Over on LJ a couple of days ago, a “friend” took exception to my complaint about her deliberately, actively, and directly ignoring me when I sent an email asking about her well being.  All kinds of excuses were made and then attacks on me, rather than simply accepting and owning up to the wrong.  In her mind,my complaint was about everything else except what I complained about — mistreating a friend.  She knew how I felt about being ignored because she had done it before and I mentioned that it was a wrong way to treat someone.  She knew I felt it was disrespectful and uncaring.

Today, I saw a friend come online who is having a hard time with a relationship.  I instant messaged a “Hi” to her.  She replied, “mark.. in the middle of something.. I’ll touch base with you later..” and a sentence explaining that things weren’t going well. 

This friend gets it.  She understands that even when you are in the middle of a bad time, you treat your friends like friends… you treat them with the respect they deserve instead of ignoring them.  She understands how hurtful it is to have someone you care about (and who you thought cared about you) to treat you like you don’t even exist.

Even crap on the bottom of your shoe gets acknowledged; and it doesn’t care about your well-being one whit. Why would you not treat your friend better than crap you step in?