The BFF Break-Up

One of my favorite pastimes is watching the Real Housewives shows on Bravo.  I know some of you are rolling your eyes, but I promise – they are so fun to watch!  Seriously!  Drama, back-stabbing, cat fights … I love it because it is a reality show so far from my reality!  It is a time to watch other people and feel like I am one normal chick!  (Don’t ask how I have time to watch crap like this on TV.  I don’t, but I do it anyway!)  But there are certain things that happen on these shows that make me wonder if they are really all that far from our “non-celebrity” reality.

In case you are not familiar with the Housewives shows, there have been shows in many different areas of the country – NJ, NY, Orange County, Miami, Beverly Hills, etc.  One thing I have noticed on all the Real Housewives Shows is how they all change their friends like I change my clothes.  As the season begins, Peggy and Alexis may be BFF, but as it draws to a close, the claws have come out and they can’t stand the sight of one another.  Same goes for Nene and Kim, Jill and Bethenny, Jill and Ramona, Danielle and Jacqueline, Gretchen and Tamra and many more.

As we get older, we realize that friendships really do take work.  Life gets crazy and a month slips by in what felt like a week.  But do people really get in fights like these Real Housewives and ditch their friends so quickly?  I would LOVE to hear if this happens in real life.  I certainly hope it was not over whose lips were bigger as in Alexis and Peggy’s break-up, or the fact that one of you was a prostitute who was engaged nine times as in Jacqueline, Teresa and Danielle’s break-up. But you never know!  Please tell us your story in the comment section, and if you want to remain anonymous, simply do not put a name or email address on the comment form when you submit it.

I’ll start with my story.  Although friendships ebb and flow, and we all end up seeing some friends less than we had hoped, I can only recall one true BFF breakup in my lifetime.  It was right after college and I became very close friends with … hmmmm … let’s call her Jane.  Anyway, Jane and I hung out all the time, but I slowly started to see that she came with a lot of drama.  A LOT of drama.  Phonecalls at 3am for me to come sit with her because she was having an anxiety attack. Run-ins with ex-boyfriends, which often involved legal papers.  Family battles which I seemed to get pulled into.  Her conversations with MY recent ex-boyfriend that seemed inappropriate to me.  The list went on and on, but like a true friend, I stuck it out.  I thought Jane needed me.  She had had a pretty rough life and she didn’t have many close friends.

But then came the doozy.  I had met a guy we will call Jeff.  I had a crush on Jeff, and Jane knew it.  I told her that I was finally going to get up the nerve to ask Jeff out on a date!  So I called Jeff, invited him to dinner on one Friday evening and was so proud of myself!  Jane said she was proud of me, too and was so happy I had asked him out.

Friday night came and Jeff never showed.  WTH?  Cell phones weren’t around back then, but I had called his house and no one was there.  I called Jane to drown my sorrows and she wasn’t home either.  I went to bed that night feeling defeated.

A few days went by and I did not hear from Jane or Jeff.  Then I finally got a phone call from Jeff. “Hey!  Are you feeling better?”

“What?”

“Are you feeling better?  Jane called me on Friday and told me that you weren’t feeling well.  We ended up going out and grabbed a beer that night.”

Holy crapola.  I don’t need to tell you that I had fire coming out of my eyeballs at this point.  I asked Jeff to explain the story once more just so I could be sure that my BFF Jane had truly wronged me as I was feeling she did.

I immediately called her and she answered with a sheepish hello.  As I asked for her side of the story, she explained to me that she had just happened to pull up next to Jeff at a stoplight (Are you kidding me?  Are you freaking kidding me?  Do you know how many stoplights are in Charlotte?) and that he asked if she wanted to go grab a beer.  She had totally forgotten that Jeff and I had had plans that evening.  Yeah, right!

She kept on and on, explaining and over-explaining herself as the story became more and more fabricated.  She then said something along the lines of why didn’t I come over and we could chat about it.  For the first time in my life, I bucked up and told her no thanks and that I would prefer if she never called me again.  She cried, apologized and carried on for a bit longer, but I held my ground.  Enough was enough.

And so that is the story of my best-friend breakup.  I haven’t seen Jane since then, and I certainly hope she doesn’t read TMoM!  🙂   I truly value my friendships, so this incident was one that has always stood out to me because it was so crazy!  I think it could qualify for a Housewives episode, don’t you?

So have you ever had a break-up with your best friend?  What was it about?  Fill us in!