There Is No Accounting For…. Part II
Some people treat the people in their lives the way they treat money, which is what I was getting at last time. They work to win others over, pulling them onto their side and recruiting an audience for their version of events. Sometimes those listeners end up fighting the battles for them. These are the ones who take and rarely give back. A debt of friendship goes unpaid, and if a better option shows up, the friend who once mattered is suddenly disposable. The whole thing runs in one direction, with the rewards flowing to a single person. When someone more useful comes along, they walk, and the old friend might as well have never been there at all.
Every situation has two versions. The fair weather friend comes across as wronged, as somebody nobody understood, and you step in to save them. You see this a lot after a divorce or a split, when one person starts a new relationship and assures the newcomer that they are nothing like the ex who caused all the trouble. Then the day arrives when they turn on you. Now you are the ex. You become the one they complain about, the person whose private matters get aired out, the friend they claim to have forgotten. Calls stop getting returned. Behavior gets strange with no explanation. Plans fall through because they simply do not appear, and if any money or expenses were on the line, you are the one left covering it. After that, their family and friends (assuming any of them are still speaking to you) start surfacing with stories, filling you in on exactly who this person is and the things they have pulled before.