In which I ramble about friends and liars.

(This is a long-ish rambling post that has little to do with horses.  Feel free to tl;dr.)

You know those people who are social butterflies and make friends easily and always have a crowd of people around them?  I'm the exact opposite.  My idea of a good time is riding my horse or sitting at home reading a book.  People make me nervous.  I truly have no idea how to make a friend.  The friends I do have are people that I spent time with because of circumstance, not choice, and they were friendly and talked to me, and somewhere we became friends.

I don't want this to sound like I don't value my friends or don't really like them.. quite the opposite.  The few friends I do have are awesome.  Regardless of how we became friends, I'm grateful for them.  I only say all this to explain how hard it is for me to make friends and why I value those I do have so much.

For better or for worse, I am infinitely loyal to my friends.  I will always be on their side.  I'll support them, defend them, never gossip, and so on.

Well, I suppose "infinitely" isn't quite the right word to use.  There is almost nothing that will cause me to end a friendship.  The one thing I absolutely will not tolerate or accept is neglect or bad treatment of my animals.  If a friend knowingly does something to hurt my animal, or knowingly puts my animal in a situation where harm could come to it, even if there are no ill effects.

I have lost a friend or two that way.  And even though I don't have many friends and the ones I have are very important to me.. I don't miss them.  It's not a loss.  I'm sad that they put so little importance on me and my animals.  I'm sad that their true character is so far from what I thought.  But I don't regret the ending of the friendship.

At the same time, I don't harbor any ill will to former friends.  We will never be friends again, but I'm fine with them.  I'm willing to have pleasant conversation and such, but beyond that?  No.  A person who is willing to (potentially) harm my animal is not someone I can ever be friends with. 


This next part is a different topic..

Why do people lie?  I really don't get it.  I'm not talking "oh yes, that hat is lovely" lies.  Big lies.  For example....  The Mare's previous owner lied big time about her history.  According to PO, The Mare was imported from Ireland (she was born in Florida) and she had been an advanced level eventer (she did lower level hunters and equitation).

I suspected it wasn't totally accurate, but it was a few years before I had confirmation.  Not that I care.  The Mare is mine and I love her, regardless of where she's from or what she's done.  It's just so frustrating that people can't be honest.  What's wrong with telling the truth?  I'm not even talking about withholding information, this is inventing a completely new history... which isn't hard to prove or disprove when the horse in question is a Jockey Club registered Thoroughbred.  For a while, I expected The Mare to know things because she'd done advanced eventing.  Okay, I figured she wasn't really an advanced eventer... but surely she'd done some eventing, surely no one would make up that much.. In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.

Don't trust people.  If it sounds like it's not true, it's probably not true.