You're Never as Covert as You Think You Are

There is a phenomenon I have dealt with my whole life that has troubled and puzzled me to this very day. I first noticed it when I was in preschool when a little girl eyed what I was drawing, a lady standing next to a tree, and crumbled it up the moment I wasn't looking. First she laughed. Then I became rather scrappy. Then she cried. I noticed it again in myself when I was hanging about my mother's knee in a department store. I became thirsty after all the running around and hiding in the clothes racks. I got my mom to buy me a slushy drink. I saw another little girl with her mother. The little girl pulled on her mother's pant leg and pointed at me and my delicious drink with longing and wanting. I sipped my drink with expressions of euphoria. I mean, the drink was good, but not that good. I enjoyed having something someone else didn't have and I wanted to rub it in. C'mon. But that's the nature of the beast, isn't it!? That's the monster I want to talk about, the green one with wanting eyes. And this particular monster I speak of is undoubtedly and singularly female. Men compete but their measures are usually fairly overt, more obvious, and sporting. It's all in good fun, fair, part of life's game. It may be occasionally aggressive but at least it's not passive aggressive. Females can be clandestine to a frightening degree but I think it wise to remember that when these games roll out they are always directed at other females. And as my friend Bobby always says, "Women perceive things that men just don't see. They are crazy! The intuition is downright scary. They know it all and you don't even say a word." I think Bobby is right. How many times, girls, have you had a hunch about something only to find you were right on the money? How many times was a friend or acquaintance lying through her teeth with the sweetest smile you'd ever seen, not a flinch, and you knew, just knew, it was bunk? How many times has a guy professed his love and something just told you it was made of sweet nothingness? How about the times you felt like betrayal was waiting in the wings. There weren't any signs of it. Not really. Just a feeling, unprompted by words, sights, or experiences. And then there it is; the truth spills violently onto the page of your life. But oddly, you knew it was coming already. So, girls, the topic is jealousy. We don't like to talk about it. Many would rather continue pretending it doesn't exist. But the thing is, it does. And here's what I'm really getting at: IT SUCKS. I, for one, am tired of dealing with it, on either end. It has its uses though. I must confess. It can act as a proof, a test of true friendship. Here's how I know you're really my friend: when you say you want me to be happy, it becomes evident when something great happens and you are actually happy for me. My happiness enhances your own. You support me. You love my music or maybe you don't and you may have suggestions. But you're not upset by my successes. When you say, "The right guy will come along, " you stand by that when a candidate does come along, instead of suddenly becoming critical "on my behalf". If you're only there for me when things really suck then you really aren't my friend. If you find you like me more when my chips are down then that means you'd like me to lose. Losers are loveable? Yeah, that's not okay. I can tell who my real friends are because they want to talk about successes and they want to encourage, inspire, prolong, celebrate, and revel in them with me in those moments. They are there in times of loss as well but they do not enjoy it for the sake of it. They want to help. They want to mend. They may understand. They may not. But they care. Here's the thing; I've had it with false friends. It's obvious when someone wants you to fail just so they don't feel like a loser. It doesn't matter how sweetly they smile, how nice their words sound, or how much compassion meant to make its way all the way up to their eyebrows. No. Jealousy hangs in the wanting eyes, is curls around the hungry mouth, it rattles in the measured voice, it just does. And then you are left with a choice; pretend this person loves you or face the fact that they believe that your successes spell their failures, that when you have something great, anything--it could be a job, a talent, a story, anything!---they are wishing it would disappear, that they believe in scarcity and that there are only so many pieces to the pie and you having one means there may not be enough for them. And that's where the problem lies! These are LIES! There is enough love, money, opportunity, for all of us! I promise! We need to be patient, perhaps. Or maybe we need to work harder sometimes. Maybe we need new perspective, get creative. Whatever. All I'm saying is no one's blessings should upset you. It's bad enough when we feel jealous of people we hardly know or those we don't really know at all. When it bleeds into friendships that's where I think it gets ugly. There's no place for that sort of thing in real friendships. If I don’t WANT you to be successful, guess what? I am not your friend, am I? And I certainly don't love you. Here's what I want: friends who want me to end up with the best guy in the world, no matter what their romantic status is at the time when my guy shows up. I want friends who tell me the truth, have no agenda, and just want to be heard, loved, and respected. I want friends who aren't competing with me because they are already aware of how great they are and they are already the stars of their own life story. They want you to be the star of your life and they play an amazing supporting role to make sure your happy ending happens without a hitch. That's what a friend is to me. I have been blessed with some of these. I am profoundly grateful. There are so, so ever so many more of the other kind, the lesser kind. But that's what makes things precious I suppose, the rarity. People are never as covert as they think they are. Jealousy has a way of being an elephant dressed as a ballerina. It wants to be dainty. It just isn't.