This blog is a direct continuation of the previous entry — Its about me and me. If you have not already done so, please go back and read that entry before you proceed here.

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On the tail of realizing that my own standards/impossible desires –and my inability to uphold them — lay at the heart of my negative feelings about my Mom, I started considering a few other troubled relationships in my life to see if I could find the same pattern at work again. My mind immediately flashed back to my old mooching friends, Sandy and Blake (the blog is here), who never seemed to pay for anything when we spent time together.

Ultimately, out friendship ended because of money. We sold them a car, that we had a better offer on, but I wanted to be a “good friend” and sell to them for less because they were in financial straights. A few months later, they sold us a different car in return, but it needed work to be brought up to emissions standards. Technically, the car was illegal to sell in the state of California until the emissions work was done, but again, knowing they needed the money, we bought it from them on the promise that they would get the emissions work done quickly, at their own expense, and get us the working car we had paid for. But months went by and no car. They had brought it in to the mechanic, but the work never seemed done…finally I had enough — I felt like we had gone above and beyond to be good friends and they didn’t return the favor, they didn’t respect us at all. In the end we told them to keep the money and the car and we went our separate ways, the end of years of intensely close friendship.

Now, when I look back on this, I can’t help see the same pattern emerging as I saw with my mom: I wanted to be a good friend, I wanted to be giving and generous, I wanted to be patient and let what I saw as them using me roll off my back. That was an ideal, magnanimous friend in my mind, that is who I wanted to be. But, I couldn’t muster continual patients, my friends forced me past the edge of my generosity ‘comfort zone’. I stopped hanging out with them not just because I felt like they took advantage, but because they made me feel lesser –like a bad friend and an undesirable person. There was a feeling in my heart, each and every time they made me pay, of anger and discomfort because my selfish reflex didn’t jive with the compassionate, always giving, good friend Alana I wanted to see myself as.

What is more, I wanted my good friends to act in a certain way –namely I wanted them to do things I believe confirmed me, made me feel good and special and loved. The problem with all the mooching was I began to wonder if their friendship was validating my awesomeness or validating their want for money.

Obviously, there are a ton of wrong views in these thoughts: That good friends are by definition people who are generous and giving; or that the purpose of friends is to validate; or that Blake and Sandy’s behavior was mutually exclusive with respect; or that the reasons for the car not being done were about me, or them for that matter; that making us pay regularly was taking advantage and that the non-monetary things they contributed to our life had lesser value. I dealt with many of these, years ago, in the original blog (the blog is here). But the truth is, none of these views triggered powerful enough emotions that they would have led me to dissolve such a dear relationship on their on.

What triggered emotions strong enough to break up with Blake and Sandy was me and me: It was the fact that my emotional response, to their behavior, reminded me of the limits on my own self-imagined magnanimity.  It was always me, my views of right and wrong, my standards for good and bad friends, and my need for friendships to validate my view of myself…I am starting to suspect that, in fact, it is ALWAYS about me and me.