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Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by DrFrylock, May 6, 2011.

  1. DrFrylock

    DrFrylock
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    The White

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    A coworker/friend of mine is going through a rough patch because he means well, but his emotions get the better of him and he has burned pretty much every bridge he has. He's now looking for a boat off the island. I feel kind of bad for him, but he was riding around trailing a lit torch behind him. I, on the other hand, will move mountains to avoid burning a bridge, sometimes (I think) to my detriment.

    FOCUS: When have you burned a bridge, on purpose or otherwise? Was it at work? In your personal life? What were the ramifications?
     
    #1 DrFrylock, May 6, 2011
  2. lostalldoubt86

    lostalldoubt86
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    Emotionally Jaded

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    I completely got rid of the guy I was talking about a while back who annoyed me to no end. It turned out pretty well, mostly because I had my car and didn't need him anymore.
     
    #2 lostalldoubt86, May 6, 2011
  3. TX.

    TX.
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    The Mad Pooper

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    Over the holidays I burned my first bridge. I started thinking about the relationships in my life and how toxic some of them are. The most toxic was my friend C. He is manipulative, negative, and just a shitty friend in general. I don't know why I've continued to be friends with his ex-wife and him. For years I've dismissed it as "it's just the way he is...he's really a good guy" and "I'm being too sensitive". No. He's a shitty friend who cares little about anyone other than himself.

    One night he said said something really mean and manipulative. Normally I would've responded with a joke and left it, but I was sick of the way he treated me and snapped. I told him everything I thought about him. I spared no detail and told him to delete my number. He got angry and defensive and said some really mean and untrue things. All of that just made me want him out of my life even more. It was really out of character for me, but it felt really good.

    So far there have been no ramifications. There is less drama in my life. There are over 6 million people in this city, but I'm certain that someday soon I'll see him at a bar or restaurant. I have no idea what will happen. At best we'll pretend we don't see each other. The worst case scenario is that he'll go out of his way to say something hurtful and make me look bad in front of whomever I'm with.
     
    #3 TX., May 6, 2011
  4. Harry Coolahan

    Harry Coolahan
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    Disturbed

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    I burned my first bridge at work a few months ago. I was working at a restaurant and the pay was not particularly good, so I handed in my two week's notice. On my last day, I clock out and tell one of the managers that I'm leaving. He starts speaking condescendingly and asks me why I didn't ask for his permission to clock out first. I tell him I finished my duties and didn't think there was anything left to do. He walks over to the front desk (I was a coordinator) and starts telling me about how the front desk "looks like crap" and basically berating me for being lazy and incompetent. Then he tells me I need to clean up the front desk and find him to see if I've finished my duties for the evening and can leave.

    The reason he told me the front desk looked like crap? There was one single mint wrapper on the floor.

    I quietly listened to him, waited until he walked away, and then grabbed my coat and left forever.

    (This is annoying because it's the first job I've had where I didn't leave on good terms with my employers, but fuck that.)
     
    #4 Harry Coolahan, May 6, 2011
  5. Blue Dog

    Blue Dog
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    This is actually how I pretty much operated at the end of any real relationship that I've ever had. If something happened while we were together that was severe enough for us to end things, then to me that was it. I didn't call them, didn't write, nothing- I completely cut them out of my life. This is a double-edged sword, obviously, and the immediate aftermath always sucked. But I just found that it was always easier in the longrun, and cut down on most, if not all, of the unnecessary post-break up drama.

    There has only ever been one girl that this rule didn't apply to, and she was my first real girlfriend, and really the first real love of my life. The only reason that one ended was because I was too young and immature to handle it, and she has always been a sweetheart, so I've kept in touch with her over the years. She was even there, with her parents, to visit me in the hospital after my accident, and was also able to give me her approval of The Wife, which meant a lot.

    I can only think of one real friend I've cut out of my life- I was friends with this girl D all throughout college. She was a really cool, down-to-earth kinda girl, one who would be the first to suggest that we spend the day grilling meat and drinking beer. We met when one of my other friends introduced us, hoping to hook us up, but I don't think we ever tried to take it to the next level- she was just a really cool girl who I liked hanging out with.

    The only problem with D was this- she was so goddamn dependent on being in a relationship that it was ridiculous. We're talking about a small town Cajun girl, whose friends she grew up with all got married and had kids right out of high school, so despite her assurances otherwise, you could tell that she was desperate to get married. This meant that everytime she met a new guy, I wouldn't hear from her until she inevitably scared the guy off by demanding to get married or move in together or whatever. Once that happened, I'd get the call, she'd want to come over and get drunk, and I'd sit there and drink beer while listening to her rationalize her actions. I don't want this to sound like the classic "nice guy always comforts the girl 'cause he secretly likes her" kinda deal, because I can assure you it was not. I dated other people while friends with her, she dated (lots of) other people, and I never once felt a sense of jealousy between us. But hell, yall don't know me or her, so think whatever you want, I guess. I probably shouldn't have let her take advantage of me like that, only using me as a shoulder to cry on, but the past is what it is, and the important this is that I finally did smarten up a few years back.

    I was living back in my hometown, and I get the call that she had been broken up with by her current whatever, and that she wanted to come stay for the weekend, get drunk, and basically just catch up on all the time we've missed and whatnot. At this point, I hadn't seen her for like a year or 2, so I was kind of excited to see my old friend, have her see my house, etc. We always used to get drunk and cook large pots of food together while drinking whiskey, so I went grocery shopping and got all the stuff to do a big rice and gravy, got a bunch of whiskey, and made plans with some of my friends to hang out and show my old friend from college a good time.

    She finally gets to my house, but something's wrong. I'm expecting a happy reunion, but she's just kinda "Meh, hey, what's up". While cooking, she is hardly talking, and spending most of her time texting some guy she says she had met the week before. I tell her to cut that shit out, that if she's going to hang out here, then she is not going to be giving her attention to some asshole she just met half a state away. She agrees and puts us her phone, but is still kind of distant, even when my little brother and some of his friends show up to hangout.

    Before we eat, I walk to the backyard to take a piss and make a call, which takes about 5 minutes total. When I walk back inside, my little brother is standing there asking what happened? I don't know what he is talking about, but he says that when I went outside, D got up from her seat, went and got her bag, and took off saying she was going to go meet some guy.

    This pissed me off something fierce. I'd gone out of my way to show this fucking girl a good time, to catch up and wax nostagia about the good ol' days, to cheer her up after her recent breakup, and she's just going to fucking sneak out of my house without saying anything? I walked out the front door to see her call pulling out the driveway. I knocked on her window and asked what the fuck she was doing, and sure enough, she was driving 2 hours away to go meet up with the guy (who, remember, she had just met like a week before). I could only say "Are you serious?" before she closed her window and took off. She didn't even say goodbye.

    I sent her a text at that point telling her not to call me again. She tried 2 or 3 times, but at this point, I'm done with her. She can have her husband hunt without me there to pick up the pieces.
     
    #5 Blue Dog, May 6, 2011
  6. audreymonroe

    audreymonroe
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    The most powerful cervix... in the world...

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    Last Fall, I had an internship at a magazine that treated me like shit. At the end of my first day, I called my dad in tears saying I wasn't going to go back, but then I decided to suck it up because maybe it would end up being like The Devil Wears Prada or Ugly Betty or any other fictional story that's perfectly reasonable for me to base my reality on. They did give me a couple of great opportunities, but for the most part, it just kept getting worse. What they were doing was illegal, not only just for interns, but it would've been for paid employees too.

    Just shy of two months (the minimum is three months, but they were expecting us to be there for five or longer), I couldn't take it anymore and I had picked up a few more paying gigs that I couldn't commit enough time to if I was being tied up in the unpaid internship. On Thursday, I get an email from the assistant editor telling me that I was so good that they wanted to bring me on an extra day (which was a cute way of saying another one of the interns quit and they were scrambling to cover her duties). I told her I could, but the thought of working there one more day a week pushed me over the edge. Sunday, I wrote her an email telling her that I had gotten a job (a bit of a truth-stretch) and that I could no longer intern there. She didn't respond at all until the next week. I had been given an assignment that I already had to push back once, and the deadline had been after I quit. I assumed I wouldn't be able to do the article any more, and the place didn't have a phone so I'd have to go all the way up to Harlem from the heart of Brooklyn so I hadn't bothered to do it. I told her so, in so many words, and that was that. Not exactly my smoothest moments in my career so far.

    So, I don't think I'll be working at that magazine any time soon, but I still got the clips and a big name on my resume so I'm pretty much fine with it.
     
    #6 audreymonroe, May 6, 2011
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