I just got out of my very small and therefore gossipy and incestuous college, and moved to a large city with the hopes of creating a new life, something which has become very difficult to do. Many of my college friends moved here, too, and they all hang out with each other still, very little deviation from our college set-up.

I have a friend named Beth, who was a good friend in the beginning of college; then we went our separate ways, and then towards the end she really came around and helped me get out of my break-up funk that I had been in at the time, something for which I am eternally grateful. But after school, our relationship has really taken a turn for the worse.

We live in the same city, me alone, her with her high-school best friend. They like to sit around and talk about fashion, celebrities, and who’s on the newest cover of Vogue. They’re both from ultra-wealthy families who have Ralph Lauren towels and shit. In my childhood, I was lucky if I had a towel. We’re from very different places.

I’ve probably seen her five times in the last year (we live about a thirty-minute drive from each other), although we call each other a lot. She’s always “too tired” to hang out, and when she does go out, as she tells me later, it’s always to a bar or restaurant that is inches from my apartment — she says, “I would have called you to see if you wanted to come, but I wasn’t sure if it would be okay with everyone else I was with,” which is the most hurtful thing I’ve ever heard, especially from a friend. It’s one thing that she wants to hang out with other people. I don’t need to be told that she wasn’t sure if I would be accepted into her social scene. So she flakes out.

She recently started dating another guy in The Circle and outright lied to me about the status of their relationship, saying that “he’s in a probationary period…one wrong move and he’s gone.” A night later, people were coming up to me at a party saying that they were dating, sleeping together, et cetera. I now wonder if this lie was said because he had previously dated another friend of mine (who lives elsewhere now) and Beth figured I would support the other friend. But I honestly don’t — I’m more concerned with the fact that she even said anything to me about him…if they were/are dating and she didn’t want me to know, fine, but I’d be more understanding of this if she hadn’t gone into the whole “he’s useless” act. If anything, I feel bad for this guy. After this admission was made at the party, I was very distant and cold around her, out of anger towards her and myself (for believing her).

I’m in a tizzy these days because the quasi-boyfriend is having a party this weekend, and he’s invited everyone — but me. So I think this is the actions of Beth talking and not him. He and I had some problems in the past that I thought were long-resolved, and I fear now that all of the conversations I had with Beth about this problem have been relayed to him, making him realize that I’m a jerk, and suddenly I don’t know who to trust or when to trust anyone here. Beth has done this before, and those she dislikes are apt to be thrown out, because she’s relentless in getting them a bad reputation.

So what do I do? It’s important to have my credibility, and I know I look like an angry fool, but I’m angriest at myself for trusting her. And I know I should venture out and find other people to hang out with, but I want to make sure that I don’t leave The Circle on a bad note, or because I was ushered out by someone else.

Thanks,
Befuddled Near the Mississippi