Throughout my life, for as long as I can remember, I have had issues with domineering people in my life.  It must be my karma or something.  It seems like an issue with either narcissists, or just pushy, clingy people is a theme.  I guess if you have certain personality traits, this attracts those types of people. It can't be by accident. 

I've run into the dynamic again.  I didn't fully realize that I had one of these types of people (or more)  in my groups of friends, because there were several of us around so it wasn't as obvious.  Over time, the person I am referring to here, who functions as sort of a "leader" de-facto, or maybe self-appointed, has offended a few people.  We've had a walking/hiking group going for years.  It was OK for a while. Apparently these issues were going on before I came around.  One of our primary friends dropped off because of her behavior, explaining to me that "their friendship was codepedent"...and then another one said, "please take me off of your email list and do not email me anymore."

So, it's just myself and one other person with this pushy friend.

Things got quite heated this week.  For local walks/hikes, I'm good for about five miles/two hours and then I need to be done by noon as there are other things to do throughout the day and also that is the current limit of my endurance.  When we go out of town, it used to be fun but that has changed.

I was on a six-month hiatus from hiking when I was attending college, and because our last out-of-town trip didn't go well, I thought, I would just stick to short, local events.  I thought, I will just go on hiatus in the summer as it's very hot here, and in the cooler months I will join in. Where I'm at it's cooler right now. 

Now even that started to become tense.  I was on vacation from work this week, and was out of town for a couple of days.  Today, the last day of my vacation from work, was our hike.  Earlier this week, we were emailing about the details, and she was firming things up. I remarked in my email that I wanted to get an earlier start and keep it relatively short (for me that's five miles) as I had plans in the early afternoon.  We hike in the mornings. 

She didn't handle it well, and in my opinion sort of blew up. By blow up I mean that she was rude and terse in her response on the email 'reply all' chain.  Her manner of writing and communication overall tends to be aggressive. She is a friendly, sociable and outgoing person on the positive end. She is not all bad-otherwise I would not be doing this at all. But, she definitely has some flaws.

I wrote, "I'd like to do a shorter hike as I have early afternoon plans.  Looking forward to it!  See you Sunday! :)"  I try to stay positive and have an upbeat tone. 

She wrote back: "We discussed this and planned this already. Your day should be blocked out."  Full stop.

I was extremely triggered when I saw that. The abruptness pissed me off, and the word "should" put me over the edge. I am easily triggered and was raised by a full-blown narcissist and physical abuser.  Everyone has trouble with her, but I think I get particularly triggered.

I was at the gym when I read that on my phone, and I was so hot I bolted out to my car, keys in hand, forgetting that my purse and gym bag were still in the locker room!  Thinking, "I'm not giving up my afternoon plans!" I had to go back and get my stuff!  It seems like I always have some kind of negative exchange with her after coming out of a therapy appointment in the evening and my therapist and I have discussed this a lot.  I just had therapy that evening too. 

I've been avoiding the confrontation for a couple years, so I finally said, via text:  "I saw your remarks and I am upset and not at all comfortable with being told how to schedule my day."  

It was a bit of an argument via text, not a knock-down drag-out, but she texted back saying that she was mad at me too and that it wasn't fair...she puts so much work into the planning.  She said, "We've been doing this for years-I make the plans and you block the day off."

My point exactly.  I'm challenging the status quo.  And, in fact, I don't want to always follow 'the plan' exactly, and sometimes things simply come up!  I'd be more available more often and for longer if it wasn't such an issue all the time!!  I don't want things always planned for me and to be a follower. It was fine before, but my life has changed.  I am simply busier and my priorites are shifting.  I'd be more than happy to do this once a month as we do, but this is silly. And it is fair! It's fair to me to respect my time.

I didn't make it to my afternoon plans, even though I was Really looking forward to them. For some reason I couldn't sleep at the past two nights and needed some downtime. Too much socializing wears me out.  And that's OK and is actually beside the pont.  The point was that I'm not going to alter my schedule just because I was instructed to.  We are not in an exclusive romantic relationship and it reminds me too much of when my abuser used to follow me and check my schedule.  If I was not home pronto it was extreme beatings.  It scares me.

I think she got the point because when we met up this morning we just dropped it, she was pleasant and said to have a good day when I left. Which is good because I was not ready for an argument. 

I know that was a lot of detail, I just needed to get that off my chest.