Hi, my name is Morgan and I want to tell you a story…

Jane and I became instant friends. I still remember the first day I met her; she was so nice and normal. Little did I know that this “normal” friendship would soon become a one sided argument.
Now don’t get me wrong I have a great deal of love for Jane, but sometimes life throws you a curve ball that you definitely didn’t expect.

For example, finding out your new friend is head over heals in love with someone that turns her into a completely different girl. This “boyfriend”, Jake has a good job, nice place and a terrible secret. He happens to be an addict and doesn’t really hide it from many people. He and Jane would sit around and do their thing almost every night. A normal night for them would consist of; listening to music, maybe a little dancing, a few drinks and of course making love. Hearing the man you’re in love with tell you he doesn’t feel the same, not even close, that he’s still in love with his ex would make me run away, especially after being together so intimately, but did Jane…you guessed it, no she stayed for nearly a year and tortured herself some more.
She was and might still be crazy for this guy so she always made excuses for the hurtful things he would say and do. Some nights got so out of hand that she wouldn’t be able to make it into work the next morning. To this day, when she gets too upset or doesn’t get her way she “remodels” herself.
Jane is a beautiful fiery woman with all this love to give, but she doesn’t know how to express herself properly. Well not to the men in her life and I’ve come realize not with me either.
She hasn’t had the best of luck lately and for some reason or another I’ve been the friend that she calls for support. I don’t mind, that’s what friends are for, but a friendship should be two sided, no?
How am I supposed to help her if everything I say it’s wrong. Not one day has gone by since September that I haven’t been told I’m not being a good friend. All this of course is because I’m happy.
I mean, I haven’t had the easiest last year or so either and when I needed a shoulder to cry on Jane was ALWAYS there, but now that I’m truly happy she seems to get worse and worse.

Here’s our story…

Where should I start? Oh I got it…

The first time, actually the only time, Ethel, Jane and I went out to diner we met after work at a nice little bistro close to downtown. It was raining cats and dogs, but we were determined to meet and enjoy dinner. Keep in mind that this is the first time since Jane left the company that we’ve seen each other, probably about 2-3 months. During dinner we had a great conversation. We talked about Jane’s departure from the company and how it affected us and everyone else. Shortly after she left we got new employees, so we told her about them and talked a little more shop than we should have I suppose, but this is all we have or had in common at the time. She didn’t seem to mind until the next time I talked to her on the phone, which was a few nights later. Man was she bitter.
Anyways, she seemed to be in a great mood at the bistro. She enjoyed her new job and she told us a little more about it, she had a great new “boyfriend” Tim and she showed us this collage he had made her of them on a boat with the wind in their hair. She made him sounds like a God. The guy sounded like he was from a Disney movie, you know the ones I mean, with the Prince and Princess falling in-love and living happily ever after. Have I mentioned they haven’t met yet? Well she was meeting him the following night for the “big” first date and was a little nervous, like most of us are when we’re interested in someone. He showed up at her place that night with a single red rose. She was in Heaven. To Jane this meant “OK, he wants a serious relationship, I can’t wait. THIS is the real thing, I have finally found my Husband, the Father of my children” (I know it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not, that’s her mentality) but the night ended on a sour note. You see, Jane and Tim had a few too many drinks and apparently Tim is not a very good drunk. He wasn’t the nice guy he portrayed himself as on-line. So that was the end of that relationship. Put in it the lesson learned pile.
Now enters John. Another “friend” Jane met on this wonderful dating site. John lives in a different city, but wants to come up to hang out. He’s made it more than obvious that he wants to get to know Jane on a more personal level and take this innocent friendship to the next stage. She not only went and invited him over for the night so they can hang out over the weekend and act like tourist, but she booked a hotel room for them. Not in a crappy run down motel, but in one of the most dazzling and expensive Hotels in the downtown area. This room was gorgeous, she showed me pictures of it on-line and I was stunned that she could afford it. Either way, John came down and they definitely took the friendship to the next level, even though Jane claims he was not her type. After Jane explained her feelings to John, they decided to stay friends. This weekend was not the first or the last one that John would come down. He came down a few other times to help her through a rough patch here and there, especially when she was depressed about Jake. They would have a few drinks and call Jake up to come over and party with them. The few times Jake did show up, I was told afterwards, he always seemed jealous that John was there. He wanted Jane to himself.
Unfortunately, Jane’s and John’s friendship didn’t last. He borrowed some money from her for his gambling, and was always giving her the run around about it. Until just recently he didn’t pay her back a cent from the $400.00 that she lent him. Right before Christmas he had $150.00 wired to her bank account. She just recently divulged that he threatened the money out of her. Apparently, he threatened her life if she didn’t give it to him. I’m not sure I believe this or anything else Jane has told me in the time that I’ve known her, but for this part of our story I do.

I remember it like it was yesterday, my first night out with Jane.
I met her after work and we went to a pub for a drink or two or maybe three. After a while we ended up at her place and talked about life and things that we’ve done. We listened to music and played on the computer all the while still drinking. At around 11:30–12:00am she decided to invite her new boyfriend, well the guy that she was interested in, over. He shows up and seems to be a decent guy. We ended up leaving at about 2am and Kyle drove me home. Here’s something you should know about me if I want to know something, I don’t mind asking it flat out. So I asked Kyle right then and there, are you interested in her, his answer; a genuine yes. Well I made Jane a promise that I would call her the minute I walked in to my place and of course I made the mistake of telling her what he had said. She’s thrilled.
About a week or so later, she and Kyle came to have lunch with Ethel and me. Now Ethel is very much like me, just a little older, if she has something to say she will no questions asked. We enjoyed our lunch and made plans for a few weeks down the road to have a Girls dinner.
Now, when my phone rings at 5 in the morning it better be an emergency! Jane’s on the other line crying, telling me she’s at the hospital. First thing out of my mouth is “Are you ok, what the hell happened?” I guess the story went like this: Jane and Kyle had an argument and he left her place. Now I don’t know the exact story and what was said, I probably wouldn’t get the true story even if I asked, but that’s how it all began. She got upset and decided to go after him in a cab. Now Jane’s un-employed at this point in our story so for her to spend $50.00 on a cab is not in her budget. She gets to Kyle’s place and they get into it, pretty heavily from the sound of it. It ended up with Kyle having his roommate distract Jane while she was in the bathroom threatening to “remodel” herself. At this point Kyle decided he had had enough and called the police.
After the initial shock of it all I tried to be supportive, but when she started emailing, texting and calling him, even I though it was too much. I don’t understand why she thought he would want her back, and how she could possibly be upset when he told her he didn’t. This guy was a gentleman when it came to the end; he wished her luck and love and thought that was it...was he ever mistaken.
She didn’t give up, not even close, she went as far as breaking into his email account as well as his profile on the dating site, then erased all his messages and started making very rude and insulting comments so everyone can see them. He once again called the police to see if there was anything he could do and was told he could definitely press charges. He asked if he could maybe wait and see what happens, but did request to have someone call her and explain the seriousness of her actions as well as the consequences related to them.
Shortly after they called and explained a few things to her, I received a call at work. She was crying and told me that she had received a call from an officer asking her all kinds of questions about what she did to Kyle. Of course Jane told the officer that Kyle had hurt her and that he was a terrible person and pretty much painted a horrible picture of the guy, but the detective explained to her that whatever happened she still had no right to break into his accounts and make any changes to anything. The officer went on to explain that if Kyle chose to he could press charges that could land her in prison for up to 5 years.
What am I suppose to say…if I tell her to drop all of her hate and resentment towards the guy and basically write it off as a mistake and a growing experience, like I would do, I’m being a horrible and un-supportive friend. How stressful is that?! I give up and agree with her that Kyle is nothing but a loser and a horrible human being for hurting and using her the way he did. I don’t believe to this day that Kyle would ever press charges, but he does have the right to for the remainder of his life. I’ve told this to Jane on more than one occasion and finally she has dropped it, well until she hears a song that reminds her of him when they were together.

Once Jane found out about mine and Ethel’s weekly lunches, she seemed to get a little jealous. She decided that we needed to get together and have dinner again sometime soon. Not a problem. Ethel and I make the plans.

We made sure to pick a restaurant that wasn’t too expensive, but that was still nice. I made the reservations on-line and we thought we were all good, that is until Jane lost her new job.

She got depressed again and cancelled the plans the Monday of the same week. I cancelled the reservations after Ethel and I made sure we didn’t want to go without Jane. It was her favorite restaurant after all. Then on the Tuesday, Jane decided that she might want to go…well I explained that the reservation was cancelled and that I wasn’t about to make another one based on a maybe. We decided to just head to a restaurant after work, that wasn’t good enough on Wednesday, but then on Thursday, after Ethel and I made our own plans to go out and have dinner after work at a nice little café close by, Jane decides again that she wants to go out for dinner on the Friday with us. We tell her our plan but it’s not good enough for her, so Ethel suggests we order in a pizza and have dinner at Jane’s place since Jane has wanted to show Ethel her place for a while now. Jane still claims that Ethel didn’t send that email, little does she know Ethel copied me on it and made sure that Jane couldn’t see it came to me as well. So at this point Ethel and I have had enough of Jane’s little tantrums and decided not to cancel our plans and go anyways.

Jane got very angry with Ethel, I’m still not sure why she was ok with me, but she asked me if I wanted to grab a drink after dinner. I said yes, not thinking that my phone would be busy all night.

During my dinner with Ethel, Jane sent me 2 messages. The first one was as we were sitting down. This was about 20 minutes after work asking me if we were almost done. The second was about 25 minutes later with the same question. And then a phone call came on the way to the car. She asked if we were finished yet and that if we’re going to have desert just to let her know now so she can make other plans. I had already told her that I was going to be at her place at 8. This call came in at 7pm. Ethel offered to drive me to her house, but since I know Jane and I can tell she’s already drunk, I figured it wasn’t a really good ideal.

So when I got home I called a cab and headed out to her place. I was right. She’s drunk.

Either way we decided to go to a pub near by to have a drink. A few drinks later we went back to her place and hopped on the computer so she can make plans with a guy she’d been chatting with on the dating site.

Rick suggested they get together right away, that night. She explains that she’s with a girlfriend and can’t just ditch me. So his plan throws in a friend of his own. To me this is a no go, but Jane doesn’t seem to care that I’m not ok with it. She doesn’t agree with my “relationship” and makes no secret of it.

William and I had been seeing each other, un-officially for at least 2 months at this point and meeting someone new was not something I wanted or needed. I know that’s nothing, especially since it wasn’t official, but I already knew at this point that I was starting to fall for him, and surprisingly enough it was this night in particular that I knew it was way more serious than either of us bargained for. Jane actually called me on it to be honest. She flat out asked me if I was in love with him, this of course was between other questions so without thinking about it I just said yes. I think it shocked her as much as it did me, but I needed to admit it to myself.

Either way, we decided to meet them at a bar near Jane’s so we wouldn’t have to go far. Jane was starting to get antsy when they didn’t show up at exactly 11pm. At about 11:05 Rick and Jamie show up. We sit down to have a drink. Jane and Rick keep going outside for a smoke so Jamie and I don’t have a choice but to get to know each other. We figure out that we have a few things in common and we both think it’s amusing since neither of us want to be there. After an hour or so, Jane gets upset with Rick and leaves me at the bar alone with them. Thankfully, they’re nice guys! She calls me when she gets home, which is not even 5 minutes away and asks me where the hell I am. I explain to her that since she took off on me while I was in the washroom, I had yet to leave the bar.

On our way out I asked Rick what happened and he tells me that it started when he couldn’t remember my name and called me Hon. Then it really hit home when she kissed him out side the bar and he told her to stop.

I asked Jane the same thing when I got to her place and got: “well, he kissed me and when I told him to stop he got upset.”


Who am I suppose to believe: A guy that I just met and don’t know anything about or a friend that has done nothing but lie to me about the stupidest things?

I have no clue!!

New Years Eve is on its way and since I haven’t made any plans yet, Jane asked me to celebrate with her at her sister Melanie’s place. I figured why not, I can’t spend it with Jacob or with William so this might be fun.
New Years Eve starts right after work. I take a cab out to her place, we hit the wine shop, and have a drink while we get ready to go.
We call a cab to bring us out to Melanie’s and every thing is going great. We talk and laugh the whole way.
We got off about a block away so Jane can have a cigarette before we get there.
Once inside, I get to meet her sister, her brother-in-law and a whole bunch of other people I’m probably never going to see again. The kids are playing in groups. The girls downstairs watching movies and the boys upstairs playing cops and robbers. It’s surprisingly easy to be in an environment that seems like it should be ridiculously stressful. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the two babies that are there seem to find there way to Jane and I.
All through the night William and I text back and forth, just like Jane and Tyler.
She’s really into this guy and from the text messages he sent her throughout the night he seems to be too. Mind you this is also after their first date.
I’ve talked to Jane about the way I feel about William for some time now and she told me to get it over with and tell him that I’m in-love with him, so I finally decided I would.
I’ve told William on more than one occasion that he makes it easy for me to contemplate falling for him and so I figured I’d start with that. I told him that I’m beyond falling, that I am in-love with him and he told me he felt the same. I let him go after a little while and told Jane what happened since she was waiting to hear. She seemed truly happy. Yes this surprises me! Jane doesn’t agree with my relationship at all for many reasons that make sense to her, but not to very many other people.
Either way, after the kids have been settled down the drinking begins. You name it, they had it. We were having mixed drinks and quite a few shots. Jell-o shooters were a hit, but they had very little jell-o, all you could taste was the vodka.
So, come the count down to midnight everyone is pretty happy. Since Jane and I have no one to kiss at midnight we figured we’d stay close to each other. Hugs and kisses are coming and going from every where.
At about a minute pass midnight both our phones ring and it’s the boys. They wish us both a “Happy New Year”.
Shortly after, Jane and I decide that it’s time to go home. On the way home, we were on the phone talking to our boys.
When we got home we talked about what we want in the New Year.
The night ended on a good note, William and I officially became a couple.
All in all, it was a good way to start 2009.

The last straw and the end of our story…

Here we go again…

Everything seems to be going well with Jane and Tyler. Their going on their second date and Jane is so excited, it’s actually really cute. After the date she brought him home and with all the alcohol they consumed I’m guessing it didn’t take long for one thing to lead to another, as she graphically described to me the following night. But, Jane is the type of person that needs the constant reassurance that what just happened meant something to the other party involved right away! She’s very fragile it seems when it comes to being intimate with someone for the first time, she cried afterwards, because she was happy. Maybe it’s just me, but if I was a guy, that would scare me a little.

Anyways, she decides to take the day off work so she can clear her mind about everything and be there in case Tyler calls, emails or texts. All trough the day, we email back and forth and she shows me some of the emails that she’s planning on sending to him at certain times throughout the day (yes, she’s giving the guy a deadline to respond). Every time she sends me something I read it and I’m starting to get freaked out by it. She sounds like a mad woman!! I always respond with the standard:
“I wouldn’t send it, wait and see if he calls. If he doesn’t then it wasn’t a big deal to him, so why let it be to you?!”
“Why can’t you be more supportive? You’re supposed to be my friend and you’re defending what he did to me.”
“Jane, I’m sitting here talking to you about all of this while I’m at work and trying to explain that I wouldn’t do it.” (All the while knowing she’s going to send these emails)
“You’re right, sorry, I’m just upset and I’m taking it out on you”.
That very night she calls me up and starts crying that he hasn’t responded yet. At this point I’m truly at a loss for words; I don’t know what else to say. We are completely opposites when it comes to this type of thing. I might have called in the evening and left a message to call me back, but I wouldn’t have kept it up if he didn’t respond. If I was upset or hurt about it, I would have done exactly what she was doing at this moment, call a girlfriend and vent, but try and explain that to Jane, it’s NOT a good response.

Tuesday comes and she has to call in sick again because he still hasn’t responded. Do you blame him; she’s acting like a stalker. She called his place all night, waking him and his brother up in the middle of the night more than once, texted him until he finally turned his phone off and kept emailing him and insulting him.
Now, Jane knows that every second Tuesday I spend the evening with William, it’s the only night we get to spend together and we always try to spend it alone. We get to Williams, we aren’t even there for 20 minutes yet and my phone rings. It’s Jane; she’s drunk and is talking stupid. I calm her down; at least I thought I did and hang up. Not even 10 minutes go by and she asks me to come over because she’s feeling alone. When Jane’s drunk and feeling alone, she likes to “remodel” herself, I can’t not do anything, so I ask William if he would mind stopping by her place. On our way over I text her and tell her I’m on my way WITH William. She’s perfectly fine with it and is actually happy that she gets to finally meet him. I’m not really looking forward to it; obviously, my quiet evening with William has just been turned into a circuit. We get there and she looks fine, a little drunk and maybe a little depressed looking, but in general she’s herself. We listen to music, sing and have a couple of drinks…all in all we had a decent time.

Then comes Friday! William and I have plans to go to my brothers’ place so they can meet. My brother and I are very close and he wants to make sure I’m happy and well taken care of. He’s always been protective of me. But do you really think that’s going to happen? No. Jane just called me at work and actually asked me to leave, she just lost her job. I tell her that I’m sorry, but I can’t leave work. She’s so upset, what can I do? I ask her if she wants us to go by after work. Of course this was a stupid decision on my part, the answer is obviously YES!! I talk to William about it and being the sweetheart that he is, he’s perfectly fine with it. On our way out of work I call my brother and explain the situation, but he still thinks, to this day, that we cancelled because William was nervous about meeting him. I tell Jane that we’ll be there after work. We need to stop by my place to check on the dog and then hit a liquor store on the way to her place. Depending on the traffic we should be there close to 5:30 -5:45. She suggests we meet at the pub next to her place for a snack beforehand. No word of a lie, my phone must have rang at least 5 times; as I was leaving work and getting into the car, while I was on the phone with my brother, on the way to my place, on the way to the store and then again at 5:35 telling me that if we aren’t there soon, just to go else where to eat then go over after. For crying out loud, we are literally 5-10 minutes away. I explain that there are other cars on the road and that we will be there in a few minutes, it won’t take us long and to meet us outside. She finally calms down when she sees us walking down the street. We go to the pub, have a bite and head over to her place. We did the same as always, had a few drinks, talked, listened to music and sang, but this time she wanted to dance. While she was dancing with William, she looked over at me and gave me the thumbs up sign, meaning that she finally approves of my relationship. I know Jane well enough to be able to tell, by the look in her eyes, that she was also thinking that she might be interested in getting to know him better, and I don’t mean as a friend. This is after William told her he can forward her resume to a few agencies that he has contacts in. At about 12:30 Jane was pretty drunk and she got upset again and decided that she’s going to start arguing with us. She says some pretty nasty things to William and then she passes out on the couch so we get ready to leave. She is totally out of control at this point. William leaves us alone and waits in the hall while I explain that we’re leaving and that she needs to get up to lock the door. Finally she gets up, yells at me, goes to the kitchen and grabs a couple of knives. I follow her in and take them away from her, all the while cutting my own hand. She gets mad again, calls me a bitch and slams the door in my face. The whole way home I keep worrying that I left her alone in that state and how responsible I would feel if she did something stupid. But I couldn’t do anything else to help.

William and I get home and decide to go to bed. At 4am my phone beeps, which means I have a text message. It’s from Jane:
“Where the hell are you?”
“In bed, it’s 4am”
“Why aren’t you here…I hate you”
“I’ll talk to you in the morning Jane”.
My phone rings…guess who?
“I can’t believe you would pick him over me!”
“What the hell are you talking about? You called me a bitch, told me to leave and slammed the door in my face after I took 2 knives away from you”
“I never want to talk to you again, you’re a terrible friend and he’s asshole and you’re just stupid for wanting to be with him, he’s just going to hurt you and all I’m doing is trying to protect you. Get ready for work on Monday, I’m writing the email to them right now and sending it.”
“Jane, if I thought he was going to hurt me, I wouldn’t be with him and I don’t need you to protect me, I’m a big girl I can take care of myself. If you want to send your email, go ahead!”
She hangs up…then calls back…hangs up and calls back, this goes on and on for a few more minutes but since I’m ignoring it at this point, she finally gives up.
When William gets back upstairs I’m in tears. He puts his arms around me to comfort me and we fall asleep.

The next Monday is even better…I tell Ethel what happened and she can’t believe the email I get from Jane either.
She asks me to forward her resume to William so he can forward it on to his contacts. Are you kidding me?! I hand it over and he does it because she’s my friend, but seriously, come on! After this she asked him to write her a reference because she didn’t like the one Ethel wrote her. I said no…he was going to because, once again because she’s my friend, but I wouldn’t let him. How many people would have the audacity to ask for a favor after what she did? This is one of the many reasons why Ethel and I believe she might have bipolar. The symptoms all point to it.

A lot has happened since then…Jane has gotten herself another job, she has a boyfriend that seems to be good for her and can actually put up with her crazy ways. After knowing each other for 3 weeks, they decided to move in together next month; I guess it’ll be 3 months by then. She’s tried to contact me a few times and we did go over for a drink a few weeks ago, but she hasn’t changed at all. She’s still acting like a child with her tantrums. One day she’s sweet as pie and the next she’s herself again. I don’t need that kind of drama in my life. Who does?

Or friendship was not a real friendship, a friend is happy when you are, even if they don’t agree with it, a friend is there for you when you need them, they don’t always criticize you and your decisions, when you don’t agree with them they shouldn’t make you feel bad about having your own opinions and they don’t hold your new relationship over your head with your work as Jane has done one too many times to William and I. Now that she realizes she can’t hold it over my head anymore…she’s stopped.
Every other time we stopped talking it was her decision, but this time it was mine so she knows I’m done!!

As I said in the first installment;
“Our friendship was truly a one sided argument!”