To Stalk or Not to Stalk

My friend who broke up with me (let's call her Michaela) has a birthday coming up.  I haven't seen her for two years now, though she lives only fifteen minutes away.  (For details on my being dumped, please see http://suchpotential.blogspot.com/2009/10/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do.html) Michaela made it pretty clear to me that she's just not that interested, but we used to be such good friends and then the kind of friends who don't see each other often but can pick up where they left off (in my head, anyway), and it's not like we had any sort of falling out.  Over the past few months, I've posted a few comments on her Facebook page (which went unremarked).  When I found an old email she'd written to me (which I'd saved because I thought it particularly insightful), I forwarded it to her with an "it's been too long" note.  She did respond, with a kind but dismissive reply.  (And now reading what I've just written, even I think I'm a little pathetic.)  Still, I'm thinking about sending her a birthday card (which I've done every year but the last one).  Yes or no?

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I've been trying to break up with a friend of mine (we've gone in different directions; we have nothing in common anymore; it's not you, it's me), and I've been going about it the way the men in my life have: half-assed and cowardly. The old, "I've got a big project right now but I'll call you," type thing. And because I haven't seen this friend in over a year anyway, it's more a break-up-by-attrition, which doesn't bring many tears. I just don't enjoy our times together so much, since she's so often judgmental and didactic.

Yesterday, I realized a friend of mine is breaking up with me. I haven't seen her in over a year. My overtures of coffee and chat are put off until after the holidays or the semester or the equinox. I'm heartbroken (and embarrassed that it took me so long to figure out). I'm pretty sure why she might want to call it a day on our friendship, though. It's my tendency to be a bit judgmental and didactic. Dammit.