On coming out and losing friends ... by sethrenn
Note: We have even had this happen with other plurals.
At first they smile. They welcome you, open-armed, maybe a little too warmly. "I'm totally cool with that," they tell you. "That doesn't bother me at all. I'm open-minded." They might even tell you that it "explains a lot" about you in retrospect. They might say they find it "interesting," or even that they'd love to know more-- that they want to know *all* of you. They might ask questions. They reassure you, if you worry about it aloud. "Don't worry, I still want to be your friend! You're too cool for me to ever leave you."
But something changes anyway. You can't put your finger on it. Sometimes it doesn't happen right away. Maybe there's something in the spaces, the silences, that wasn't there before. Silence is prickly where it once was smooth. Their smiles are just a little more forced; their laughter at your jokes is longer in coming, or maybe too fast, and sounds just a little less genuine. What was once easy and spontaneous now comes a little harder; there may be more silences, there may be fewer. They look away from you more than they used to. All the time, all the time it's happening, you doubt; you second-guess yourselves. Are you seeing what's not there because you're afraid they don't want you any more? Is the discomfort in silence yours, or something you sense from their end of things?
Sometimes they seem a little more irritable; what would once have been gently teasing retorts now seem a little more barbed. Sometimes they seem *too* nice, as if they expect you now to fall to bits if not always received by an outpouring of support. When they hear you say "we" now instead of "I," their smile might be a little more brittle and nervous; they trip over themselves more in conversation. Sometimes you find yourselves falling into old, stereotyped conversation patterns with them, again and again, in a way you never did before; they seem to want the reassurance of the old, even when it amounts to repetition of the same thing endlessly, to the point of dullness. Sometimes you worry that it's their way of avoiding any discussion of the fact that you're a we. Always, you wonder if you're paranoid.
They might not be around for you as often as they used to. It may seem that they have plenty of time available for other friends, yet somehow not for you. Letters you send them sit unanswered; they forget to return your phone calls, don't reply to your posts online; if you try to IM them, they always seem to miss your messages, to be away from the computer, to have a crash and be unable to respond. It seems to happen just a little too often. Their personal life suddenly becomes much busier than it used to; there suddenly seem to always be reasons why they can't stop by to see you, or vice versa. You wonder if you're being paranoid in wondering if this is all about you; if it's not more realistic to assume that they did get busy all of a sudden, that their computer really does crash all the time.
Sometimes the fact of it sits in the corner like the big elephant no one wants to acknowledge. They may still refer to you, in conversation with other friends, by the body name, or by their old nickname for you, whether or not it's the name of anyone in the system. They may still address you by one name, seeming to assume, somehow, that the person who was 'their friend' before will still be around most often, will still be the one who always interacts with them. They may act surprised to discover that they haven't always been talking to 'the one who was my friend.' They may have been accepting of others, before, as characters or soulbonds or muses, but become now strange and awkward in their interactions with them, once it's revealed that they're people just like 'my friend.'
They may never bring up multiplicity, seem to have no curiosity about what's going on with you. Or maybe, when it's mentioned, they'll nod quickly and change the subject-- seeming to hope that if they don't acknowledge it, it will go away. If you try to bring it up with them too directly, the subject always seems to get changed much too fast. And unendingly, you wonder if it's real, or just your paranoia.
Sometimes they force the issue. Sometimes they'll be the one to declare outright skepticism of you, in places where they had nodded before, and professed absolute belief and trust in you. Sometimes you'll learn they've been talking about you behind your back to other friends all the time they were smiling too hard to your face-- talking, maybe, about how you need 'help' for your 'multiple personality problem,' or how they're 'worried' about you, how they fear you're 'out of control' and 'delusional,' even if you're continuing to function exactly as you were when they thought you were My Friend Whomever. Sometimes they'll say worse.
Sometimes the issue never gets to that point. They keep finding ways to always be a little too busy for you, to always have something more important to do; little distances put together to make a vast gulf, and you'll realize, all of a sudden, that eight months have gone by and they haven't spoken to you.
You might be left wondering somehow if it's your fault. Wishing you had never come out at all. Wondering if you chose the worse of two evils-- if a friendship taped together out of constant lies and Real-Person-pretending would somehow have been better. All the while that you tell yourselves that you don't need the friendship of someone who can't accept you, you can't seem to stop remembering the good times from before you chose to end the lie.
But they're too far gone to ask, now, and you can't stop replaying the events over and over amongst yourselves, wondering if it could ever have been different.
At first they smile. They welcome you, open-armed, maybe a little too warmly. "I'm totally cool with that," they tell you. "That doesn't bother me at all. I'm open-minded." They might even tell you that it "explains a lot" about you in retrospect. They might say they find it "interesting," or even that they'd love to know more-- that they want to know *all* of you. They might ask questions. They reassure you, if you worry about it aloud. "Don't worry, I still want to be your friend! You're too cool for me to ever leave you."
But something changes anyway. You can't put your finger on it. Sometimes it doesn't happen right away. Maybe there's something in the spaces, the silences, that wasn't there before. Silence is prickly where it once was smooth. Their smiles are just a little more forced; their laughter at your jokes is longer in coming, or maybe too fast, and sounds just a little less genuine. What was once easy and spontaneous now comes a little harder; there may be more silences, there may be fewer. They look away from you more than they used to. All the time, all the time it's happening, you doubt; you second-guess yourselves. Are you seeing what's not there because you're afraid they don't want you any more? Is the discomfort in silence yours, or something you sense from their end of things?
Sometimes they seem a little more irritable; what would once have been gently teasing retorts now seem a little more barbed. Sometimes they seem *too* nice, as if they expect you now to fall to bits if not always received by an outpouring of support. When they hear you say "we" now instead of "I," their smile might be a little more brittle and nervous; they trip over themselves more in conversation. Sometimes you find yourselves falling into old, stereotyped conversation patterns with them, again and again, in a way you never did before; they seem to want the reassurance of the old, even when it amounts to repetition of the same thing endlessly, to the point of dullness. Sometimes you worry that it's their way of avoiding any discussion of the fact that you're a we. Always, you wonder if you're paranoid.
They might not be around for you as often as they used to. It may seem that they have plenty of time available for other friends, yet somehow not for you. Letters you send them sit unanswered; they forget to return your phone calls, don't reply to your posts online; if you try to IM them, they always seem to miss your messages, to be away from the computer, to have a crash and be unable to respond. It seems to happen just a little too often. Their personal life suddenly becomes much busier than it used to; there suddenly seem to always be reasons why they can't stop by to see you, or vice versa. You wonder if you're being paranoid in wondering if this is all about you; if it's not more realistic to assume that they did get busy all of a sudden, that their computer really does crash all the time.
Sometimes the fact of it sits in the corner like the big elephant no one wants to acknowledge. They may still refer to you, in conversation with other friends, by the body name, or by their old nickname for you, whether or not it's the name of anyone in the system. They may still address you by one name, seeming to assume, somehow, that the person who was 'their friend' before will still be around most often, will still be the one who always interacts with them. They may act surprised to discover that they haven't always been talking to 'the one who was my friend.' They may have been accepting of others, before, as characters or soulbonds or muses, but become now strange and awkward in their interactions with them, once it's revealed that they're people just like 'my friend.'
They may never bring up multiplicity, seem to have no curiosity about what's going on with you. Or maybe, when it's mentioned, they'll nod quickly and change the subject-- seeming to hope that if they don't acknowledge it, it will go away. If you try to bring it up with them too directly, the subject always seems to get changed much too fast. And unendingly, you wonder if it's real, or just your paranoia.
Sometimes they force the issue. Sometimes they'll be the one to declare outright skepticism of you, in places where they had nodded before, and professed absolute belief and trust in you. Sometimes you'll learn they've been talking about you behind your back to other friends all the time they were smiling too hard to your face-- talking, maybe, about how you need 'help' for your 'multiple personality problem,' or how they're 'worried' about you, how they fear you're 'out of control' and 'delusional,' even if you're continuing to function exactly as you were when they thought you were My Friend Whomever. Sometimes they'll say worse.
Sometimes the issue never gets to that point. They keep finding ways to always be a little too busy for you, to always have something more important to do; little distances put together to make a vast gulf, and you'll realize, all of a sudden, that eight months have gone by and they haven't spoken to you.
You might be left wondering somehow if it's your fault. Wishing you had never come out at all. Wondering if you chose the worse of two evils-- if a friendship taped together out of constant lies and Real-Person-pretending would somehow have been better. All the while that you tell yourselves that you don't need the friendship of someone who can't accept you, you can't seem to stop remembering the good times from before you chose to end the lie.
But they're too far gone to ask, now, and you can't stop replaying the events over and over amongst yourselves, wondering if it could ever have been different.