Sunday, July 6th, 1997 Dear God, May your will be done. Please help me to accept and know your will. I am struggling with the death-knell in final consideration of the nature of and unfairness of that Virginia Wayman, in whom I had invested so much time and effort for friendship. Am realizing that my unreasoned prejudice *towards* Virginia and her needs could have really hurt my friend(s) or friendship with another friend. To wit, my broadcast message to all of my friends about the birthday (#1), to which Dominic responded with a rendering of the happy birthday poem (#2) ... which he didn't have to do and which was very sweet. Virginia's response to the happy birthday message (and some ensuing messages) (#3) which lead me to send (#4), something of a rebuke to Dominic for sending (#2). Rebuking a friend for sending a happy birthday greeting! How awful! And yet that kind of way of being is well within my vocabulary. I might do better to just relegate her sarcastic ways to a scrap heap. One cannot please everyone, and the fact of the matter is that Virginia seems to have found herself in the role of complaining about more things that I do wrong than she seems to know how to compliment me for doing right. I feel very hurt indeed, when I think about it, about how she has treated me. And I have bent over doubly backwards to allow her room to influence my behavior to be a pleasing kind of person to her. But really it seems that I have been little better than a toilet to her, for her to shit on when convenient or she deems it necessary. There is no pleasing Virginia. It is obvious that she is determined that the only treatment necessary for David Eisenstein is rejection, so no amount of attempting to please is going to ever be good enough. (Friendship in that circumstance is not friendship, then, but addictive behavior on my part, a form of codependency.) She may act pleased for a little while, but, sooner or later, she will find or fabricate something to use to find fault and to judge and separate. Her comments in her note to me dated 22-Jun of: "I have many other friends, many of them better friends than you, and I say this to point out the fact that they do not call weekly, send letters and postcards when they're leaving town for a week, or give little gifts or write little poems. With most people, outpourings such as these do not serve to bring people closer to you, but instead to frighten them off." These comments indicate to me that perhaps I have been doing the wrong things ... or perhaps she simply has not had the wit or equipment in her to appreciate these things, as they were inappropriate for the kind of relationship she viewed us as having or was wanting us to have. And in retrospect, I think she may have been right; except I didn't know how she viewed the relationship nor that I was doing the wrong thing at the time. I don't know how I was to know that sending a postcard to her would be construed as threatening or frightening for her? I feel labeled as a bad friend because I do the wrong things. She has explained that she has felt "attention overload" from me -- and that has evidentally frightened her. This is what she said: "I originally responded to the attention overload by merely not responding to it, but it kept coming, and you said you wanted to know what was going on. So I told you. I AM sorry if that's hurtful, and if the situations were reversed I would probably really feeling like shit. Been there, done that." It *is* possible and quite within the realm of reasonableness that a person can do *too* much, causing sensitization in others to what one does to make it unpalatable to others. Like when Dad sends me semi-weekly newspaper clippings and/or articles downloaded from the Internet. I may not want all of that and may resent the fact that Dad sends those things to me. Well. It then becomes understandable to me that perhaps Virginia had come to a point of resenting my sharing things with her, such as poems, mail or a postcard from camp -- because she doesn't want these things. Most people want what they don't have, and end up having what they don't want. She had and didn't want these things from me. It hurts to receive rejection for a gift freely offered to someone one thinks of as a friend. It is obvious that she did not understand what I was offering or why I was doing what I was doing. I probably didn't understand why either at the time. She also wrote to me: "I never said I didn't want to associate wiith you, but just wanted it to back off. 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen' y'know. You're a really nice person, David, probably too nice. I probably would've told me to go fuck myself." Maybe she should. Maybe she already has. I definitely feel fucked up by her ... but more by my desire to pursue friendship with her. I am fucked up not by her, but by what my individual desires have been and by my not reading her mind to know how my desires conflicted with hers. But I feel blamed somehow for not having had the wit to read her mind. Maybe the blame I am feeling, however, is blame I level at myself. It is natural for me to do so ... comes with the territory of what has carved a huge hole of depression in my soul. One can become prejudiced against things ... but one can also become unreasonably prejudiced *towards* things ... and it is obvious to me now that my devotion towards friendship with her was unreasonable, considering all of the circumstances. What I do understand now is that I can end up entering things that I obsess about. I was scared that, not hearing from her for quite awhile, that the friendship was dying ... because silence does denote bad things. I guess I was beginning to depend on the fact that there was friendship there, and was depending upon the idea that what I had to share with her, whatever it was, would be welcomed warmly. And sensing that silence, I wrote to her to find out why? ...because I was afraid of losing her friendship. It turns out that my fears were not groundless, and that any fear I might have had about losing her friendship, valuing her friendship, was only felt by me. She had no fear of losing mine, because she had invested so little in friendship with me that there was nothing there to really value or feel invested in. She had no problem with return on investment, as there was simply nothing invested in friendship with me. She, plain and simple, did not, has not, and has never been interested in anything beyond an arm's- length friendship with me. And she has fairly well made that clear for over five years. When will it ever dawn on me to take that seriously? So now, I am grieving the loss of another friendship ... a loss I must encourage for my own dignity ... or at least, so I think, Lord. I cannot continue to invest the kinds of attention or effort into friendship with her that I have felt lead to do, heretofore ... and really cannot feel good about ever affording myself the option of investing energy there. From the perspective of David Eisenstein, friendship with Virginia is a dead-end proposition ... and it has always been so and ever will be ... unless she changes her mind ... which isn't going to happen. She has made it clear in her note dated 8-Jun: "However, I think again this 'friendship' has gotten again to a point where I feel like you want more out of it than I do. I don't want to hurt you feelings, and that's part of my problem. Though I consider you a friend, you're not really the kind of close friend i want to do stuff with all the time, or talk to on the phone frequently or whatever. We're pretty different people, David, and I do enjoy talking to you once in awhile. But I guess what I"m saying is, back off." But now the problem of obsession has taken another turn. I am now obsessing about the pain and the grief it has caused me. What, really have I lost if I never relate to Virginia W. again in my life? I have lost: * a person who pretends interest in other people and pretends friendship; a "fair-weather" friend, that is; * a person I cannot depend on if I ever were in need; * a person who has strong self-interest, clearly overriding concern for others (or, at least, for others named "David"); * someone who wants to have a life unhindered by people like me; * a person who has the gift of complaining about things I generous- ly offer, because the things I offer are unwanted; pettiness; * concisely, a person who is bad for me and who only ennervates my self-esteem because of her pervasive lack of esteem for whatever it is she views me as in her little mind; * a person more concerned with appearances than with realities, not really wanting to know the hearts of people she deals with. These then are the hatreds that I have had to deal with, welling up in me for the past week or so. None of them may really be true ... they all may be just the effect of the "sour grapes" stuff ... if she rejects me, it makes it easier for me to accept that rejection and go on with life if I cause myself to believe terrible things about her. The problem is, there are enough of those astericked assertions above that are probably true enough to justify my awarding her an "asshole" award. I was treated far more fairly by Melania Bruner than Virginia W. generally has ever treated me. And I kicked Melania out of my house. Why, then, Lord, would I *ever* be called to keeping my heart open to Virginia? I suppose for the same reason that I have never had the heart to close it to Melania, even if I could spitefully close the door on her. I have tried ever so hard to keep from blaming Virginia for her behavior. Blame is so violent, judgemental, and useless a thing. But I feel clearly wronged by her; and I feel she doesn't feel she is right, either. I mean, how else could she have said, "I probably would've told me to go fuck myself." ? She does feel guilty ... but she probably blames me for her feelings of guilt ... for if it weren't for me, she wouldn't feel guilty. So she can walk away. She can get a life and walk away. God, please bless her. Please help her life be as full as it can. She knows how to entertain herself, like cats know how to entertain them- selves. She will never lack for friends ... or at least for those who act like friends. Please help me to grow in the belief that if she rejects my friendship, it truly is her loss; not mine. As she herself said in the 22-Jun note: "Don't take this as a reflection of what kind of person you are. I probably don't deserve a friend like you." I pray that she does indeed deserve many friends like me ... not friends that scare or annoy her, but friends that help fulfill her life, with joy and purpose, but better than I can because she will not be prejudiced against them, not misunderstanding them, not fearing them. It is most emphatically *not* a reflection of the kind of person I am ... and it is evident that she feels badly ... but is not going to be wasting a lot of time dwelling on that feeling, but moving on. And so should I. Please then help me to let go and move on to better things and better situations that that poor friendship. And please help me gather the energy I need to start studying this damn COBOL stuff so I can have a chance at the job near St. Louis earing a fair wage for fair work ren- dered. Most of all, please give me the rest and relaxation and friend- ships I need so I can be able to provide myself as a good servant for your loving and kindly purposes, my dear Lord ... purposes given at work for money, and purposes given at work for no money. And I thank you for having somehow seen fit to give me the opportunity to have shared some friendship, weak and poor though it may have been, with this person Virginia, regardless of anybody's worth. Shalom, God, David ---------------------------- (#1) -------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 10:07:04 -0500 (CDT) From: "David D. Eisenstein" To: fellow-poets -- Dominic Lenk , "Cheryl L. Hill" , "R. Thomas and Diana N. Cloud" , Jeff Brotemarkle , Jennifer Lynn Melcher , Jonathan Speak , Lauren Boland , Thomas Edelblute , Virginia Wayman Subject: hallo Tomorrow's my birthday. I will be 37. Hope you all have a great weekend. In friendship, David ----------------------- (#2) -------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Jun 1997 07:27:32 GMT From: Br Dominic To: deisenst@mail.coin.missouri.edu Cc: chill@tri-lakes.net, tcloud@mail.coin.missouri.edu, jbrotema@mail.coin.missouri.edu, c693768@showme.missouri.edu, c616949@showme.missouri.edu, lboland@mail.coin.missouri.edu, tthomas@inetworld.net, vwayman@mail.coin.missouri.edu Subject: Re: hallo Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear David! Happy Birthday to you! --Dominic ------------------------------ (#3) (excerpt) ------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 21:28:25 -0500 (CDT) From: "Virginia E. Wayman" To: "David D. Eisenstein" Subject: Re: hallo Hey, Happy birthday. Thanks for sending me copies of your correspondence with people I don't know. Are you trying to prove you have other friends besides me? Congratulations. ----------------------- (#4) -------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 08:05:08 -0500 (CDT) From: "David D. Eisenstein" To: Dominic Lenk Subject: Re: hallo Dear Brother Dominic, Thank you for your reply to the posting about my birthday. One friend wrote me back, saying, in part: On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, one friend wrote: > Hey, > Happy birthday. Thanks for sending me copies of your correspondence with > people I don't know. Are you trying to prove you have other friends > besides me? Congratulations. I have trouble knowing what to make of a response like that. Perhaps this person deserves some prayers. This friend has been tossed from the "fellow poets" list, anyway. At any rate, maybe it would be a good idea, when responding to messages I direct to "fellow poets," to make sure that your response is aimed only at me rather than at the entire group of people in my list. Thanks, Alan. Your friend, David ---------------------------------------------------------------------------