I always tell my friends they can speak to me about whatever it is they want, whenever they want and I really, honestly mean that. Most of my friends are true friends - they put up with my crazy anti-social behavior and will listen to what I have to say as much as I try to do the same for them. I am learning, however, that there is a difference between friends who talk to me about all the things going in their lives and the ones who only tell me about the bad things. I don't know why I have been so slow to figure this out. Maybe it is because I myself will drop off everyone's radar from time to time, so it is taking me forever to realize that a few people do the same to me when their lives are good, then only look me up when disaster has struck again.
For example, one person that I have considered a friend for almost two years now is having a difficult time in life. He recently lost his girlfriend and his job and is suing his former employer over something (he told me why but it didn't make any sense). As he was telling me all of this, I started thinking about all the conversations I have had with him over the last year or so and they have only occurred when his life is falling down around him. If that is true, then why am I still friends with this guy? I guess the answer to that is when I first met him, he seemed on top of things. And even though very quickly he started having issues, it took me a while to figure out that his life is one big issue and that forever after that is all I would see about his life. As I look back on my conversations with this guy, I realized that all the signs were there and I only have myself to blame for spending time listening to this person.
I think I will call this guy Niemann, just to make it easier for you guys to follow along - believe me, it is kooky so you will have a hard enough time. The first time I met Niemann in person, I remember thinking that he didn't look as annoying as I knew he could be - warning sign number one that I was oblivious to. He was coming to the account I worked on and had been emailing me for weeks asking the same questions over and over and generally making me loco. When he finally showed up, he wouldn't even make eye contact when talking to me, something that really drives me crazy. I start freaking out that I have grown a big wart on my nose or have something stuck to my teeth and it is so hideously ugly people can't stand to look at me. And when I say he wouldn't make eye contact, I should say he wouldn't actually look at me at all - he wasn't even staring at my boobs. He was just sort of focused on his own shoes.
After getting past day one, Niemann didn't seem so bad. I thought he was just a little shy, which I understand. Just because I have a big mouth and will talk to anyone doesn't mean that I am not quivering with fear on the inside - I am terribly shy but I force myself to get past it so I can function in life. I made a point to say hello to Niemann if I saw him and ask how he was getting on with his new team and eventually he started talking to me more easily, which was good. We were working in an unusual situation with a very small group of people and it was essential that we could all get along.
After about a week or so, Niemann and I had lunch together, not an uncommon thing in our group. He started opening up to me more about himself - talking about work and asking me for background on the team. Over the next week, he started talking to me more and telling me how difficult he found working with this team and for this company to be. I didn't mind listening to what he had to say and maybe I thought that by saying how he felt out loud, it would help him - it works for me sometimes. The gist of what Niemann had to say was that he was very unsatisfied with his job and that it wasn't what he thought it would be when he began working with us. I told him that he only has one life and if he isn't happy with what is going on right now, then he should do something to change it - he should actively go after what he wants.
A few days later I was out with some friends after work and my cell phone started freaking out. Niemann had emailed a text message to my phone that was so long, it came as 12 chunks of data. At first, I thought it was a joke and that he was just messing around with my phone. But as I read the pieces of the message, I started really worrying that he meant every word he wrote. Basically, Niemann decided to take me at my word and go for what he really wanted in life, which somehow had become me. I guess he thought that I was flirting with him or sending him a coded come-hither message when I told him to go after what he wants. I thought I was just talking to him. Silly me. His message basically said he was totally gaga over me and was too afraid to tell me in person so he was texting me. Have you ever heard of anything more romantic? Me either.
It was hard not to let that unasked for text message ruin my evening, but I couldn't help quietly freaking out about it instead of paying attention to my friends. I knew that I was going to have to deal with it somehow, but I had no clue what to say. I should have been flattered that he was interested in me, but for some reason all I felt was angst. I don't think that was exactly the feeling he was trying to inspire in me.
I am not the most aware individual when it comes to my personal life. I am always the last one to know when a guy is interested in me. It never occurs to me that a man I have been hanging out with might be looking for more than friendship and when he finally gets my attention, I am so surprised that I don't always handle it well. It takes a very patient guy to put up with that. I wouldn't call Niemann a patient guy - more of the adult temper tantrum sort.
The next day, I still hadn't decided what to do about the issue - I knew for certain that I was definitely not interested in this guy for a variety of reasons, but how was I supposed to tell him that and still be able to work with him? I felt guilty that I had somehow led him into thinking I was open for a relationship beyond that of just a usual workplace friendship. Eventually, the whole issue of how to address the problem was taken out of my hands - Niemann called me and like a dork, I answered the phone. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? This had to be dealt with at some time so why not get it over with as soon as possible?
Right from the start Niemann was not a happy man. I guess he had spent the whole night essentially sleepless waiting for me to respond. That made me feel awful. I should have at least said I would talk to him about it the next day rather than not saying anything at all. When he heard that I was completely caught off guard and didn't feel the same way about him, he hung up on me. Ok, I thought. That wasn't good but it wasn't horrible either. Now I just have to see what happens on Monday. Silly Lisa, easy outs are for kids. About 5 minutes later, Niemann called me back and then the fun really started. I don't think I said more than 10 words in the whole hour or so that he ranted in my ear. Looking back on it now, I can't really understand why I tolerated that behavior. I mean, I didn't ASK him to decide he was lusting after me. I didn't tell him to please, please choose me to be the ever so grateful recipient of his affection. The only thing I can think of is that I felt guilty that he had poured his heart out in a text message to me and I rejected him. It takes real guts to spew your feelings out in an electronically sent love note to a person who you work with that has never encouraged you romantically.
About half way through the call, I realized that Niemann wasn't ranting at me about me anymore. He was just ranting about life in general. In his view, his life was a big mess and I was just the latest thing to go wrong. Looking back on it now, I realized THAT is where I made my big mistake. I stopped feeling bad that I didn't want to jump into the sack with him and instead started feeling sympathetic that his life was so messed up. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to. I can be a good listener, so that's what I did. I listened. And listened. By the end of it, my ear was numb and my cell battery was dying, so I was given a reprieve. What I didn't know at the time is that the conversation was an example of how my friendship with Niemann would be going forward - painful and energy sapping.
It wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be going back into the office and working with Niemann, mostly because he was in the process of pissing off everyone on the team and would eventually be moved to another account. When he did have time to talk to me, it was to complain about how he was being targeted and all the BS was career maneuvering being done by unscrupulous people. As naive as I can be about my personal life, I am completely aware of office politics and did not have the same impression about what was going on. However, I still felt bad for Niemann because he was just so AWKWARD. And I think I was also just so happy he wasn't chasing after me or making my life difficult at work. Another lady love had entered the picture.
Niemann doesn't live in San Francisco. Lots of the people I work with don't live here. Instead, they fly all over the place, going wherever the job takes them, living their lives mostly in hotels instead of the homes they pay mortgages on. Niemann had a favorite hotel in SF, like most of these vagabond co-workers do, and one thing he particularly loved about it was the wine bar. And one very lovely waitress who worked at the wine bar. One day, Niemann walked into the office and he seemed different - lighter or brighter or something. I commented that he seemed to be having a good day and he proceeded to tell me all about this waitress that he was in love with. He had spent every night over the last week or so sitting at the wine bar talking to her and she was perfect. Wonderful. Magnificent. And, she was going out on a date with him that night. Cool, I thought. I am happy that he is finding something good in life. For some dumb reason, I never questioned at the time that he could go from being (supposedly) madly in love with me to madly in love with another woman all in about two weeks. Or maybe I was just relieved to know I was off the hot seat. Sometimes, I am a complete chicken. Cluck cluck.
After telling me all about his new love, I didn't really talk to Niemann for about a month. I saw him at work and we would make office chitchat, but nothing beyond that. Ours was a busy office with plenty of work to do and time could just fly by. One day, Niemann stopped by my desk and mentioned that we hadn't really talked in a long time and invited me out for a coffee. We hadn't even made it to the elevator before he started ranting about his girlfriend and how it was all going to hell. She was too clingy, she wanted too much from him, and she never seemed to want to listen to him when he needed to talk. It seems this woman expected him to talk to her on days when he wasn't in San Francisco. She actually expected him to talk to her almost every day, even if it was just a quick 15 minute phone call. Can you believe the nerve of her? And if it was a short call, she would complain that he never listened to what was going on in her life. He just wanted to talk about himself and his boring job.
I was stuck in the elevator listening to Niemann literally ranting about this woman and all I could think of was escape. Except, I could see he was upset - really upset. And it is hard for me to ignore that. I feel like I just kicked a puppy and then laughed as it cried when I try to ignore someone who just needs to get a bad day off their chest. Yes, I am an idiot and I bring all this pain and suffering on myself.
It took 45 minutes to get the stupid cup of coffee. The rant about his girlfriend turned into a rant about his job and how much he hated it in our office. I suggested that he try to move into another department or that maybe his girlfriend had an actual point - it is hard to have a relationship with someone you don't talk to or who you feel doesn't listen to you. It all rolled off his back like water off a duck. I don't think it even penetrated his ear drums - he literally could not hear me talking. I finally just stood up and started walking out the door of the coffee shop and he followed me, talking non-stop all the way. I felt like he was sucking all the oxygen out of my immediate area and I was going to suffocate. I had to wonder if he would even notice if I turned blue and dropped dead or if he would just continue yakking at my corpse.
I think it comes as no surprise that Niemann didn't last very long in our office. He was clearly not happy there and the management of our team was more than willing to move him off elsewhere in the company. On his last day in our office, Niemann stopped by my desk to thank me for being such a good friend to him and said that he hoped we would stay in contact. He really appreciated and understood that I had put up with a lot from him and he wanted me to know it hadn't gone unnoticed. I had been sort of avoiding him since the whole ranting in the coffee shop thing and I was totally surprised to hear him acknowledge that he spent most of his conversation time with me freaking out. It was nice to know that I am not a complete idiot and that he wasn't as self absorbed as he seemed.
Except of course, I was totally wrong. Niemann does have the capacity to care about other people, but he is so wrapped up in himself and is so hyper-critical of other people that he can't maintain true interest in anyone else for very long. Every little thing in the world that comes into his orbit is sucked in and turned into either a reflection of his ego or an attack on it. Take our 'friendship' for example. After he left the account, I would hear from Niemann every once in a while, usually when he had alienated everyone around him and I was the only person left. He would always ask me how I was doing, but it was only a formality. He would barely let me begin to tell him anything before he would start in on the saga of his life. And none of it was good. He would begin dating another woman who was always 'the one', but then as soon as she started really getting comfortable with the relationship, he would have 101 reasons why it was all wrong and then he would end it. He always seemed to be working with idiots who didn't appreciate him and was moved around a lot within the company. It was getting to the point where I was deliberately ignoring his calls - I just didn't have the energy to listen to him tell me the same things over and over. The only new details were names and places.
Right around Christmas 2009, Niemann called me up and it was the same story: he was under appreciated at work and his latest girlfriend was driving him crazy. She had told him repeatedly that she loved him and wanted him to tell her if he could ever feel the same. A reasonable request, in my opinion. Every girl needs to know if she should just cut her losses or keep on keepin' on. Niemann said he was going to end it with her, but he felt like he should wait until after the holidays because he didn't want to ruin them for her. I don't really have an opinion about that. Is it better to let someone enjoy their holidays but find out later their other half was plotting the end of the relationship? Or should a clean break be made as soon as possible so everyone can move on? That one is a flip of a coin, I think.
About a week after New Year's Eve, Niemann called me again, sobbing his little heart out. It seems that his unwanted girlfriend had dumped him. In the time I had known him, this had never happened. Niemann had always called all the shots and did all the wooing and dumping. I was actually seriously concerned about the damage to his ego - I wasn't sure it could stand it. I also was laughing my ass off because it had only been a few weeks ago that he was seriously talking about leaving HER. So what was the problem? I guess as soon as she dumped him, Niemann decided that he really was in love with her and now his heart was well and truly broken. Shattered into teeny tiny irreparable pieces that not even gorilla glue could fix.
Am I a mean friend for laughing at his pain? Probably. I am a bit of a slow one when it comes to things other people seem to instinctively know about life and I was gradually realizing that whatever my relationship was with Niemann, it wasn't a friendship. So that meant I could be guiltlessly mean and get some of my own back. I did feel bad that he was upset, but Niemann was ALWAYS upset. I had become numb to the whole drama of it - his life was like a Mexican soap opera except without all the big hair and women with long nails screaming Nada! at the top of their lungs and crying all the time.
Instead of just telling Niemann that I couldn't talk right then and that we would catch up later (I knew it would be at least a month before I heard from him again), I did something I try never to do with crazy people - I told him what I really thought about the situation. I laid it out the way I saw it: Niemann charmed the dickens out of yet another lady (as a salesy dude, he could be very smooth when he wanted to be), romanced her for a while until she started actually believing the persona he projected, then turned into the wicked warlock of the west when she had the nerve to plan things out long term. But, he sobbed into my poor ear, I LOVED her! No, you didn't. That only happened when she went off script and dumped your tuchas in the gutter. Needless to say, Nieman was very shocked. I had only ever listened to him before. I had never, ever told him what I thought. It was amazing how fast those tears dried up and he started telling me how much I had hurt him and that he thought I was his friend and how could I treat him this way? Oh boo hoo, I thought. I accidentally ( or was it?) laughed at that and he was so mad, he hung up on me. Uh oh - was this the end of our beautiful relationship?
A year ago, even six months ago, treating him like that would have made me feel horribly guilty because I did consider him a friend. Other people (much wiser than me) had pointed out that he never seemed to be around when I needed a friend and only ever called when his life was completely a mess. Maybe it fed my ego in some way to have someone talk to me when his life was so down. I'm not like that - the worse my life gets, the less I talk about it. Or maybe (even worse) I felt somehow better about my life when he would call and I would hear how horrible his was. I hope that isn't true. I want to believe I truly do care about people outside myself.
After my lack of appropriate response to his agony, I really didn't think I would hear from Niemann again. It was a big surprise, then, when about six weeks later he called to 'catch up'. It was like the last conversation had never happened - he didn't mention his latest ex-girlfriend and I didn't ask. He actually even listened to me for about 5 minutes when I told him what was new in my life. Then, the drama started again. Niemann was getting laid off and he was furious with the company. Ok, that is a normal reaction. I was laid off last year and while I wasn't furious with the business decision, I was pretty damn angry that it happened at all. The difference between Niemann and me was that I KNEW that mine was only a business decision while I was fairly certain that with him, it was a way for the company to finally, legitimately get a difficult non-productive employee off the books. Give him a severance package and say auf wiedersehen.
Niemann's angst wasn't only that he was getting laid off. He was also upset with the company for perceived slights during his time there and had decided to sue over it. More drama to tell me all about. What he didn't know, though, is that I had reached my breaking point. I did it pretty quietly, but it still happened. I literally wanted to scream into the phone that he just needed to shut up. Just SHUT UP! That would have been fun and made me feel better for a time, but just like ice cream and sexy shoes, I had this stupid idea that I needed to deny myself the pleasure. Instead, I lied and told him I had a meeting to go to and I would get back to him later. Which I haven't done. Because in a past life, I was a cowering, belly groveling organism who hated to tell people they aren't wanted around. And I really don't want Niemann around because whatever else our relationship is, it sure isn't a friendship.
Niemann has called and texted a few times and I have either ignored the phone or texted him back to say I couldn't talk then. In my chickenhearted way, I know I am hoping he will just fade away and forget all about me. It bothers me that I made such a poor choice of a friend. Did I really believe that he just had a tough life and needed a loyal friend? Was it all a big ego trip for me? I honestly can't say for sure and that upsets me more than anything else. I do hope that the simple fact I am even asking myself these questions means that I really was just a ninny who was waiting for the good side of Niemann to show up more often than the bad side and that I did try in my own way to be a good friend. I think in this instance being an oblivious idiot with a hopeful heart is humiliating, but better than being Niemann.
I have my share of folks that are like Neimann. Those insufferable dumb dumbs don't get it when I don't return their calls, ignore their texts, and firebomb their cars...
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