one for the haters

Two women hate me.
It's no secret. They have both made their feelings spectacularly clear.
As much as I like to think of myself as a pretty decent person, loving and loved and loveable, the fact that there are two women out there who despise me, including one living in my own building--this fact gives me pause.
Other facts: the two don't know each other. One's in her thirties, the other her fifties. In both cases, the hatred emerged from strong emotions over a man that I was merely friends with. What is the power of a friendship, that my platonic relationship with a guy these other females coveted--in one case, romantically--that it forever poisoned the original female bond?
I don't know.
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Person A, as I'll call her, introduced me to Friend A. They'd been friends since high school. Friend A and I quickly discovered a shared hilarity and recklessness, a love of music and concerts and hanging out. Person A got jealous that Friend A and I were hanging out without her on occasion. Even though she had no interest in dating him, nor did I. Person A lost her shit. She screamed at me and Friend A in a busy Seattle intersection, broke off her friendship with Friend A and forced him out of his shared living situation with one of her relatives, and most recently accused me of workplace intimidation.

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Back when Person B and I were friends, she came to a party at my place and met Friend B. Friend B and I have been pals for a long time. We met during college, survived divorces together, have traveled and gotten drunk and gone to shows and shared losses--a sister, a mother, a good friend. Friend B dated Person B for a couple of months not long after his divorce; when they broke up, Person B decided it was my fault and cut me off. I e-mailed and called her. No response. I continued to say hi when we ran into each other around the neighborhood. She went from a muttered hi to no answer to telling me, when I asked how long this was going to continue, that nothing was wrong, it was all in my head. She's flipped me off on the street and given me the cold shoulder at friends' events. The retribution has now gone on at least ten times longer than the actual time she and Friend B were together.
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I don't know what these episodes have to teach me. I like to think I work hard on my friendships. I'm still tight with both Friends A and B. They're great guys. I've given up on the ladies. You can't un-jump over a cliff, I guess. They're not coming back.
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The photos are of me, by me. Happy Sunday.