The last 120 hours have been a trip…and possibly a plot for a lower budget Black version of “Single White Female.” I probably lost a pretty close (internet) pal. There was no huge e-beef. There was no big social justice disagreement. Just a regular ol’ hysterical episode followed by me basically “ghosting.”

I won’t use any names. That’s not important. I will not malign this person, (although they’ve maligned me constantly over the past several hours), because, at the end of the day, everybody is friend material (either in real life or on the internet) for somebody. But, I think I should back up because this story is about way more than friending and defriending. This is about self-care.

Upon her sending me a friend request, I guess because of mutual friends, we started to gel. We didn’t gel in that “known you since forever and would do anything for you” way but we definitely clicked much more than probably your average internet-only acquaintance. At first, it was about the general pleasantries of life. You know, friends, family, food, hobbies but it soon turned into off-hours venting and confession sessions. I learned all about her perfidious husband. It seemed like every bump and hurdle she either self-manifested or was dragged over, I heard about it in detail. We swapped stories about past boyfriends (or girlfriends in her case) and I occasionally offered tepid anecdotes about my own life but nothing salacious enough to bar me from being a presidential candidate one day (apparently).

Over time, like all friendships, we grew. When there was shade I needed to throw but didn’t want to broadcast, we’d just meet in the PMs. When she was on the verge of choking someone at work, we’d just meet in our inboxes. We were shoulders in times of grief and worry. It was the type of relationship that was perfect for me because it was an equal balance of closeness and remoteness for an acquaintance that was pretty much all electronic.

But all that changed last Thursday. She sent me a message about another coworker getting on her nerves but unlike times before, she gave no details. I write, so clearly I don’t know what to do with a story that has no details; especially around lunchtime. So, I said nothing. I went about my day trying to put the finishing touches on my novel, folding laundry, and getting prepared for Friday. Three hours later, I get another message asking my whereabouts. Between those two messages, I got two PMs from her telling me she e-mailed me and some type of exaggerated cartoonish message “helloooooo.” I didn’t answer back right away because, again, I had shit to do.

Let me break right here to offer full disclosure about my personality. I’m one of those people who feels that a person doesn’t have to return a call, e-mail, text or PM if they don’t want to because it’s their phone, computer and internet connection and they don’t owe anyone (except maybe a spouse) an explanation as to why they didn’t engage. But I digress. Much later, I chimed in and asked her what was up. She asked if I got her messages. I told her yes but I didn’t know who she was talking about. She told me it was her coworker. I responded, “Oh, okay.”
Friday rolls around and at about noon, I put everyone on notice that that night starting at 7, I’d be binge-watching season two of “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” so their existential crises would have to wait until whenever I got done. Less than an hour later, I get a PM from her telling me that she had e-mailed me. Fridays are usually a busy day for me. Not only do I write, I do my grocery shopping, cleaning, and throw my best shade on FB. An hour later, I checked my e-mail and her e-mail was asking me if I was okay. I responded back and said I was and that I was running errands and gallivanting. She responded, “ok” and I assumed it was done.
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The other shoe dropped that evening. I was about 8 episodes into ‘Kimmy Schmidt’ basking in the genius that is Titus Burgess as “Titus Andromedon” and only intermittently posting his quips on FB when I get another PM from her asking, “Are we good?”

I should have known then.

I went back to watching my show after taking a short intermission to pop some corn and refill my diet soda. I posted under a couple of my friends’ statuses and shared an article about Clarence Thomas’ threesomes.
The last thing I did before the bomb went off was posted that I really wanted some salmon with lemon pepper and peppercorns. It was under that status that all hell broke loose. She responded that I was hurting her feelings.

Let that sink in.

This woman who I’ve never met in real life… who has a family of her own… who has used me as free therapy for over a year for basically the same problem over and over again, said in a public status that I was hurting her feelings because I wasn’t jumping to every e-mail, text, and PM she was sending me over the past two days.

My first thought was, “Didn’t I TELL you that I’d be watching ‘Kimmy Schmidt’?” But I didn’t type that. I didn’t type anything. I felt it was totally unnecessary. I felt it made me look bad and her look crazy. I felt it was the height of puerility. Someone who didn’t know me would have thought that I was being stalked by a past lover. In fact, I had two PMs from other Facebook friends basically asking me, “WTF was that?” Anything that I may have typed in that moment would have made my untimely response to her communications the very least of her worries.

So I waited. I couldn’t figure out if I was mad, freaked out, flattered, or some other emotion that is hard to describe. I know I was glad she doesn’t have my address. About an hour later, I responded to her question, “Are we good?” with “yup.” That “yup” was everything.

Since then, and today is Tuesday, I’ve said nothing to her barrage of subliminal statuses about how she has nobody who cares about her, and about how she should have known something was wrong with me (imagine that) because I was rude and dismissive (which never stopped her from divulging her emotional melodramas), and about how she said she loved me (platonically) and I never said it back (true) and about how I lack “unconditional love”, and myriad other self-victimizing comments.

Now for that self-care part. When she inappropriately responded in my salmon thread that I was hurting her feelings, that was a light bulb moment for me. Because of my personality, people tend to flock to me for advice and I’m one of those people who you shouldn’t ask a question if you don’t want an answer. It’s flattering but the fact is that people can be leeches. Sometimes they know they are leeches and are trying to make sure their misery always has company (you). Sometimes they don’t know they are leeches and think that it’s normal chit-chat amongst friends.

Bored Young Woman Stirring Coffee — Image by © Vincent Mo/zefa/Corbis

But, when the chit-chat is mostly made up of their recurring life dramas, it can start to wear on you. Your listening ear and shoulder to cry on could be costing you more than your time; it could be costing you precious energy. The way that I know that she is at least somewhere between those two groups is that her constant subliminal messages are just a way to try to guilt me and pull me back into her histrionics. I refuse. My mental energy is entirely too valuable to be wasted on someone who is resolute in their despair. The gifts you’ve been given to offer the world aren’t to be used as nets by people who keep willfully climbing emotional skyscrapers and expect you to be the object they can fling themselves onto at full speed from 150 floors up whenever they don’t want to face the problems of life.

I realize that everybody, from time to time, needs a shoulder and I know that moments of weakness are a part of the human experience. However, when those moments begin to look almost exactly the same and occur with increasing frequency, it’s no longer a crisis you’re “helping” with but you have become the host to a mental/emotional parasite who has no intention of ever stopping its feast. The fact is, what they need, you will never be able to give them. To continue to try is an exercise in futility. They may be your friend or family member. You may love them dearly. But I can promise that you’ll be better off once you untether them.

written by Kristen Muldrow, (c) 2016