Week 12 — I am no liar

Each week on this blog I will release a new thing, a creation such as music, poems, photography, etc. These creations will be paired with a blog post which tackle difficult topics that have contributed to my previous creative hiatus. To learn why I have chosen this challenge, read my first post here.

This week I release a dress that I sewed myself but used a pattern for, which I did adjust slightly. This dress was originally a half finished project that I struggled with before lockdown. I luckily have access to a much better sewing machine so it was easy to pick the project up again.

When someone lies about you to protect their own image, they have essentially given you permission to do the opposite to them, which is to use the truth that they are too scared to admit to.

In one particular terrible moment of judgment in my life I actually allowed a friend to throw me under the bus to save their own ass. They told their partner that I was crazy and obsessed with them, and they did this because they couldn’t admit to the fact that they should not have been talking to me. It took me years of self-blame to realise that I actually was not the cause of their relationship troubles, and that he is the only one responsible for the safety of his own relationship. This is not for me to manage and it is up to him to ensure that he is not doing anything that his partner would not approve of.

When I allowed him to throw me under the bus, I did so because I was worried for my friend’s relationship and I didn’t want to make it worse. Although I was also not sure why it was happening. I was so blinded by my misbelief in the strength of our friendship that I could not see the hazard signs and I never considered that he wasn’t managing this with his girlfriend, who he spoke about as if she was well aware of our friendship.

I assume that I became the focal point because he had done something he shouldn’t have and got caught doing it. I assume that it was easier to deflect things onto me than to get caught doing whatever else it was he was doing. All I have are my assumptions because I was certainly not granted the kindness of actually finding out why this was happening.

This is not the behaviour of someone who is kind, it is not the behaviour of someone who has empathy, and it is not the behaviour of a friend. It took me longer than it should have to see that I allowed myself to get close to someone who was potentially a sociopath, or at the very least just a really big douchebag. The truth of what actually happened was that he banked on my commitment to the friendship and weaponised it against me to ensure that he stay protected.

I have obeyed their commands to “stay away” and have carried on with my life, all the while wondering why I was treated with such disrespect by someone I trusted. And I realise that there’s one thing that they did not consider when they turned on me like a pack of wolves. That thing is this: what incentive do I have to continue to allow his lie to affect me?

You see, I do not have a friendship with him anymore. In fact, I have an enemy there, so he has given me no reason to want to protect his feelings any longer, which is what he was initially banking on to keep me silent. The main tactic he used was slut-shaming, as he constructed a narrative that made me into a voracious home-wrecker. He thought that the fear of being identified as a home-wrecker would be enough to keep me silent, except I am no fucking home-wrecker. So why should I be silent?

In fact, his innocence dies with my honesty and when someone says to me “oh, I saw Asshole 1 today” (my nickname for him on this blog) and I say “we don’t talk anymore” and when they ask me, “why?” You can bet I’m going to say “because I think he didn’t tell his girlfriend that we were friends and I’m forbidden to talk to him again.”

I’m certainly not going to say “well, he said I was obsessed with him, so he asked me to stay away and I did.” Why would I continue to protect him with something that is harmful to me? I wouldn’t. This is where he will one day need to own up to the truth: when enough people have asked me how that friendship is and I have to explain the truth of what happened. I do not slander — I would not sink to his level by intentionally causing harm for my own benefit. However, I am also no liar.

All music, lyrics, art, photography, drawings and blog content written by Nicole Andrews unless otherwise specified. Please see her website to listen to or buy her studio produced songs: https://www.nicoleandrewsmusic.com/