Beef

I used to be all about conflict and angrying up people’s blood. Back in the day, that is. When I was … younger, more naïve … or less naïve? I can sum up the kind of person I’ve become with this: Yesterday, I spent hours feeling guilty about having unintentionally lying to the cashier at an indoor playground about Harper’s age, which saved us €3.

I like to keep things honest, and I like conflict in my life to be kept at a minimum.

That being said, I used to have a friendly relationship with a coworker and her husband. That is until I had a baby. Things were fine at first, but after invitations to come over for dinner were turned down at the last minute via text message, usually from her husband (“She’s got a really bad migraine; I’ve already had to darken the windows!”), I talked to her to get at the root of the problem. She apologized and said that they were trying to have a baby of their own and various problems were standing in their way. And that she just couldn’t bear to be around babies, and even had to flip over the framed photo of Harper we had given them. Without going into too much detail here, these problems were not of a grave reproductive nature, like being born without fallopian tubes or something.

But fine. We didn’t get pregnant with Harper overnight, so I could sort of understand her distress.

Said couple did eventually make it over to our place for dinner. And then that was it. No calls, no e-mails, no reciprocating invitation, nothing. Honestly, I didn’t care too much; my being on maternity leave made me realize that we didn’t really have much in common outside of work anyway. I figured things would work themselves out once I was back in the office.

They didn’t. She began ignoring me, and there was something about the situation that made me wildly uncomfortable. I stayed friendly, saying hello to her when I passed her in the stairwell, giving money toward her birthday gift, etc. (all the while doing my best to avoid seeing her, because seriously, what the hell? I felt like I was back in the 7th grade, when a fat girl named Kendra did her best to keep me excluded from all activities in our youth group at church.).

So whatever, right? There’s another woman who works here who is in the same situation, and she also doesn’t know what exactly she did to fall from grace. I’ll admit, it bugs me, but not because I lost such an awesome friend, but because I hate feeling like I am back in the goddamn halls of Santa Fe Middle School every time I see her.

As far as I know, she is still unpregnant, and all I can deduce is that I have something that she wants, but, alas, cannot purchase at the nearest H&M or Ed Hardy store. And because she cannot handle this, I am to be ignored.I know how agonizing it is to try to get pregnant; I remember telling her that back in my own pre-pregnancy days, to which she blithely responded, “Maybe you can’t have babies. You’ll just have to adopt.”

I know. No big loss, seriously. But what brings this all up now is what just happened a few minutes ago: I was walking into our kitchen here on our floor at work, when she came out of the meeting room where she was having lunch. She apparently also wanted to go into the kitchen, because she turned right around and retreated.

I am 32 years old, dear reader. It’s like I’m working in a time machine here. And it’s times like these when I end up lamenting the fact that I live close to a lot of people who apparently want to have nothing to do with me, while the people who are willing to… 1) have a layover in Frankfurt to see me and the family; and 2) happily take the family in when we’re visiting, even cooking up fantastic meals and organizing kick-ass driveway BBQs … live thousands and thousands of miles away. There are lots of other things I miss about my American friends, and there are days like this when they just get amplified. By like a million.

But hey, maybe I should take this feeling of being in middle school again as an opportunity to listen to Shai.