Sparrow:
I had a friend like this, we are not in contact anymore.
I used to arrange to get together with her, I would go to her place, we always had fun, we were both grad students at Penn State, PA. When she left and went to Rutgers, via a year at home in Spain first, I kept us going with regular letters --I always wrote more than she did--, nice tasteful cards, hand picked birthday and Xmas presents, and when she came back to Rutgers, I dragged my DH and baby daughter to stay with her and her boyfriend for the weekend, when she was pregnant. After that, the last time I saw her was when they came to stay with us "for the weekend." they arrived late on the Friday evening, got up really early on Sat morning, went out around town before we got up and by the time they came back to our house, they said "it was getting late" and they had to leave. So, I got to spend about 1 hour talking intimately with my friend.
After that, my last contact with her was a one line email wishing me a happy birthday, after I had again sent her a lovely card and present for her birthday.
Thing I don't get is, when we were both at Penn State together she used to talk about how special our friendship was and how I had opened her eyes to her condition as a woman in this patriarchal world. Well.
I never bothered trying to contact her again, after all, repeated verbal insistences upon how special our friendship was, in the absence of manifestations of how she truly appreciated our friendship, were worse than useless.
Friendship is friendship and it takes both parties to keep it alive. If it's always you putting forth the effort, you have to consider who truly values the relationship and who doesn't. Personally, I'm a cut and dried, black and white person: I like you, or I never bother with you again. If you can''t meet me halfway, well, I have too much self respect to waste my life chasing you down to make you give me more.
I'm like you Sparrow. Since leaving grad school I have only managed to make one true friend. I'd love more friends! I spent my childhood desperately inviting people over, always dropping by at their house to see if X could come out and play. It used to upset me as a kid that it was always so one sided, and my own daughters have complained of this happening to them too. I just say, the people whose friendship is worth the trouble will be the people who put forth the same effort and concern about the friendship as you do. But, it is upsetting to learn that this isn't always the case. In any relationship there is a power imbalance. It happens between men and women, and between friends of the same gender. Power imbalances permeate us at all strata of society, in every relationship we have.
So, you are not alone in your feelings and your ruminations.
What should you do about your friend? You might have to accept that she is never going to change. She may appreciate your friendship, but in the scheme of things in her own life, perhaps your friendship takes a back seat to other things. Or maybe the particular imbalance of power in your relationship with her is exactly this: you will always do the calling and the driving and the suggesting and arranging. If you don't, things may never happen at all. She may see already that since you can be relied upon to make sure she and you get together, there's no need for her to do anything: why change the status quo? You could always try and shake her up a bit either by not arranging a next meeting and waiting for her to grab the initiative, or by having the conversation with her in which you confront this issue.
What will you do?
But, I believe instances of this type of power imbalance are known the world over.
Clare
She is a SAHM with 3 kids (2 in school) and says she is SO busy all the time... and I guess I can not relate to why it takes so much energy and time to make a quick phonecall once in awhile, but she never does unless she is returning my calls...
