Friends can sometimes SUCK...

I'm sitting here thinking that friends are a good thing when you get along with them...and a terrible thing when you don't. Or you think you have been wronged. Or you KNOW you have been wronged in some way.

I belong to a very small, very successful quilt group in my small town. We started out with 5 members and, at our highest point, had 17. Most of the time, there are 10 or 11 that attend on a regular basis. The "originator" of the group and I were best friends when it started...but I was not considered one of the "coordinators" which was fine by me as I had so many things going on already. It was started out to be a "no guilt quilt group"...no officers, no dues, no responsibilities...just meet a couple of times a month, bring your own projects to work on, bond with other ladies, share ideas, etc. As it evolved, it began to get more and more complicated. First there was the request that we give local "presentations" about quilting to groups around town. Then there was the request that we give a program at our local county fair. After that, it was the creation of a "Charity Quilt Day" which, don't get me wrong, was a WONDERFUL idea. But it was REQUIRED of our members to be there and/or participate in some way or you were shunned by the "coordinators" of the group and in a group our size, no one wants to be on the "outs". Following the creation of the Charity Quilt Day, another charity event arose in which we were all requested to also participate by donating fabric, sewing time, etc. Through all of this, there were some underbreath complaints, but for the most part, no one wanted to upset the apple cart, per se, so we all just followed along. That was the first year. Well, it kind of became an annual deal and pretty soon, it seemed as though we were spending way more time doing things for others than we were doing for ourselves.

Throughout all of this, our membership continued to grow with the "coordinators" doing most of the inviting of the new people. Both coordinators were not local natives so they unabashadly invited whomever they could find who said that they quilted. This lead to our next problem. They invited someone who invited someone else that came to be the downfall of our group. Not necessarily that she did it by herself, but she caused a rift amongst people and just tried too hard to be EVERYONE's friend. Most of the time, she spent most of the day talking to anyone who would listen instead of actually getting anything done. And alot of her talking was preventing the rest of us from getting anything done. When it came down to it, no one in the group really wanted it to continue the way it was, so the "coordinators" took it upon themselves to ask her to leave the group. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of this at the time ~ since one of the coordinators and I were best friends ~ and I had also voiced my disapproval of her actions at our meetings. So, in the one and only time I was considered a "coordinator" ~ my name was signed at the bottom of the letter asking her to not continue her membership.

Fast forward a couple of months and I am now working on our first "official" local big-time quilt show. In the process, I spoke with my same "friend" about the trials I was having in getting everything organized and put together the way I thought it should be done. She takes it upon herself to blab to a potential vendor that the show is going to be "crap" and "nothing is getting done" and that she'd better "ask for a refund of her vendor fee and not come" because of it. Hmm...didn't realize I said ANY of those things...although I may have sounded frustrated at the time. In my opinion, it still didn't give her the right to BLAB her mouth to anyone else about something she knew nothing about (since she wasn't involved in any way with the quilt show). STRIKE ONE.

Fast forward again to another dilemma...I am co-coordinator of this show but am also paying to have a vendor booth. I have plans to produce a CD that will have pics of all of the quilts in our show and sell it for a fundraiser for our local Barn Quilt project. Said friend ~ mentioned above ~ takes it upon herself to think she knows something about this and blabs to the Barn Quilt project coordinator about how it shouldn't happen because I am not "qualified" and don't have the skill set or equipment to do it. HELLO?!!?! This coming from a woman who can barely turn her computer ON, let alone use the damn thing for anything more than checking her email. Who is she to tell someone else that I don't have the proper equipment? For crying out loud, I had no intentions of selling it under the advertisement that it was professional photography, etc. I sold them for $12.50 a piece...not hardly the $40 - $50 some really big quilt shows who employ a professional team to produce theirs do. And besides, I've worked in an advertising agency and in graphic design...I have Illustrator, Quark, Photoshop and a host of other expensive design programs on my computer...I wouldn't have them on there if I didn't know how to use them. Anyway, I am on the Barn Quilt Committee and was approached by the coordinator at the time ~ in front of a group of people ~ and SCREAMED at (and I do mean SCREAMED in capitals) about how I shouldn't be doing this project and who was going to be checking my work, etc., etc. Jesus Christ...who cares???? All I wanted to do was donate the damn $$ to the Barn Quilt project...what difference does it make to them where the money comes from??? (BTW - I DID do that project at the show and COULD have donated $500 to the Barn Quilt project from it...but I kept the $$ for me instead). STRIKE TWO. Who claims to be your best friend and then turns on you? And to make it worse, she didn't have anything to do with the Barn Quilt project either. The trend is being realized at this point that she likes to stick her nose in and cause trouble where she has no right to do so.

Remember that old saying that Shit on me once, shame on you but Shit on me twice, shame on me???? Huh..learned that lesson. I made up my mind right then and there that I didn't really need a friend like her to continue to turn my words and make my life miserable. That was pretty much the ending of that friendship.

Anyway, I guess the real reason I'm blabbing on about all of this AGAIN (because to me, it seems like it was SO long ago) is that, a month ago, the "coordinators" resigned from our quilt group. OMG - I have never heard better news. I was still attending because I love everybody in our group and getting together with them was the highlight of my week...but I couldn't stand the thought of going and having the two of them there to listen to every little word I said and then TWIST it into something that was never meant to be.

The butterflies returned tonight. I got an email from my very good friend, Barb, who said she found out that the two aforementioned "coordinators" have started their own quilt group. That's fine. The kicker is...they invited the gal they kicked out of our original group to come back and join them. WHAT?!?! When the two of them did most of the complaining the first time around?!?!? And what makes it even worse is that the two of them are now blaming ME for her demise from our group. Then the icing on the cake...I found out that two (that I know of right now) current members of our group are also going to be in THEIR group...so now my trust factor comes in. How do I know that what I say in my current group isn't going to get carried over into their group and TWISTED again?!?!? I'm on a "me, me, me" kick right now because it seems as though ~ ever since the friendship has ended ~ I am the one they are "picking" on. God, I feel like I'm back in frickin' high school.

Of course, they blame their "resigning" on me, also. Word has it that they just didn't feel "comfortable" in the group anymore. I'm sorry ~ but they created that feeling themselves. The two of them don't have a "coordinating" bone in their bodies...their idea of coordinating was basically, "look at me, listen to me, pay attention to me..." and if someone else in the group had an idea, it was ignored because it wasn't "good enough" or it didn't come from them first. UGH. How many times have I said that throughout this whole conversation?!?! LOL

Anyway, my husband says it's just a "woman" thing...two women can't get along for more than 10 minutes in a room alone. I have to disagree. I think we are passionate about things and voice our opinions regularly, but we also have FEELINGS. And ~ most of us act like adults ~ a majority of the time. I know what I have written so far may seem immature to some of you out there reading this right now but this is exactly why I say that FRIENDSHIP SUCKS. Putting your trust and expressing your innermost feelings to someone to only be walked on and over is just CRAP. And my feelings were hurt. But we move on and learn to trust again which is what I believe I must do...