Dumped For A Boyfriend

What about those friends who exchange their friendships with us for the love of a significant other?  What’s with THAT?  It kind of reminds me of HS days!  I had a friend who did that to me just this past summer.  Here’s how the story played out:  I had PainterGirl over for dinner almost every Friday night (for at least a year) because we both enjoyed each other’s company and had no desire to be out in bars looking for guys at that time.  In retrospect, I observe that she never reciprocated by inviting me over to her place to share a meal, and only once or twice contributed to our dinners at my house.  So the friendship was lopsided in that the hospitality and invitations were extended on a one-way street, so to speak.  One day she met TheBachelorMan, and she fell for him hook, line, and sinker!  Without notice, she no longer answered or returned my phone calls or text messages.  PainterGirl was too busy with TheBachelorMan to pay me any notice.

One evening she did indeed phone me; disappointingly not to actually visit with me, rather to seek my advice about a gesture TheBachelorMan practiced that she did not like and a conflict she was engaged in with her 16-year-old daughter.  Interestingly, the boyfriend maintains friendships with women, and her daughter feels neglected because of him.  Hmmmm.  Soon thereafter, PainterGirl forwarded me an email another one of her friends wrote to her in which the friend wrote that she was feeling abandoned by PainterGirl since TheBachelorMan came into her life.  Do you see the pattern here? 

Why do some friends (?) do this?  Are they really using us as the obvious appears? Or is there truth to the thinking that quite simply, some friends are not forever?  Regardless of the possibilities, losing a friend hurts the heart, and that’s all there is to it.  What if PainterGirl reads this post?  I will hope she recognizes that I miss her.