Thanks, guys. Logically, I knew I wasn't at fault. Emotionally, though...you know how when you start to examine a thing in small detail you start to say "Well, maybe I could have done things differently...."
Suzie was, socially, something of a washout I guess. She never went to college, but had supported herself for years. By the time she married by brother, he was (I think) her fourth marriage. (And no, I don't know WHY he married her--he said he thought he was in love.)
She was always on me for considering my friends' feelings ("friends come and go" she said "but your family is forever.") in any situation, but would later complain that she had no friends. Every club she joined was "full of snobs" (read: they didn't want to change everything to suit HER), every job she took was full of mean people who didn't like her(read: she knew better how to do everything). When my Mom passed away, Suzie expressed total shock when a dozen of my friends made the hour and a half drive to attend the wake and the funeral.
"Why are THEY here?" she demanded.
"They are my friends," I said "and we support each other."
"That's amazing," she kept saying (over and over) "that anyone would drive that far just to go to your mother's funeral. Even my family didn't come for the wake! Why would your friends do a thing like that?"
(as if they had committed some big etiquette faux pas).
Her sisters did, in fact, seem to be her only close friends and she was constantly having falling outs with them. She had one friend who was the (then) wife of my brother's acquaintance. Friend was a major alcoholic. They had a falling out during a trip to a country I will not name, but will mention it is famous for it's liquor, it's storytellers, it's alcoholics and it's constant religious struggles. It seemed that Friend wanted to spend all her time in the bar, drinking and chatting up the locals. My cousin was their travel agent and she said that she didn't blame Friend for drinking after she spent a few hours on the phone with Suzie. When Suzie complained to ME I said "Look, I told you you were taking a talkative lush to a country famous for it's talkative lushes and you laughed at me." (She was also critical of the food, the fact that there seemed to be bars everywhere, that they "drove on the wrong side of the road" after she and Friend got into a fender bender--we told them to get a eurorail pass, but NOOOOOOO--and the fact that no one spoke English the way we do here. Hello--foreign country.)
Oh, she was a piece of work and a half.
And I DID try to invite her places with my friends and I on other occasions. But if she couldn't plan it, she didn't want to go. Many control issues there.
Oh well, thanks for letting me vent!
