Anne | ryuuzaki's Blog

I had one of those weird 'blast-from-the-past' kind of experiences.

A few of you may have read my experience post on loosing close friends.  In my lifetime, there are a few losses of close friends that I really regret.  The loss of Anne was one of them.

It's a long story, but I met Anne (not her real name) on my second day of University.  She lived in the room directly below mine and we very quickly became close friends.  I always went to her for advice and really enjoyed spending time with her - from cooking meals to taking long walks in the woods that surrounded campus.  When Anne got a boyfriend in our first year, we started seeing less of each other but I didn't mind.  I still saw her plenty and we still got along great.  It was also around that time that I started seeing Vlad so didn't feel excluded by her relationship at all.

That changed in my second year.  I moved into a house with Anne, Sparks and two other lads who had lived with us in our first year.  Shortly before we moved in, Anne and her boyfriend split up.  I was staying with my mother over that summer and got a text from her ex saying that he'd just split up with Anne and would I mind making sure that she wasn't too upset.  Anne had a history of depression, you see, and although he didn't want to be with her any more he also didn't want to make her worse.  When I phoned Anne, I was shocked at how cheerful she sounded.  I never found out why she wasn't more upset, as just a month earlier she had been talking about how she wanted to live with this guy in her third year.  I guess I was kind of shocked as, had it been me, I would have been catatonic.

Anyway, Anne totally changed during my second year of University.  It seemed that she had no problem with choosing to spend time with her boyfriend over me, but had a real problem with me spending time with Vlad.  I found that a big divide formed down the centre of the house - Anne and the two other lads on one side, and Sparks and myself on the other.  Sparks had lots of friends outside of the house so he didn't spend a lot of time at home, and I had Vlad.  Thus, we were both excluded from house activities.  We were even ignored during conversations sometimes!

Sparks eventually snapped and declared he was moving out, leaving an empty room.  I was overjoyed.  Obviously Sparks and I were good friends and I would miss him, but Vlad was having housing trouble and needed a home.  Thus, I asked my flatmates if he could have the other room.  And they said no.  One of the lads didn't seem to mind moving in, while another said that he just didn't want to live with a couple in case they fell out and made things awkward.  That I understood.  I never really understood what Anne's objection was too, though I found out rather quickly.

It turned out that Anne and one of the other lads had been systematically bullying Vlad for the entire year.  I'd always accused Vlad of being lazy, as he preferred for us to meet up at his house rather than mine.  It turned out that he didn't like being at my house because every time I left the room those two would pick on him, making snide comments about him and how he wasn't welcome in our home.  He didn't say anything because he knew that I thought of Anne as being my friend and didn't want to cause any friction between my flatmates and myself.  I sent Anne a text saying that I didn't really want to have to move out of the house due to this, and that we all really needed to sit down and work out our problems with each other.  The reply I got was words to the affect of "Nobody cares.  You're just looking for attention".  I saw no way of resolving the situation and, reluctantly, I moved out.

I've always tried to be the diplomat.  Whenever I ran into Anne on campus, I always was polite and friendly but I still found that she blocked my email and deleted me from her Facebook friends list.  This hurt me a lot, as I always feel that you should always try and find a way to keep close friendships alive.

Anyway, I met up with Eve for the first time in months the other day.  She told me that she'd seen Anne in town and they'd had a chat because Anne recognized her as my friend (though the two of them barely know each other).  Anne, it seems, has moved back to Norwich and opened up a shop that sells home-made jewelry.  She also commented on how she had lost contact with me and couldn't seem to find my contact details anywhere.

Since Eve told me this, I figured that perhaps she wanted to let bygones be bygones too, and at least I could support her with friendship in case she didn't have many friends in the area.  I sent her a text but did not get a reply.  I guess that she could have changed her number in two years, and I don't have her email anymore myself, so I found her on Facebook and sent her a friends request that said the following:

"Hello.  I sent you a text, but I don't know if you still have the same number so I figured that you'd be sure to get this :)

I was talking to Eve the other day, and she said that you'd opened up a shop in Norwich. That's great news. I was just wondering where it is so that I could come and take a look?

Eve also said something about you loosing my contact details. My mobile phone number is ____________ and my email is ______________. I've also sent you a Facebook friends request.

We really should meet up and have a drink at some point to catch up!

Hope to hear from you soon,

Ryuu."

I think I've done all I can do now.  I hope that she really does want to contact me.  Even though Vlad keeps telling me that she's not my friend, I still like to think that we could work things out.  If she doesn't get back to me, I'll be kind of disappointed though.  I guess it's a way to tell what she thinks of me...