A WORD on "Friend-Abuse": Your Friends Are Not There to "Use and Abuse"

So by now many of you know that I have a "substance abuse" problem, only my issue is not pot or crack. It's hard to admit, but I'm dreadfully addicted to 'Sex and the City.'

A particular episode that has always stuck in my mind was near the end of the second season. Carrie sends Big packing for the second time (he tells her not to move to France just for him, and in response she throws McDonald's all over his kitchen...). The episode that follows is Carrie in the wake of her second "'Big' Fallout." All over town she goes, yammering to Miranda, or Charlotte, or Samantha about what a "commitment phobe" Big was, and how he will die alone and she will naturally go on to Greater Fabulousness.

It's important to pause here and note that I love Carrie Bradshaw. No viewer could be prouder of her little Carrie-la. That said, I'll be the first to admit that Miss B was not her finest in this episode...and that is precisely the point. Carrie's friends let her go on until she runs out of air, and then stage an intervention-like encounter in which they tell her they are "cutting her off" and will she please find a therapist that she can tell all of this stuff to, for godsake?!?!

That episode has always stuck with me because it was so clear that Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha had all reached their limit. Throughout the years that followed, they always gave Carrie a hard time whenever she brought up Big. I'll even give you an example...in the very last season Carrie mentions that Big's in town for a "little heart thing" and Miranda replies "what? is he on the wait-list to get one?." Yee-ouch.

In my own life, as I powered-off the DVD player and stepped out into the world to actually live one, I have noted similar themes to the one depicted in this episode. Friendship is one of the most important things that can be bestowed upon us. It's more important than how much money we make, or the job we have. But even so, friends have their breaking points, and respecting that is one of the wisest things you can do.

This fact is especially true when it comes to navigating the world of love and relationships...a world that is so utterly confusing (and even dangerous) that you should damn-well want some people you trust trudging through along with you. We are like explorers as we grow older and wiser. Marco Polo discovered how to get to the Pacific by going West, not East....we discover that finding love is as much about learning to love ourselves as it is another person. But the point is that, as we travel along together, we are supposed to learn. Our friends will watch us touch fire, get horribly burnt, and help us heal. But after the burns have healed if we keep going after the fire...friends have the right to become a little peeved.

I think that the mark of becoming a real thinking and feeling person is to have survived an encounter with a person who is absolutely not good for them. Come on, we all have one (I think I have five, ha ha) person that at one point consumed our thoughts, but in the end was just plain bad for us (think: human arsenic). However, it's how we get out of these situations that defines what kind of person we ultimately become. It's Relationship Darwinism...only the strong survive. Our friends serve as vital barometers to let us know when the breaking point has been reached and the pipe has officially burst. The fact is that if you are telling your friends relationship horror stories, they are going to reach a point, one by one, where they "blacklist" your Romeo, no matter how much you whine that it's "not like that...." After awhile your beloved friends are your gatekeepers because they remember why you are supposed to keep away from specific people. You insure your heart through your friends. You entrust vital and bitter memories to them, and they repeat them back to you just when you're about to throw yourself back on the coals. Once a guy has been blacklisted he'll have to go to INSANE lengths to win back the approval of your friends...use all his savings to find the cure for cancer, spend a year doing Outward Bound in Nicaragua, or (in the world of HBO) hightail it to Paris to rescue our dear girl from the grips of a neglectful Russian man.

This revered relationship is not one to be toyed with. Friend abuse, as seen in SATC, is a real thing. Friends are allowed to get frustrated when you clearly have not learned from past mistakes and they are even allowed to show you tough love by cutting you off. I've been on the Gatekeeper side as well, and let me tell you, there are a lot of fantastic ladies out there who are not being done right by. While this is lamentable, it's also highly frustrating when a friend refuses to see that her time is better spent elsewhere. But I have no intention of turning this entry into a bash-the-men-a-thon. I will only say that treating these matters with patience is perhaps the kindest thing we can do for each other. In the episode I began this entry by describing, Carrie follows her friends' advice, goes for therapy, gets involved with another patient and the affair ends with phenomenal awkwardness. Her friends restore their support, recognizing that she is trying to get on with her life, and has gotten dealt a lousy hand once again.

To conclude I will also allow that many times you know what is best for yourself. However, if you are going to go toddling after someone whose photo your friends have pinned on a dart board (based on historical reasons), you better be prepared to keep your mouth shut about it. And really, what fun is that? Don't cheat on your friends because it usually means that you are also cheating yourself.