MY FRIEND MUNTADER

I so wanna write now, but I don't have the time to go into any sort of detail...maybe when I've finally finished what I'm supposed to be doing, I'll elaborate...I should elaborate. Hopefully I'll remember the details by then. Again, my Best Friend's just making me miserable. We were doing good for a while...you'd think by now that I would recognize that our getting along is the anomaly; that her actually having a positive outlook on life is simply unusual. It's just so really frustrating. I've gotta get out of here...I just don't know if I can afford to on my one job alone... I don't wanna have to work two jobs for just me...it would destroy me to work so hard for no one but myself...

We were yelling arguing (shortly after she opened the windows too...excellent timing Best Friend) almost instantly after I told her that if we were to renew the lease that we would be paying an extra $10 each per month. She seemed genuinely surprised that costs go up over time. She later said that she "knows" these things, but sometimes I wonder. She's just like my customers at work...they fight tooth and nail over pennies. She's then railing against our apartment again and how much she hates being here because it's so small. She again mentions that she feels bad that I live in such a tiny room (she shows this sympathy by -- I'm stuck saying "refusing", but it goes beyond that -- refusing to give me the half of the hallway closet that I deserve (I'm paying half the rent after all...we each have a closet in our respective rooms)). I don't even have a shelf in the linen closet nor do I have one in the medicine cabinet behind our bathroom mirror. Somehow I tolerate this. I'm even stowing our fan under my bed instead of in our closet. That's gonna have to change as things I've inherited from Dad can go nowhere except beneath my bed for the time-being. I know this is gonna result in an argument. She uses the argument that she has more things and therefore is entitled to the space instead of renting a storage space for her winter clothes during the summer and vice-versa. I've suggested the storage space only to get a...uh...indignant reaction like the very idea of her paying extra to store her extra things we don't have the space for is somehow absurd. It's never "I must have too many things...maybe I should get rid of some of it", it's "the apartment's too small".

She shows no sense of generosity. The whole time we've been here, she has never once brought home dinner for us and I've taken her out no less than four times since being here (and I'm not counting the first week we were here before we had a table and we had to eat out practically every night. She did pay for one dinner...after I had paid for four). I know it sounds petty; but again, the idea of her treating me to something only gets her to react to the very suggestion as though I am again somehow being absurd.

She often points out that I don't wear fashionable clothes as one of the reasons girls don't find me attractive. I've told her that I wouldn't know what to get and that she could perhaps help me get something only to get her to tell me that she doesn't know how to shop for guys (which I don't get because she should know what would look good on me even she couldn't imagine it...that's what shopping's all about, right?). I remember during one such argument suggesting that we go out together and she help me out by buying me one outfit that she thinks I would look good in, just to test it out. I don't even think I finished my sentence before I got an indignant reply about why should she have to buy me anything. Again, I'm not begging for gifts, but a recognition that I've bought for her (with money I could've easily spent on myself when she didn't have money herself) numerous outfits, shirts, dresses, pants, skirts, and shoes over the years would've been nice. I'm not looking for dollar-for-dollar compensation because I'm not like that...but not even once? Am I so very wrong for wanting to be treated once in a while? When Roommate showed up at my old place with a bag of Dorito's corn chips (the good kind) the week after I had either praised them or complained about how my place of employment no longer offers the house-version of corn chips anymore -- whatever the reason -- When Roommate showed up a week later with a bag of corn chips for me, he showed me more generosity in both thought and dollars than my Best Friend has in probably the last five years combined (and I'm not counting the Bon Buffet dinner she treated me too when we moved here because she openly admitted having felt bad that I was picking up the tab on so many dinners...negates the spirit in my mind).

I really feel like I'm losing her and yes, that bothers me. And it bothers me even more that she doesn't seem to have any clue that this is so. I've told her that to her face and I don't think it even registered. Have I really wasted almost fourteen years of my life on her? Have I?

I mentioned to Best Friend that based on intelligence from a friend at work, there's a customer (who's a friend to two regular customers and an employee) who likes me. I'm told she's shy and that's why she hasn't been saying anything. I feel all secret-agenty since I'm not "supposed to know this information" telling her to have her friends become a bunch of noodges to get this thing moving along. I'll see where this goes. I'm skeptical, but glad to have some potentially good news. Anyway, I tell this to The Vegan and I get the friend reaction which crudely summarized is, "That's good to hear. I'm happy for you. Good luck!". I tell this to Best Friend, and the reaction is immediately how this negatively impacts her. Something along the lines of, "Great now you'll have a girlfriend and I won't [have a boyfriend]" and since she's young (likely 19...not too thrilled about that honestly, but whatever), she goes on (since she's 29) about how she thinks it disgusting that guys go for girls that young and I shouldn't be -- like I was going for this girl...this is just as much a surprise to me -- and blah, blah, blah, me, me, me. Not once was she happy for me. I would've even accepted the proceed with caution sentiment of "Don't get your hopes up in case this doesn't work out or even happen". That would've been fine, believe me. But no, it's all about Best Friend because...why wouldn't it be. I don't think I've ever been around anyone so negative. She's so corrosive. Sometimes I really do believe that she is incapable of feeling happy for another person because the idea of caring for someone who isn't herself is just...alien. And if I don't talk to her for a while, I get shit about how we never talk, or hang out, or do anything anymore and I just can't get it through her seemingly retarded head that it's her. I've only yelled at a few people in my life. I've yelled at Mom, my Brother, I may have yelled at Dad once but I honestly can't recall because I kind of remember Dad yelling at me once, but for what, I can't remember right now. I've yelled at my Coworker and I, of course, have yelled at Best Friend...many, many, many times. I've had customers piss me the fuck off and I've never yelled at them. I'm surprised, honestly, that I've ever yelled at Coworker...I'm usually better than that. But outside of him and my family (which may be par for the course and therefore discountable), Best Friend's the only person I yell at and regularly too. That can't be good. I don't like raising my voice. I don't like passionate arguments...it's not my style...and yet...constantly with her and only her...

And she'll hit me on occasion. She poured water over my head once. She threw her shoe at me yesterday. I'm tired of her shitting on this apartment. I know it's not perfect, but I can't get it through to her that being within walking distance of my work was a precondition of me moving in with her. Since we moved in, I feel I can take it that she has accepted such an arrangement...or has she? Every time she puts this apartment down for being too expensive (never mind she only pays HALF the rent...good luck finding a 2 BR for $662.50), puts it down for being too small, puts it down for her being unable to entertain guests for the aforementioned reason...I can't help but feel she's expressing resentment for having moved in with me. And she will mention that she could've gotten a bigger apartment for less, but couldn't because of me since I can't drive (and can't afford to without a second job now). So, I yelled at her. I'm tired of hearing this. I told her to just go and get one of these bigger, cheaper apartments. This is over a ten dollar increase in our respective shares of the rent. She denies this, but it was at that point that the yelling and indignancy began, so I feel that this is the case because if it weren't, then why the yelling right after I brought it up? I told her (from the kitchen) that she has two options: She can either just find another bigger, cheaper apartment elsewhere like she claims she can and shut the fuck up or she can stay here with me and pay the extra ten dollars a month and shut the fuck up. There really are no other options. I then hear loud, approaching footfalls and feel a heeled shoe strike me on the back.

She has not apologized for this childish reaction, nor has she ever apologized for striking me or pouring water on me or messing up my desk when I wouldn't give her a stamp (she had over three months to get stamps of her own) among other such reactions and wonders why I hold such resentment for her. She's actually told me that she hates that I get mad at her for things she did in the past...like I can get mad at her for things she hasn't done yet. I may as well...that would be a page out of her book...making up a fact, deciding that it must be true, and then accepting it as true. An example of this is her obsessive attraction to a man named First Angel who dicked her over (both senses). She'll see that he friended some eighteen year old girl and decide that the reason he did so is because he's fucking her. And then in the next sentence she'll say something along the lines of "I can't believe that he's fucking her. What does he see in her?" Remember, this is based on nothing but her supposition. She made it up and then decided it was true. After all, this knowledge came from Best Friend and Best Friend's a reliable witness.

I lost my place...I'm frustrated and mad. I'm trying to remember when Best Friend was last my friend, but I honestly can't give you even an approximate year. And if her behavior during Dad's funeral counts...she actually gave me three whole days of not being her selfish self...and all it cost me was my father. If I only had ten dads who could've all died sequentially...I could've had a whole month of peace. She's a parasite. We must have been symbiotic at one point...but those days have long since past, haven't they?

I guess I did have time :-/

P.S. -- I found twenty dollars at work tonight. The past two times Best Friend and I fought majorly, I've found money at work. Should I take this as the universe itself actually feeling pity for me? :-)

(originally posted to That Other Journal on March 26, 2009)