Controlling

A friend of mine just called in tears because she was just dumped by a friend who told her she was oversensitive and controlling. He told her, "If you don't want to be friends with me anymore, I could care less." This came as a total shocker because you won't meet a quieter, seemingly docile, kind-natured man.

What precipitated this confrontation was a incident involving a volleyball team they are both on. She is the captain and she notified the team via e-mail to be at the courts 15 minutes before the game to warm up. He and another teammate was already there playing a game with some other people when she arrived and were just wrapping up a game. They started playing another game and she got upset because he didn't ask her to play with them....she was expecting he'd stop and come to another court to warm up with his team. When she let him know this, he said, "We're already warmed up." Knowing her, she probably was in captain mode and came across as ordering him to come warm up with them.

Apparently, she was cross and upset during the match and they lost, and, according to her, so was he. She called me that night saying how upset and pissed she was.

She couldn't take it any longer, so she called him and let him know that he had hurt her feelings by "excluding" her, and he was very blunt and angry, telling her that she always blows things out of proportion, she doesn't "own" him, and that he was sick of it. To my knowledge, it was their first fight, but he's heard her complain about other people who have, in her mind, mistreated her. I guess he was of the mindset I'm in: when will I be the target of her insecurity and sky-high expectations?

You know....I'm on the fence with this one. She IS an extremely sensitive person whose feelings are hurt quite easily. One by one, her friends and lovers are dropping away, put off by her confrontations that they have hurt her feelings. I'm about the only one left, and I feel the dependency growing. I can actually see it coming: she's going to expect me to do something or act a certain way in the interest of "friendship," and if I don't deliver, she will confront me and tell me that that isn't the way friends should act. She is a very high-maintenance friend.

Perhaps she and I are friends because I see much of myself in her. I'm sensitive as well, and when someone hurts my feelings, I have to let it be known eventually. Sometimes it's been met with compassion; other times it's been met with anger and defensiveness. What I have over her, hopefully, is that I try to see where the other person is coming from and change accordingly. Generally, my sensitivity is directed to lovers, whereas everyone in Beth's life may feel like they're walking on eggshells around her.

So, I suppose that my friendship with her is not necessarily for a season or a lifetime, but for a reason: I can see how her extreme sensitivity drives people away from her when what she wants is for them to draw closer. Where is the line drawn? I don't think her friend handled it well at all, to be honest, but I suppose that he felt it just wasn't worth the aggravation of being her emotional caretaker?

Just a thought,
OB

Packrats

Dad's "Office," where he displays his own unique way to manage utter chaos.

I spent the weekend at my parents' house. I hadn't visited them since Christmas. Each time I go home, I am flabbergasted at how much stuff keeps piling up in that house. They've been there since 1974, so it's to be expected that stuff would accumulate. But they don't throw ANYTHING away.

For example, when I was home for Christmas, my dad was going through boxes that were pulled from the attic to make room for a renovation. He comes downstairs with this pink taffeta prom dress I wore in 10th grade, as well as a black New Romantic-style jacket (same one Nick Rhodes is wearing on the cover of the second issue of Duran Duran's first album). Both are covered in mildew stains and God-knows-what-else....rat crap? Insulation?

Our three-stall barn, complete with hayloft, which used to board horses and now boards groundhogs and family relics.

Dad marches into the den holding the items up and says with a smile, "Look what I found in the basment? Do you want it?" I said, "Goodness no. They're out of style, stained, and I couldn't fit an ankle into them, much less my butt. Why would I want them?" He said, "I thought you might want them for the memories. I'll set them aside for a yard sale or for Goodwill." Ummm...what on earth makes him think anyone would pay money to have these items? I told him to throw them away, but the next day, I saw them tossed into a box in the basement.

The hallway in the "Hannibal Lector" basement

That's my Dad for you. Classic Depression era. He can't throw anything away, but he spends copious amounts of time moving it around from room to room in futile hope that the piles of junk will will somehow get smaller and more manageable. Every time I go home it's a true trip down memory lane. I'll find a coat I wore when I was six years old, back issues of Bop magazine with Duran Duran or on the cover or Fangoria magazine, pillowcases full of old notes I passed in class...it's always fun to navigate my memories when I go home, but the sheer volume of stuff in their house makes me claustrophobic and makes me wonder if my parents have that "pack-rat" disorder that's been making news lately.