Ambivalent Decision Making

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         Ambivalent - Having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone: "some loved her, some hated her, few were ambivalent about her."

          I have an ambivalent mindset toward someone whom I thought was my best friend. I was a bit angry, and a bit peeved, when my boyfriend, whom I believe to be pretty special, began to pay more attention to my friend than he did to me. For my story, to protect their identity, I will use the names Sabastian for my boyfriend and Marsha for my friend. This story is non-fiction.

         Marsha would talk to Sabastian by coming up to our car window. This was happening much too often. She was having problems with her boyfriend and needed someone to talk to. No one would listen to her, she said, and he felt that he was the only one who would do that. She would talk to him in whispers and this didn't make sense to me. This made me have doubts about our relationship. From the way things used to be, I felt that I was being shut out. He began to clam up on me, not saying anything at all. As a result, I became suspicious and jealous of Marsha.

         Sabastian gave her compliments on how beautiful her hair looked and how nice she smelled. He didn't give me any compliments like that. Anything I said or did, he wouldn't say anything about. My pent-up emotions drove me crazy. He denied that he was treating me badly; he wasn't able to see it. Blindsided and oblivious by my attitude and why I was getting mad all the time, I was head over heels with jealousy. Feeling unloved and uncertain of things, I was losing my confidence. When one person clams up on another, I heard that it meant that something was going on with that person, like having a love affair. Wondering what in tarnation was going on between the two of them, I began to question my friend Marsha.

         Becoming nervous as all get out, my body became very tense. I felt that my nerves were getting frazzled. Feeling that I had failed somehow, I was thinking, "What does Marsha have that I haven't got?" I had a horrible feeling; it was a tingling sensation like something was crawling all over me.

         Sabastian was holding back kisses and hugs from me. Protruding every inch of me was the feeling of sadness and anger. Horrendous thoughts went through my mind. "This is insane", I imploded. Everyday anxiety became a normal feeling of emotion.

         At this point, I didn't want to see her. By sneaking around behind my back, I felt betrayed. Nicely, I approached her by saying that it would be best if she didn't come around. It wasn't right that she was getting all the attention from Sabastian, and that he wasn't talking to me. My talk didn't help; she kept coming back. I equivocally pondered a dislike toward Marsha, after all, I thought that she was a good friend. I mumbled to myself, what kind of friend she turned out to be; why would she do this to me?" Because he wasn't talking to me, I felt that she had taken the perfect opportunity to impose herself on him. She was distributing equivocal behavior. In other words, she took advantage of the situation by being extra nice to Sabastian.

         Running wild with conflicted emotions, I began cursing at her under my breath. I felt that she was trying to break us up by throwing herself at him so that she could have him for herself. My blood began to boil just by seeing her. I thought she was disgusting and didn't want her as a friend. I thought that she was thinking that what they were doing was hilariously funny. Because I was so mad, my friends thought that I was jealous of her. I expressed how I felt by standing up to her, telling her like it was.

         The demeanor of Marsha's actions showed equivocality. My thinking was that she did these things deliberately from the standpoint of my observation, to provoke me. She wasn't the only woman to do this, other women would do the same thing. Trying to figure out why this was happening incessantly, I felt a maddening reaction inside of myself.

         I felt justified by the reaction I had toward them, even though I felt bad about feeling this way. Rather than having it fester up, continuing to make me feel miserable, I found that if I can be forgiving toward them, I can be free from all the bitterness; it's not an easy thing to do.

Written by Anna Marie Carlson

Tuesday, October 18, 2022