Kicking the Puppy

Everybody's heard the kicked puppy cliche.  There's something so sweet and good and hopeful about a puppy where even if you kick it, it will still venture back over in your direction with a hopeful and lopsided puppy-lumber, hoping--against all odds--that this time it will win you over with it's whispy puppy breath.  But what I'm coming to see is that abusive relationships don't tend to suddenly solve themselves...and then next time you stroll back into one with hope and renewed faith, more often you exit again with a swift kick to the gut.  But don't let that stop you.  As long as that door is open a crack, I guess a puppy can nose his way back in.  The only real way to keep a puppy out, might just be to close that door...and as we all know, dogs don't have thumbs.  I guess turning that handle is almost impossible.

But are people more goldfish than dogs.  I remember an Ani Difranco song from my high school days chiming, "They say goldfish have no memory, I guess their lives are much like mine.  And the little plastic castle is a surprise every time."  I feel as though I have some friends living in a plastic castle...or dog house...and every morning when they open their eyes it's like, Whoa!  Where am I?

Not to say, in a sense, that's not a good thing.  I believe if we didn't learn to forgive people...if no one could forgive someone for a mistake, then we'd never get anywhere.  We'd probably miss out on a lot of really beautiful opportunities.  Afterall, everything is temporary, and although change is probably a lot harder than we ever give it credit for--it does seem to be possible (albeit when talking about cheaters or pedafiles or whatever else that has been deemed forever depraved.)

But to be honest, I've grown pretty weary of these kicked puppies, myself.  Isn't that awful to admit?  But I guess the difference between puppies and fish and people is that eventually, I expect most people to  accumulate enough outrage, piled on like dripping candle wax until they, themselves, are finally forced to use the wax as a backbone, pack a suitcase, and move on out of their own misery.  It's probably a lot to ask--but if they have enough hope and faith to believe their abuser will eventually change--can't they find that same hope in themselves that they can change...or at least, take a step back and see the terrible cycle they're in?  

I have a female friend who is a hopeless romantic.  She's younger than me, but informed me immediately that she was ready to be a wife and have kids.  It's another thing I didn't really understand.  I asked about establishing herself, getting a career, seeing the world.  She told me she had seen enough of the world.  She wanted a white fence and a dog now.  It's not unusual in the south to feel that way.  She's certainly not alone in her sentiments.  In fact, I'm normally the old ball who isn't cooing at babies and pining away at engagement rings--although eventually, I also want those things.  But she has always been ready and excited for that part of life--and I don't judge her for that.  I do worry, because she doesn't seem to know how to make this part of her life fall into place.  Being a self-diagnosed control freak, she has tried to make it happen for herself.  Unfortunately, her efforts have historically come with the wrong results.

Typically, she'll meet a guy who shows her some sort of friendly attention.  From this point, it always seems to be blown out of proportion.  His friendliness is taken into analysis.  Anyone willing to speak and listen is a possible mate for life.  In yet another of the oldest cliches in the book--a man won't buy the cow if he can get the milk for free--she heads to sex, almost immediately.  I think...based off of numerous conversations...her thought process is that he will initially really like the sex, but then, in those quiet moments were they are spooning in the perfect morning light--he'll look at her and really see her.  Just like a romantic comedy, he'll eventually find himself in love.  What started as a hook-up blossoms into a Lifetime love story.  In reality, that's never what happens.  

My friend fell for a guy who came back to her work after being gone for a year or more.  She tells me that before he left the first time, they had started a passionate but very old fashioned romance that was torn appart when he had to leave.  She says she will cautiously test the water to see if they could get involved again.  Over the next couple of months, we go through the same 10 (or however many) step program that I have now seen at least five times.  There's sex.  There's jealousy.  There's other girls.  There's drunken yelling.  There's a vow to never speak to him again.  There's that time she breaks and calls him.  There's that time they get back into it...you get the drill.  All the while, playing the part of Friend Number One, I ride the waves with her, best as I can.  "Oh, are we pissed today?  Wow, he's such an ass."  "Oh, he was sweet today? That's wonderful, you two are so getting married."  Bottom line though, she never actually enters a relationship with any of these guys.  They never commit to her, never make her any promises, and she just throws herself at them--yells at them, hates them, then goes back and has sex with them again...and guess what...the whole thing starts over.

In the midst of her fallout with this bachelor she moved to another state.  It was a great excuse (or hell, maybe it actually was legit, but I never got that impression) for their relationship to "never work" in his opinion.  She ate it up, but clung to the--we can make it, when it was clear they had never made it and he didn't want to make anything.  I stopped riding some of her waves and tried to gently advise her to let him go.  Since she was moving, maybe there would be a new good guy in her new home.

She could never do it.  Another guy that she had some history with (he was in the rotation of guys she slept with, cried over, gave up on, and then came back) weasled his way back into the picture against some of the toughest odds.  Earlier in the year, he had lashed out at her, called her a racist white bitch, told her that he hoped she would fail, even said that if he had some way to insure that she would fail at her new job he would do it.  She swore him off to me on the phone one day, sniffling and cursing.

I honestly thought that one was over with.  That is, until a few months back when--for God knows what reason--she had some thing happen where she decided that only he (the devil she had sworn off) would know what she was talking about, and so she called him.  He had joined the United Way.  He had stopped dealing drugs.  He was really turning his life around.  He apologized for everything.  She tells me all of this, admitting that she was starting to hear the wedding bells chiming in their future again.  

I had been yelled at on one of her previous visits back home for being mean to her.  What I had thought was honesty was taken as being hateful.  I had grown tired of listening to her continuing to analyze both of the aforementioned boys.  It was clear to me, it was clear to her other friends, it was clear to the friends of the guys--they just weren't into her.  They would use her for sex, sure, but they weren't going to be with her.  I hadn't meant to be hateful, and I don't really think that I was.  I simply told her that I thought she should move on because they weren't good guys and they had only ever used her.  She later switched her blame on me and told me that she just needed me there to support her, not to judge her.

I said okay and apologized, although at that moment I realized that she just wanted someone to listen to her air her thoughts.  She didn't care for my opinion, or the truth.  She wanted for me to bob my head up and down and make concerned noises.  It also bothered me that all of our conversations revolved around her and her guys.  She would ask me after three hours of anaylsis--as though coming up for air "What's new with you?"  If I ever attempted to answer, I could see her eyes glaze over with no interest.  I stopped trying and just started telling her things were "fine" "busy" or some standard variation.  She never pressed the issue.  Our friendship became noticeably lopsided.

Things with the United Way Reformer were "serious"...until his "crazy" ex-girlfriend came back into the picture.  (I'd just like to point out that all girls are crazy, according to men, when need be.  Honestly, he has probably described my friend as being "crazy" millions of times over to other girls.)  The 'crazy' ex had dirt on him--my friend explained.  Actually, the explanation didn't add up to me.  Something about drugs, domestic violence, court hearings.  The "crazy" was blackmailing him, stressing him out.  My friend and Mr. United Way had a trip planned for New Orleans.  He dropped out at the last minute when she called to ask him a simple question.  When she asked why...get this...he explodes on her, circa a couple of months ago when he was calling her a racist white bitch.

She calls me and says that she doesn't want for me to say "I told you so" (I don't) but unleashes the whole story of how she is SO done with him.  She had been loaning him money, too.  That was going to stop.  In my recently acquired, just let her ramble on and don't advise in any way, I listened until she was done and then told her that I was glad she was taking it so well.  We hung up.

Two weeks later, she text me, telling me she was returning home for a visit the next day.  I was concerned because she normally would ask to stay with me, but I had no room at my apartment.  I called and asked about where she was staying.  Guess where.  United Way's house.  "So things must be better there?"I ask.  Of course, he apologized.  They're doing great again.  She's coming to stay with him and wants to see me and the ol'gang while she's in town.  But she wants to be clear--they're just friends.  She decided that the last time he yelled at her was the last straw and she no longer sees a relationship with him.  Well...she might sleep with him, but that's it.

No problems here, I say.  In my mind, this is a bad idea and I don't need a fortune cookie to tell me how the weekend will go.  Afterall, he has already warned her he will be in his mandatory drug court class for 8 hours on Sunday and he is leaving town the night that she gets there to meet with his "producer".  "I'm going to get him to stay with me though,"she tells me, confidently.  "After all, I just drove like, seven hours to see him.  He's not going to leave me the first night I get there."

Well, as it would turn out, he did.  She comes to meet up with me after she has arrived in town, fuming.  He's leaving that night.  He's been a real dick to her.  He's not with her now.  And the creme de la creme, he asked her not to tell her friends where she was staying that weekend.  She gives me finger air quotes saying "I'm staying with an old high school friend."  

Something in me snaps.  What I did was really wrong and none of my business.  I can't explain why I couldn't just keep my mouth closed.  I had been doing a great job of that.  But not today.  I turned to my friend sitting on the other side of me on the couch.  A notorious gossip.  I loudly announced, "Guess who she's staying with this weekend,"shooting a thumb at my friend.  I say his name.  My friend looks at me in shock.  Not even really anger.  "Thanks a lot,"she says with an air of hurt.  My unexplained anger deflates and I apologize.  Then, I find a little more of that heat in my stomach and take back half of the apology.  "I just hope you know, that's bullshit,"I allow my honesty to come back out.  "If you were staying with me or any one of your REAL friends, you wouldn't have to lie about it.  Don't you wonder why he asked you not to tell anyone?  What's the big deal, anyway, if you are really friends?"

I shut up.  She nods, though and agrees.  "I'm going to ask him about it," she says.  "It's been bothering me.  But I'm going to wait until after the weekend.  I want this to be a good weekend."  I just say okay.  None of my business, again.  She leaves early and I didn't see her again the rest of her stay in town.  To be honest, I felt a little guilty, but I didn't miss her.  All she ever did was whine and complain but never did anything to better her situation.  She also didn't ever really seem to care about making the friendship road a two-way street.

Last night I learned that she and Mr. United Way had gotten into a fight that she had blamed on me.  Word gets back around in this fishbowl so quickly it would make your head spin.  In fact, she also used me as Mr. UW's scapegoat.  She told a mutual friend, "Don't tell anyone who I'm staying with...some people have been very vocal about disapproving."  This mutual friend told me he thought she had meant me.  He didn't realize I already knew where she had stayed that weekend.  "Oh, that's just the way she made it sound."

When she went to put up her guns with Mr. United Way, she put my name in front of her as a shield.  Apparently, I had accused him of being ashamed of her.  I had told her what an asshole he was.  I had told her that he wasn't being a good friend to her.  This fight--the reason she was yelling at him now was not because of him or her...it was because of me.  Mr. United Way told my boyfriend all of this later, who relayed the information back to me.  She STILL couldn't make him the bad guy.  She would rather it be my fault than be his fault...or be her fault.

I began to fume.  I couldn't decide if I had been dragged into their battles unwillingly, or if I had planted myself there.  Maybe she never would have reached those conclusions if it hadn't been for my coaching efforts to steer her away from these guys.  Did I imply that they weren't good enough for her and didn't treat her well?  You're damn straight.  I would imagine even the guys would honestly say the same thing.  But she doesn't want to hear it from them, she doesn't want to hear it from me, she just wants to keep sticking her nose in the door.  By making me the shield, maybe there's still a crack where she can get in.

My door's closed.