Member-only story
If You Want to Lose a Friend, Lend Them Money
A cautionary tale of friendships in a material world
I have been quite unlucky with my friends recently.
I used to have a lot of friends. I have always been surrounded by people and I had no problems connecting with them. But childhood best friends drifted away. The mainly situational friendships related to my jobs slowly died off when the situation changed. Mummy-friendships were limited to conversations about my kids, usually happened on the playground where I stopped going as soon as I could.
When my life started to take a downward turn it started to be more difficult to connect with people — as I didn’t really feel like letting anyone on in my relationship, the abuse, the revenge porn or the PTSD that followed. It was isolating in itself. When 2 years ago — partly because of my revenge porn case — I started freelancing, the much-craved human connection was reduced to a couple of very close friends who I trusted enough not to judge me and whom I didn’t need to fill in on the details for they lived it with me.
The first blow came from a close friend of three years who ghosted me overnight. She stood by me when I was struggling with my abusive ex. She was there for me when I was healing from the trauma. She was an integral part of my life — without a…
