brain droppings

women are crazy

Ok... not all of them I admit, but there sure are a handful out there that really give the rest a bad rep.

Case in point, my wife has been increasingly upset that her old friends, who are obviously of a different mind, can be so mean and petty to her. Trying to watch as a semiobjective third party, I don't get it. My wife has a blog (you don't have to be clever to find the connection) and has been posting on it for around 9 months I think. Anyway, one of her earliest posts was her offense that Target would sell shirts that are effectively "Pro Epidural", implying that people don't have natural child births and just passing off the assisted birth as the only way to do it. Of course, anyone who HAD an epidural might see that she is saying epidurals are bad and think she is attacking them. Of course this came out in the follow up comments and she tried to explain that it was about corporations making irresponsible decisions like that. Anyway... big issue, it seemed to piss off these old friends of hers.

Since that initial post, she has not had one single positive, supportive, optimstic post from them (there were only two people and they didn't post a lot anyway.) Anyway... somehow they have placed her as the enemy and never tried to look past their difference in her opinions. They either stopped commenting, one alleging that she got hives because it all stressed her out so bad, and the other just silently fading. All 3 are a bit crazy, though I already know that about my wife, this particular case does not lend to her particular brand of craziness. She has never judged them for their choices, and it has caused her a ton of stress and heartache to think that they would periodically show up and post 'anonymously' to make sniping remarks about what she says. Even if she isn't controversial, she got attacked for NOT posting about 9/11 on 9/11. This comment was out of the blue from one of the two trying to be anonymous (though you can tell where posts come from in her counter for the site.) She saw who it really was and was both outraged and hurt again.

After a smattering of these mean spirited comments from friends AT their childhood friend, she finally called them out... sort of. She just posted that she could tell who they were... the posts stopped and haven't returned. Around the same time, she sent an email to one of them, the one she had always felt the closest to and thought that they were best friends through thick and thin, just accepting each other for who they are. She said she felt sad that they would resort to this and that they wouldn't just talk to her. Well... yesterday she got a response.

The email effectivly said, "...we differ in almost every opinion she (my wife) ever posted about. i wish i could apologize for posting anonymously (which isn't the same as saying "i'm sorry for posting"). we have to agree to disagree. i guess this is goodbye."

In one simple paragraph, this near lifelong friend managed to brush my wife off. Write her off as a friend, fuck her for thinking differently, if I see ya I see ya.

Needless to say, my wife was distraught. This caught me offguard as well. This girl had always seemed to be so nice and accepting of my wife and her choices, but in 9 months, over some different parenting styles, she managed to end it. I was distraught then as well, how can someone be like this? There was no correspondence about their differing opinions, they would periodically email daily stuff, but this girl never commented when Ava (my daughter) was sick or going to the hospital, when anything trying was going on in Amy's life there were no words of encouragement. Its like, by way of my wife's blog, this friend has slowly been building up a hatred of my wife and family.

I don't get this. I have a best friend whom I love dearly, I talk to him rarely, he is a fuckin republican, but if he called me tomorrow and said things were going sour in his life, I would be there for him. When we talk, I don't get all lefty, he doesn't go all righty, or we just joke when it comes up. Its not that fucking hard to talk about different things. I ask about his daughter, he asks about mine, I don't say 'she should be in cloth diapers to him', he doesn't say 'she should be getting all of the scheduled vaccinations. ITS THAT EASY.

I'm still sort of numb. Are all women this irrational in dealing with differing opionions? Is it this easy for all women to go from kind, caring friend to mega-bitch hater? Please tell me that this girl is just having a mental breakdown and its not the norm. Please? (I fear for my daughter if this is not the case.)

posted by Jody @ Wednesday, September 21, 2005