Mutually Exclusive: The one I thought was The One is now the only one who won't be friends

Dear Carolyn:
I'm getting married this autumn. My life is great after a long personal journey, including one broken engagement. My only problem is that my ex-fiancee, "Annie," is incommunicado with me right now, which really bothers me.

I'm friends with nearly all of my former girlfriends. Likewise, my fiancee is friends with nearly all of her exes, many of whom I've met. In point of fact, Annie is/was friends with most of her past boyfriends (including an ex-fiance). Her not speaking with me, even though she has my contact info, seems out of character.

I've spoken with Annie only once in the six years since we split. That was three years ago, when she was recently married. She sounded fine, too. Our relationship ended on a sour note, but last time we spoke she apologized voluntarily for the part she'd played in that. As did I for my part.
I've tried calling her, maybe four or five times, over the past couple of months. Annie won't answer or return my calls.

I'd like to make some peace and see if we can't cultivate a friendship. At what point do you give up on somebody? Am I unreasonable to pursue her friendship?

~Wondering in Seattle

Four or five unreturned calls in two months are two or three unreturned calls past the point when you give up.

As for how reasonable your effort was, that depends. If you were motivated by missing Annie's friendship, then that was reasonable. Still futile, at this point, but reasonable when you first had the idea. If you're motivated by pining or what-ifs, then it's reasonable to be concerned -- about your current, not ex-, fiancee.

If you're motivated, however, by a desire to remove the one blemish on your record of amicable breakups, then the reasonable choice would have been to nip the impulse in the bud.

You and Annie parted on a sour note, and so you're stuck with this: There is someone out there for whom you conjure painful memories, someone who thinks her life is better without you, who has declined your friendship, apologies notwithstanding (they're past anyway, not prologue).
It's not the kind of news anyone wants to hear, but we all have people out there who don't like us or don't remember us well. It's a natural, unavoidable byproduct of having a personality, opinions, a soul.

That you apparently have just one Annie is, in fact, exceptional; even you point out that Annie and your fiancee are friends with "nearly all" and "most of" their exes, respectively. As in, not every one.

So maybe your "only problem" isn't Annie's silence; it's that you won't accept that you made "some peace" three years ago. Unless you're pining (see above), please content yourself with that voluntary, all-is-forgiven, perfectly fitting goodbye.

Yikes--more people who just can't let go. At least he's not lamenting that she hasn't accepted his Facebook friendship! I think Carolyn totally nailed this guy's hang up: he doesn't want to be someone's worst memory. Although by calling repeatedly, he's only cementing himself as her "crazy ex"--in her mind and her husband's.

Speaking of which, the only reason that I can see that after years he suddenly feels compelled to make contact is his impending marriage. It seems he wants to "resolve" this issue before entering this new phase of his life. What he doesn't seem to notice is that she's already been there, done that. He doesn't say whether three years ago she called him as her own transitional soul-purging or whether he contacted her when he heard she was married. But in any case, she's clearly moved on--and considering she has not one but two ex-fiances, it's probably a good sign that she's showing commitment to her actual marriage, and not the potential ones that never came to be.

It's really, really, really OK for things to end, for people to move on! When we say "let's be friends," I think that MOST of the time we really mean one of two things:

1) "I'm so used to having you in my life that even though I don't want a relationship with you, I'm not ready to cut the apron strings"

2) "You're not a bad person and I wish you well in your future life. Though I don't actually care to be a part of it."

and very rarely

3) "I love you so dearly as a friend that I misinterpreted my feelings as something else, and now that we've moved our relationship that direction, I realize I was mistaken. I wish we could go back to the way things were, even though I know that's impossible." But I would contend that if you've gotten to the point of a (broken) engagement, this one's no longer viable

Speaking once in six years doesn't exactly speak to a deep desire to cultivate a friendship. Even if they got back in touch, I think he'd be surprised to find she's probably very different person than the woman he loved probably close to a decade ago, before their relationship went sour.

I wonder if this guy's current fiancee is encouraging him to make amends and peace and move forward, or if she's annoyed by or concerned about his obsession, or if, worst of all, she has no idea about it. It's a LITTLE odd, isn't it, that he doesn't have a single thing to say about her, except he knows she's friends with most of her exes--suggesting that he's comparing the two of them to each other, and even sought the new fiancee's input on why the old one won't talk to him. Really? That's a little strange.

Also, the ex "apologized voluntarily"? As opposed to what? The involuntary relationship he's trying to coerce her into now? I wonder what he has been doing in the intervening years, on this "long personal journey," and why it seems like it just took him in a giant circle?

And in conclusion, I am skeptical of people who say "autumn" in print when they would almost certainly say "fall" in conversation. Minus 2 points for pretension!

Day of Rest=Classic Abby

For your Sunday evening reading enjoyment, I direct you to one of my favorite Dear Abby columns of all time. I love it because it reminds me of my fiance, Sam, and how very easily this letter could have been written by him (thankfully, there was no need!). This letter was published last winter, many months before we got engaged, so I couldn't really pass it around to people laughing and saying, "this reminds me of Sam!" because I didn't want to incur any bad relationship/engagement voodoo. But now all's well, and here it is, in all its glory:

DEAR ABBY: I admit it: I am scatterbrained. I'm forgetful when it comes to events and information that affect me personally, although I have the odd ability to remember facts and trivia. It is a source of frustration and amusement to others that I can remember details about the Battle of Actium, but can also lose my car for several days because I forgot where I had it parked.

Now things have gone from comical to critical. I had been planning to propose to my girlfriend of three years, and I have lost the engagement ring. I bought the stone some months ago. It's a rare green sapphire that she helped select. I had it set without her knowledge a few weeks later. When the ring was completed, I hid it in a small space behind a drawer in my desk.

This month I planned to pop the question. But today, when I looked behind the drawer, the ring was gone. The worst part is I don't know if I moved it myself. Did I hide it somewhere else because I was afraid she might discover it? Or did I take it out to look at it and forgot where I set it down?

My forgetfulness has caused friction between us before. I want to propose, but I don't want our engagement to be forever associated with another irresponsible mistake on my part. What should I do? -- FORGETFUL IN CHICAGO

Dear Forgetful,

I hope everything turned out all right. There is a special little place in my heart for guys like you, and a special big place for one of them in particular.

Right. This blog is no place for schmoop, so away I go.

Oh, P.S. Abby told him to 1) fess up 2) look harder and then fess up 3) buy a new stone, which would probably entail fessing up at some point anyway, unless it wasn't as rare as he claimed. Then she told him to go get his head, and the rest of him, examined. Poor guy....I hope he found it!

Meanwhile, I hope the girl didn't get too pissed off waiting for the big moment.