Never coming back

I don't regret having ending things. I still feel it was the best choice to make myself happier. The one thing that bugs me is how it ended with Lori. A part of me thinks maybe if I had not been so mad and expressed myself better. Things could have been different. Even though she broke my heart, I do miss her very much.
I was surprised and confused that people thought I was pouting and would get over it. It took me some time to get how differently people saw the situation from how I did. Largely (I guess) because I never really explained my issues. I felt no need to as it wouldn't have help. I didn't want to list all the problems I had with the post and defend Shal because it would be insulting to her to even debate the ugly hatred that came out of people as a defend able view point. Anyway it had very little to do with the post. That was the straw that broke the camels back. It was smack upside the head to do what was long, long overdo.
I'm sitting in my office many months ago and think. "Do I want to go camping with people that I don't even know I want to be friends with anymore" I get up walk over to Shal and say. "We're not going camping" she wonders why and I tell her my thoughts. This was never a blanket feeling for everyone just more and more people as time went on. When I look back on things now I was hoping even before I met Shal that whoever I ended up dating would have friends I could be part of.
Most of time when I was still friends with the group. I was confused to why people thought and acted like they did. Nick said something like "Why didn't you make a bigger deal about you two getting engaged and only tell people by putting a pic of a box on the blog" He would question me not sharing our joy with the group when no one would even talk about us getting engaged till I was out of the room.
As much as I pulled the trigger to end things. I feel the group loaded the gun and put it on the table. It was so pathetic at the end friends of friends like Kim and Amy were showing far more interest in talking to us then anyone else. Even when it was just me it was almost imposable to even be part of a conversation. What a chicken shit was I to take that shit for so long and not tell you off back then. "I don't want to lose all my friends" I would say to Shal as some kind of moronic reason for not standing up for her. What I didn't get back then was I wasn't standing up for myself. I deserve better friends and if I can't have that I will have none. I felt so out of place, ignored, treaded like shit. That I would rather be alone then spend time with any of you. Well to be more fair it mostly directed at Nick and Russ. I feel some other people ended up in the middle of the ugliness that was inevitable.
As upsetting as it all was I came to understand that it was not losing friends that was upsetting they were long gone. It was realizing the fun times with the group of a few years ago were never coming back.