I don't mean to pick you apart you see, But I can't help it

She was right. Things are different now. She is different. She is treating us differently. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's a little reserved. A little indignant. A little smart ass. A little embarrassed? I don't know. I am probably different too. I don't understand her choices. And I am working to separate my disappointment from the obvious. That she is in denial. I am reminding myself that these are her choices; these are not my choices, and frankly they have very little impact on my life.

Oh, alright. Her choices should have very little impact on my life. And possibly I'm the one making wrong choices by assuming I can help her. That I can talk her out of this situation. "C'mon, just leave that asshole. Your kids are depending on you." I understand that it's not that easy. But are things getting any easier otherwise?

It's always interesting when friendships and social circles change and evolve. I did see some kind of change approaching in the group I associate with. There are layers of people in this group. In other words, there are a few I call very close friends and spend a lot of time with. There are a few I consider to be good fun and I enjoy seeing them, when it happens. There are a whole bunch that are really just acquaintances. Over the course of the last couple of years I have watched a group of about 20 women (and sometimes their husbands too) tripping all over themselves and one another to gain that "best friend" status. I have seen a few of the gals drift off and spend more time together. I have seen couples become good friends with other couples and hang out a lot together. I have seen the parents who have girls start to formulate their own cliques and not include the parents who have boys. (By the way, the parents of boys always want to include the parents of girls because when little girls are around, our little boys are much happier. But that's a topic for another day.) I have seen those who have (a lot) more money than the rest of us gravitate to one another. I have seen social circles within social circles, and feelings have been hurt. I have seen that a lot.

I am mostly sitting on the sidelines watching this parade. She brought me to this charade. She introduced me into all of this. She is the first person I met within this group. She has always held this over my head, usually in an unspoken way. But sometimes she has been blatant, and basically informed me and my husband and a few of our other friends that we would never know these people had it not been for her. I know that sounds incredibly rude of her. What other way is there to meet people, right? But I have to say that the anti-social person in me has unconsciously said, 'ok, if I have to include you every time I associate with anyone else that we now mutually know as 'friends', then I won't actively seek to hang out with anyone, because, you know what? That's fucked.'

I've never said that to her. Or to anyone. I'm just saying that sometimes I have been mostly comfortable with the level of my social involvement within this massive group of women. Women who quite frankly scare the shit out of me. The last time I associated with this many women at the same time, I was singing the Greek alphabet and doing Jager shots, and even then I was not totally convinced that I felt comfortable with this kind of forced sexism. The guys are more fun to do Jager shots with anyway.

So as I've been watching the group start to drift off into smaller groups and cliques, and as I've watched the girls choose their "besties", I've had the foresight to see that this is all going to fall apart. And when my introduction into the circle is drifting, so is my involvement in the social scene that is Naples.

Or is it? This could be my opportunity to spend more time with people I like but have not really made an effort to socialize with on an individual basis.

Last weekend we hung out with her and her asshole husband. God, he is really an asshole. My husband was a saint, however, and made a huge effort to engage with the asshole, and ultimately pretend that we are all friends. It kind of feels like we are on a reality TV program and we are all pretending for the cameras. But as soon as we leave to go home, and the cameras are off, we can be ourselves again. We can talk honestly again. We are real.

Her husband is out of town again. She wants me to come over tonight, bring the kids, swim, play, drink wine. I so want to go and drill her again. What's going on? How are things with the asshole? Has he blown up and thrown any wine glasses across the room? But she has told me she doesn't want to talk about it every time I see her. Me thinks a few glasses of wine could change all that. I just wonder what else will change. And is it me? Or is it her?