Phil, yep, one sided relationships are awful.

earlier, Phil Scovell, wrote:
>In recent years, I have lost a number of people I considered close friends.
>A man I considered to be my best friend has not had contact with me for at
>least two years and perhaps longer.  Others were school friends who suddenly
>passed away, or who slowly passed away, but I never heard about it until
>they were gone.  My roommate in school growing up, for example, died an
>alcoholic.  For years I called him on his birthday just to catch up on
>things.  Once and awhile, I called him more often because he meant so much
>to me.  I got to thinking one year, as his birthday approached, that he
>never ever called me for anything.  I wondered, therefore, how much I meant
>to him so I stopped calling.  Three or four years passed and then I heard of
>his death.  The pastor I mentioned in my earlier post last talked with me in
>August of 1992.  He was never a man for writing and he rarely called.  If I
>told you some of the things I did for this pastor, you would probably find
>them hard to believe.  For example, one day, many years ago, during the late
>eighties, the Lord told me to call him and talk to him about his finances.
>I did and discovered he was three months behind on his mortgage and about
>ready to lose his home.  He had not told anyone.  I hung up that day and
>called a man I knew in the church and explained the situation.  The man was
>horrified that his own pastor was that bad off financially and never once
>told anybody in the church.  They not only caught up his payments, but
>filled his house with groceries and gave him a raise at the church.  Yet, as
>I said, the only time I heard from him in five years or more was when he
>drove to Denver to meet with several friends to try and get them to sign up
>with his multi level business he was in part time.  Was that a friendship
>which worked both ways?  For the passed two or three years at least, I have
>begun evaluating what a friendship really is.  If it isn't both ways, that
>is, mutual, I now questions the reality of such a friendship.
>
>Phil.

John