvious to me that there was no going back within our friendship. I then had the choice.

I chose to quietly leave, but only because it suited me to. The group had become stagnant and I could remain friends with those I wished to anyway. The group was not so very important to me, I could not walk away. I don't like unpleasantness.

F though, chose a different path. The group was much more a central part of his life. He has fought to stay so hard. Avoiding confrontations but slowly the weight of the ex-friends machinations is making it harder and harder for him to quietly stay. He has chosen to take a break, to help with the wedding and the house and let things cool off.

But we both know, that when he returns he has a battle to fight and win or lose, chances are he will end up leaving the group. And it makes us both so sad, that it has come to this.

But what do you do?

But then again, the group is not what it used to be, the ex-friend has risen in prominence and taken his little clique with him. I think their role in the group has made it a much less pleasant place for people to be. The number of people remaining in the group is not so very many.

I look forward to the day when F walks away and the ex-friend is no longer something I have to hear about. I chose to have nothing to do with him sometime ago. F has found this much harder.