Before I dive into writing my post, let’s talk about Gwyneth Paltrow for a second. Personally I think she’s bizarre. And narcissistic.

Gwyneth has announced she is going Sex Ed, including a new show that will be launching on Netflix this week. I saw an outtake of the show this morning on the Today Show, and they were talking Wolverine Claws. Yep sharp pointy claw things that can literally draw blood. Sex Ed with a side of kink, anyone? And like two in Bravo’s Real Housewives franchises , she will be selling vibrators on her Goop website and some female libido pill. But it’s a Goop product so they will be more wholesome, right?

I totally get her whole women having body issues. I especially get it after having breast cancer because quite frankly I have an uneven chest but I don’t want fake plastic boobs. Oh I guess this is going to be too much for some of my male readers, so I apologize in advance. But I have always said this blog is about whatever strikes my fancy and today the topic is women. This was just a quasi related segue.

Someone asked me the other day about a woman who used to be a very close friend. when we were in our 20s even up to my 30s. We did tons of stuff together. It wasn’t a weekend if I didn’t hang out with her at some point. She was a lot of fun and is still one of the most naturally beautiful women I have ever met. Men literally fell at her feet. Mostly they ignored the rest of us with her, although they would often buy us cocktails just so they could be in her presence. She was often a lot nicer to some of them than they deserved.

Our friendship started to change and wane a little when she got involved with this weird cult-like group. The group sold seminars under the whole guise of personal wellness and well-being but I remember going to a couple of things with her and it was like freaky Friday at least for me. I felt like the people that ran it were a bunch of charlatans and they were very happy to take people’s money, but I couldn’t get if the “help“ they offered had any value. But she was a friend so I didn’t say anything and I accepted this was something she needed in her life.

Then one day she asked me to help her rewrite her résumé. So I did it for her and she got a fabulous job in New York. And dropped me like a hot potato. There was no argument or disagreement, she was literally just done with me. Reinvented herself and was finished with those who knew her when. It really hurt. At this point in my life, this was the first time I had ever experienced anything like this. I have seen her fly by here and there over the years on the social media of others and she looks happy, and she got married. I hope she has everything she wants in life. But I hope she’s learned to treat people better.

Now this was a woman whose company I enjoyed very much, so she is someone I actually miss from time to time. But I think I just can’t let people in again all the time after great hurt. It’s not about not being able to forgive someone, it’s more about being practical because if they’ve done it once they will inevitably do it again and do you want to put yourself through that?

Next came a woman who was a very close friend, I was even one of her bridesmaids. Our parents kind of knew each other through other people, there was a lot of commonality. But I always kind of knew in the back of my head if I was honest she wouldn’t last.

When I realized this about this woman, ironically it was at her wedding. There were a lot of people she invited that none of us in her current circle had ever known existed in her world. She was one of those people that has one set of friends and then moves to the next set of friends and so on and so forth. She is also someone who would periodically disappear for long durations of time (years) from her friends’ lives and then just pop up like nothing had ever happened. She did that to me actually. And it was really weird, and hurt. But I forgave it the first time because it was nice to have her back in my life.

The second time I walked away from her entirely. The second time it occurred when I moved to Chester County. When I moved to Chester County I was the out of sight, out of mind person. And coming out here when I did in my 40s was a big change for me. I had lived my life and practically its entirety in only one other place except for early childhood. Chester County was completely unknown although I wanted very much to be here. So it wasn’t the simplest of transitions because it was so emotionally loaded. Here I am standing on the precipice of the rest of my life where I very much want to be, yet at the same time nervous because I was literally leaving everything else I knew someplace else.

This woman literally just stopped returning my calls after I was out here a little over a year. I was no longer geographically convenient for her as a friend, I suppose. But because I had given our friendship a second chance when she disappeared the first time, I was just quietly done. I am not going to chase after someone whom I had fulfilled my end of the friendship so to speak. And I had told myself after the first time, if it happened again, the life door was just not going to reopen.

The other thing I discovered with this other woman is she has become dependent on extreme forms of Christianity. That is her comfort level. It keeps her insulated from I think the reality she is trying to escape. That’s her jam, and I respect it because I think she actually deeply believes it. I have also seen her a couple of times here and there, and it made me realize that while I was over the hurt she caused me, I just I’m not going to let her back in this time. I will always be happy to run into her, but I just can’t again.

I have had some missteps with new women in my life moving to Chester County. There was one woman I actually really enjoyed. But she used confidences we shared with each other to curry favor with others. That’s a disloyalty that I can never get my head wrapped around. At the time when that happened, I was so new to Chester County and feeling the loss of my aforementioned friend, so this was briefly hurtful. But I just walked away. I closed the door. I realized after a bit they had their own issues, and this was for the best. And I hadn’t invested that much in knowing them at that point so it stung, but it wasn’t a permanent hurt.

Trust is a big value with me. And once you feel like it’s broken in a relationship for me that’s really hard to go back and deal with. Maybe that’s a character flaw on my part, I don’t know.

Then there were a couple of women that were kind of out of my childhood, and I was delighted to find them out here. Well one I already knew was out here, the other came out here after I moved here.

These couple of women are women I used to have a lot of fun with. And then one really wanted to just be the controlling person in the relationship like I was a child, and the other was kind of a copycat on things I liked. And of course then there were the extreme political views that emerged just like with a lot of people. I kind of said goodbye to both of these women at once. With one of them it wasn’t so hard a decision. The other one it was a harder decision, because I knew her longer and better. But having either of them in my life, meant chaos and unreal drama, so I chose myself and peace.

But as we grow and evolve as human beings, sometimes our friendships don’t grow in the same way. However, when you experience the loss of longer-term friendships it kind of makes it hard to trust sometimes the new people you meet. You want to let them in because they just seem so nice, but it takes a minute, know what I mean?

So there’s this one woman I met within the past couple of years whom I really enjoyed. I really thought she’d be a new friend. And maybe someday again she will be, but she did something I found completely disloyal. And when I kind of called her on it privately, she turned it around that it was my fault.

What my fault was is that she wanted to have a political discussion on a day where my head was just too full. You know those days, you just know that you can’t do one more thing. And I was working on something for a client. When I am working, I am working, and with the onset of Covid-19 a lot of people blur those lines. But I can’t be all things to all people 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year. So I said I couldn’t talk. Because I literally couldn’t – I was working and I was just tired, physically and emotionally.

The other things people don’t realize is because I’m a blogger, some days I literally get private messages and reach outs from people around the clock. Can I look at this, can I comment on this, why haven’t I done that or the other thing? Some days I just get tired.

So this person blamed me for her essentially kind of being crappy to me. And I’m just done for now. This is not somebody I really want to walk away from because I think they’re really interesting, but this is a question of mutual respect and friend loyalty. Which means I’m letting go of them for now. I am not angry, although it has made me pissy. But it’s something I’m hitting the pause button on. At least for now. And it wasn’t an easy decision, either.

But as I said to someone who once taught me, and as an adult is a dear friend, these situations are one of those things that you think as you get older maybe the people will get better? But still it almost goes back to the same stuff you were dealing with in high school, just on a different playing field. Sociologically it’s interesting. Personally it can be hurtful, and you also get to a point in your life where you feel like you just need to hit pause.

And this is a very female on female or female response, because I also have encountered women who will just throw men and women under the bus just because they are threatened by change. Or they just crave attention good bad or indifferent.

My male friends aren’t this way. If one of my male friends has a problem, they don’t post it on social media they contact me and they pretty much say “so what’s up?”

I don’t pretend to be perfect, or to have led a perfect life. But I find women to be cruel and hurtful to one and other over the dumbest sheit.

I guess this just makes me a little sad because as I have settled into life over the years in Chester County, I have met some amazing women. But as we age as women, trust and loyalty go a long way.

If as a woman if you really have a problem with a woman you know, talk to them. And if they tell you one of the days you want to talk to them they just can’t do it, accept that at face value and try again another day. Maybe it will be a while, but sometimes it isn’t about what you want, it’s about what they need and whatever they have asked you to hit the pause button on.

Well ladies, that’s all I’ve got for today. Thanks for stopping by.