For a long time, I thought Nadine would never get over Oliver. I watched from afar at first, but it was – as the old saying goes – like looking at a car wreck. It was awful, but I just couldn’t look away.
I’d met the two of them a year or so ago, and they were already dating by then. The three of us had a class together, and when we were asked to do a project in groups of three, they instantly paired up, and I became the third wheel.
I instantly took a liking to the both of them. They were funny, and I thought at first that they were perfect for each other, but Nadine would make really scathing remarks every once in a while behind Oliver’s back when we were out doing our girl stuff, and that really bothered me.
“I wish he wasn’t such a moron.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. No matter if she was talking about common sense or book knowledge, Oliver was – at the very least – smarter than her, so she had no right to say that. It was always so random, too. We’d be out shopping, she’d pick a dress out of a rack, look at it, and then say, “My stupid boyfriend wouldn’t like this on me anyway.”
When they came down to blows, I stayed completely out of it. I wanted to tell Oliver some of the things Nadine said about him, but I held my tongue. I knew better than to get involved.
Sometimes, Oliver would stop by my apartment without Nadine.
“You feel like talking?” he’d say.
“Of course.” I always made it a point to be available for friends when they needed someone to talk to.
Much to my surprise, he’d always come right out with a zinger like, “Do you think Nadine loves me?”
Times like those were really hard on me. I liked Nadine a lot at first, but I quickly realized she was a brat, and Oliver was blind to it because he loved her for whatever dumb reason.
A few months later, a little more than half a year after I met them, Oliver finally wised up and broke up with her. I had nothing to do with it, of course. I know better than to get involved now, just like I knew back them. That didn’t stop me from being happy for Oliver, though.
Nadine was a different story, though.
“Ugh, Felicity, he is SO stupid,” she said. I really didn’t want to be out with Nadine, because without her (much) better half, she was dull and just plain mean.
“Why do you always call him names?”
“Because he’s a dick.”
Had she always been like this? I couldn’t believe I had ever considered her a friend. “You know, you weren’t exactly the nicest girlfriend in the world,” I said. “Maybe if you would have treated him better…”
“Oh please,” she interrupted. “He’ll figure out his mistake and come crawling back to me within a week.”
Of course, he didn’t. A week passed. Two weeks passed. A month passed. She still texted me, but otherwise, I avoided Nadine. Oliver and I still talked and hung out pretty often though. I was finally able to tell him the things that Nadine used to say about him, but rather than get upset, he just laughed.
“She was so caught up in her own little world,” he said. “Oh well, we live and we learn, right?”
And that was that with Oliver. He and I talked about Nadine sometimes, but it was largely to laugh at ourselves for putting up with her.
About 2 months after they broke up, Nadine suddenly snapped. Up until then, she was still operating under the assumption that Oliver was still in love with her and would be begging on his knees at her doorstep to get her back. When the truth hit her, she became intoxicated with fury.
I got a text from her for the first time in about a week that said, “Felicity – if you see Oliver, tell his stupid ass to call me.”
I showed Oliver the text the next day, to which he replied, “Fat chance. Oh yeah, that reminds me,” and then pulled out his phone and deleted her number.
Nadine didn’t stop texting me, though. “Why didn’t he call me yet?” “Did you tell him what I said?” “He won’t answer my calls. Did you tell him?”
Finally, I’d had enough. “Nadine – stop involving me in this.”
She didn’t like my reply. Not even one little bit. She suddenly flooded my phone with texts. Some of them were her asking, “Please,” but the later ones involved her calling me a bitch, and then insinuating that I was trying to steal her man.
I ignored the texts, and the next day, I called my cell carrier and had her number blocked.
“Wow, she’s really gone off the deep end, hasn’t she?” Oliver said as he read through some of the texts later that day. “Look at what she sent me this morning.”
I took his phone and read the message he’d brought up on the screen. “Are you and that little whore-bag Felicity dating now???”
“Wow, so I’m a whore-bag now?”
“I guess so,” he laughed. “What is that supposed to be, even?”
“Who knows, who cares.”
Since then, Nadine has not stopped emailing me about Oliver. That’s how I know she’s still not over him. At first, I was going to block her, but the messages were so pathetic. She still insisted that I was a “dirty, cheating, whore-bag” – though since Oliver and I had no interest in dating, I don’t know why she still thought that, or who she thought I was cheating. Certainly not her, since she was the farthest thing from a friend that I had.
“I’m so sorry that she still bothers you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Oliver. It’s pretty amusing.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange, though? She stopped bothering me like 4 or 5 months ago, but she still tries to contact you.”
“I know, right? She’s so ridiculous.”
“I wonder if maybe she has a little girl-crush on you?” We both stared at each other until we busted out laughing, and kept on until our sides hurt.
Sometimes, even when you try to stay uninvolved in a conflict, you still can find yourself in the middle of it. That’s okay, though, because great friends are worth putting up with a minor annoyance.