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Around Skinner

December 27, 2013 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: mid 40s, sun!

Comments:
OK day at work - went quickly - and I got out on time, which was nice. Jetted home and snuck in a quick three miles before I had to leave. Just felt like I needed to run! The sun came out, which was nice.

Chels picked me up just after noon; it was great that she gave me a ride, and good to see her one last time before taking off.

Airport was busy, but uneventful. Had two solid flights en route to MSP.

My friend Erin picked me up at the airport - but not before being PULLED OVER by airport police for speeding. She schmoozed her way out of a ticket, thankfully!

From the airport, we went straight to the Muddy Pig pub, where we went a year ago to talk about our relationship "airing of grievances". This year's way different for us, since she's got a new boy-toy that she really likes, and I, mine.

We talked about her guy - a triathete named Daryl, who lives in Colorado right now - before getting to Chelsea.

It...was not a good conversation.

Ugh.

I think in order to have a reliable friend that you can confide in and get advice from, you need to following things:

- Consistency: of availability and insights
- Objectivity: the ability to absorb the information with minimal judgment
- Unbiased: keeping personal (and relational)biases to a mimimum.

These are hard to find - especially the latter, if it's a good friend - but super-important if you're going to get good insights/advice.

Erin was pretty much none of these in our talk on Friday night, to the point where it was difficult to continue to fill her in.

Firstly, she insults Chelsea's yoga teaching. I'd forwarded her the video of Chelsea a couple months ago. One of the first things she said is, "Oh, now I have a video of what NOT to do!".

Really?

I called her out on it, "Why are you saying that? Sooo...would it be OK for me to talk shit about your boyfriend and how he cramps on his bike [an issue of his at Kona this year]?"

She responded with, "Sure" - which was pretty juvenile. I could not believe she would do that. Why? What's the point? Yeah, she could suck at yoga and/or teaching it, but what does that have to do with our relationship? It was VERY off-putting, and insulting to me. Wow. NOT a great start.

After that, she was VERY judgmental about everything I told her: of us reconciling, of Chelsea owning up to her mistakes and making changes. That was OK - it's right for her to be skeptical of anyone who hurts a friend, then says they've changed.

She was very judgmental about Chelsea writing my sister a letter - which she characterized as a Britt move. That she knew about that means my sister was talking to her about it. Ugh. I didn't know what to say.

We finally drifted away from this topic, only to hit another "airing of grievances"! Erin told me that she was "pissed at me" this past year! WTF?

Now, I'm well-known for NOT being a good, consistent communicator with her - we'll go long periods of not talking, but this is pretty consistent with most of my midwest friends. Shit happens. But when I asked her why, she said that she'd run all these races - several 10mi - half marathon races - and I didn't acknowledge them. Ruh-really? I did on at least one, but that was not enough, I guess.

Wow. Ugh.

CLEARLY there is an overt lack of consistency (last year to this), objectivity and presence of bias. I've always suspected that Erin has wanted to be with me (clearly there's familial pressure from my mom/sis) on this topic, but I feel this is some evidence:

- for being SO judgmental about Chelsea - her actions (which is understandable), but also being comparative/competitive with yoga. WTF? It's so weird and off-putting!
- for being SO judgmental about me not praising/nurturing her running. Sorry, but that's not my job. That's a boyfriend or FATHER job.

Ugh. It sucked. I wasn't happy, and days later, even less happy about it.

Moreover, it really rattled my faith in my relationship with Chelsea, because she made me feel like Chelsea is nothing more than Britt 2.0. THAT freaked me out...