Question:
I had a good friend I got to know in the summer while working together in a day camp. she has a personality that she makes friends very fast, pulls the friend to become very close to her, drops the friend when she doesn’t have patience to continue the friendship, and then blames all the closeness on the friend she dropped
so this is basically what happened to our friendship. we were friends for 2 months. but then when the summer ended, she slowly drifted away. the reason why it bothered me, was because my family moved to a different neighborhood, and I wanted to finish the school year in my old school. I had no dorm, so she offered me to sleep with her by her grandmother who’s a widow. (she sleeps there every day because she lives in the same apartment building as her grandmother) since I had no other option, I agreed to go. we didn’t move right away, so there was a break from the summer until our move that happened after Chanukah. I tried telling her what she is doing but she always managed to make me feel that I’m the guilty one here. I decided to wait until I get there and then straighten everything. when I arrived. she barely spoke to me anything. a week passed, and her grandmother who has anxiety issues, decided that she doesn’t need any strangers in her house. so I left. I took off a week until I found a nice middle age couple that took me in. I stayed with a huge grudge. I don’t care for this friendship anymore. I just cant forgive her. why didn’t she tell me that her grandmother is suffering from anxiety? this isn’t the only problem, why did she act in such a cold way when I tried talking to her and fixing our friendship? whenever I see her on the street, I feel a big lump of hatred in my throat. but in a way I feel bad for her because maybe because of this, she wont be able to get engaged… I therefore need guidance to know what to do
thank you
Answer:
It sounds like you are quite upset, and I understand you. It is very painful when a person has a friendship that breaks up, especially when you want it and the other person is the one who is pulling away. From what you are writing it seems that you are not going to be friends on the same level, however what you need right now is to help yourself with the feelings of hate that you have for her. These feelings are very uncomfortable, and the Torah wants you to work on getting rid of the hateful feelings. There are three solutions that I know of, that the Torah gives us to help us in such situations.
The first is to be dan l’kaf zechus. Is there any way possible to rationalize her behavior? Could it be that something has been happening in her life that you don’t know about, and that is why she is acting this way? Thinking such thoughts will not make you love her, but it might help ease the intensity of the negative feelings that you have for her. Another idea is, maybe to a certain degree there is something that you did, or didn’t do that bothered her, (maybe you are only 90% right)? If it is true, then you would want to get rid of even that 10%.
The second solution is to talk to her about it, however you tried that already and it didn’t work for you.
There is a third solution, but it will take time, and it needs work on your part, but if you manage to do it you will get a lot of sechar in shomayim. The Vilna Gaon says that when a person does favors for someone else, it causes the person to have positive feelings for the one who they did the favor for. (This is in part why parents love their children so much more than the children love the parents- because the parents have given so much to the child.) When you give to someone else you have a little bit of yourself invested in the other person, and that cause you to have more positive feeling for them. Therefore, if you try to do indirect, (not directly, because it will most probably be emotionally too hard to do) secret favors for this girl, it will help you tremendously. Firstly, it will make you feel better yourself, and secondly, the Vilna Gaon says that since your feelings toward her will change, this will eventually cause her feelings toward you to change. Here are some examples of quiet favors that you can do for her. You can daven for her, even if it is just simply saying, “I hope she has a good day today”. You can daven that she also find a shidduch, that she be able to fix her middos, or whatever you think she might need. Other ways of doing her favors would be to talk positively about her when her name is mentioned, or finding any other way to do something positive for her. Yes, it is not easy, because this is the opposite of what you would like to do now. But try it for a few days and you will see a change in yourself (and eventually in her).
As a side point, after doing this for a few days, (once or twice a day), you should also daven that chas veshalom that bad should happen to her (such as not finding a shidduch) because of your ill feelings toward her. Even if she was 100% wrong, we have to be very careful not to curse anyone or want din on, because if a person wants din to happen to another person, it can cause no din things for them.
Dealing with an emotional issue such as this is not easy, but you never know, maybe it is this nisayon, that Hashem is sending you that will give you enormous zechusim. Hashem should help you overcome this test, and help you find your zivug hagun, and you should be zoche to build a bayis neeman b’yisroel.
