Unfriending In Real Life PT.1

This story is based on the writer's life - names have been changed for privacy

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In 2015 I was a single lady living in the basement studio of an elderly couple. I enjoyed the simplicity and calmness of life and spent many a weekend alone, binge watching Death in Paradise. On the flipside, I worked in the most hectic and chaotic job I had ever had. A drop off daycare center for a local casino,where parents would abandon their confused toddlers for eight hours to gamble and get drunk. It was sheer chaos and the strain of the job made making friends at work almost impossible. Everyone was very clique-y and high drama as many of my coworkers had worked together for ten or more years. They were not super big fans of welcoming newbies into fold because most new people quit within a year.

A year into working at the daycare I wound up working a shift I didn't normally work and ended up staying late with a staff I wasn't super familiar with. Her name was Shane and basically didn't speak to anyone and rarely smiled. However when everyone else left and she and I began closing ,we found that we had a ton in common. It was almost like we were the SAME person. She agreed with everything I said, she was funny, charismatic and charming. She was beautiful with red hair and green eyes and the unending confidence to match. I went home thrilled by the idea of having a new friend.

We began hanging out a lot and for the first few months everything went swimmingly. We were inseparable. Now its important for me to stop here and state the obvious - no one is perfect. You will never have a friend in your whole entire life who lacks an annoying flaw or quirk. So, when I started noticing some odd behaviors from Shane, I foolishly excused it all away as just "how she was". Maybe it wasn't such a big deal that she yelled over top of me when I disagreed with her, even though it kind of upset me. Maybe it wasn't so bad if she got angry with me for not liking silly things she enjoyed like...tomatoes. Maybe its ok if she corrects me constantly...

About a year and a half into my friendship with Shane I began dating RJ. RJ was the brother of an old friend and we got very serious very fast. We moved in together pretty early into our relationship because honestly...it felt right. At this point I'd known RJ for about six years and together we were this force to be reckoned with. Here is where Shane's behaviors went from "kind of mean friend but still likable" to "weird jealous monster person". Shane would find every reason she could conjure to get me to dump RJ. If I had even a minor complaint she latched onto it and would use it as a basis for aggressively bashing him. She refused to meet him and formed opinions completely based off what she wanted and not fact. Shane and I would go out and she'd come up with every excuse in the book to keep me out as late as possible. It got so bad that RJ thought I was having an affair. I was devastated when he asked me about it. I decided I'd start setting boundaries with her.

Setting boundaries is near impossible to do with someone who has no respect for you. When I would firmly let her know that I wasn't available because I had plans with someone else she would go off on how I didn't need anyone but her. Worse still, the more serious I got with RJ the more weird she got about our relationship. She'd began insisting that I marry her "If things don't work out or RJ like...dies or something."

I'm ashamed to say that I lacked the gumption and courage to anything about this for two years. It spiraled out of control. Shane obsessing over me and claiming me as her territory and me trying to maintain my boundaries without getting into a fight with her or hurting her feelings.

Then in 2019, Shane did the strangest thing yet. RJ and I had decided to buy house and for us that required moving to an area with a lower cost of living. We would need to leave the highly populated and expensive suburbs and head west to the town where RJ grew up. We planned the move for almost a year and we were set move in August of 2019. In May of 2019 Shane and I went on a road trip to Colorado together, where I was appalled to see how she treated her family and equally appalled to learn that Shane had suddenly decided she was moving with us...

TO BE CONTINUED