I have a very old friend, since my son has been born I have seen her only a couple of times. She lives a couple of hours from me but every time I try to suggest something she doesn't committ on a date and it never happens. We were close once, lived together at one point and I was even her bridesmaid. I don't think I am being pushy, I phoned today for the first time in 6 months suggesting she comes for lunch one day, she said she'd love to and would look in her diary. Later a 10 second conversation she said she was busy and didn't know when she'd be free.
I hadn't phoned for a while because the last time had been when I'd suggested something some christmassy thing and she'd just not said yes or no to a date so I arranged with someone else and didn't hear back from her.
anyway this is the letter...
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to x
I hope you still read your emails and get this. It was good talking to you on the phone today but there is something I?d like to ask you.
We have known each other a long time, 25 years, but I feel that for the last couple of years you have just not wanted to know anymore. I may be wrong, I can?t possibly know what it is like to have 4 children and know your life must be really busy. But I do feel that whatever I have tried to suggest in terms of meeting up you have not committed to or not been interested in.
Maybe you just want to give up on us being friends and maybe you?re right but I would be sad by that and wonder why.
Obviously, our lives are different but I think this is from when I got pregnant with DS and I wonder whether you disapprove and/or feel I tricked someone to get pregnant or something. I say this because I remember when I said to you when DS was small that I?d like another baby and you said I could ask DS's father. At the time I was very hurt by that because you had and still have no idea of the circumstances with DS father and the circumstances were absolutely nothing like what you seemed to imply. I don?t talk about DS's father to people often or to people I don?t see often for many reasons. It seemed to me that you wrongly judged me about DS.
Maybe this is completely off the mark, like I said you may just be busy but it took a lot of effort to call you today because I already felt this way about our friendship. Like I said maybe I just don?t understand your life but when I asked you to lunch I was meaning sometime in the next few months let?s put in a date. It has felt in the past when you haven?t committed to a date that you wanted to see if something better was going to come along and today you sounded very abrupt and strange when you rang back later to say you were busy for the time being and made me come to the conclusion that something else is up.
I also have a busy life, I work 3 days a week and do 15 hours on top of that at home in the evenings as well as looking after DS on my own but if I want to see someone I make sure I put a date aside even if it?s ages in the future.
If I don?t hear from you I will always be sad but will know I guess that maybe I was right. If that is the case though, please remember though that just as your children mean the world to you, DS does to me and his wellbeing and protection and therefore what I am willing to disclose about him to people is more important to me than any friendship.
I would be really grateful if you let me know what has happened but if I don?t hear from you I want you to know that you have meant a lot to me and still do.
x