On forgiveness and grief

First, the good news. That bombmail was a phony. I got the year wrong, and my Quals are only due 2008. Phew!

Now for the interesting part.

I used to have a friend. I valued her friendship and loyalty. We exchanged advices. We were good friends, until she screwed up. Big time.

The complicated part is, she didn't do or say anything directly to me, for that matter. It was all about the surroundings.

We are a group of about 10 people who lean on each other to get through college and grad school. There is trust, friendship, support. And she used to be a part of it.

Then she cheated, said things behind our backs, and undermined that trust until none of us could even look at her. We gave her ostracism. Or she just drifted away. It doesn't matter now.

But none of theses offenses was directed to me alone. It all happened around me. True, she she said things about us as a group, and it included me, but none of it was exclusive. Not to me, at least.

It all happened about a year ago. Since then none of us who remained gave it any serious thought. Now that the anger is gone, I started to wonder: how long does it take to forgive someone who, as far as I know, doesn't know how to ask for forgiveness?

And, most important of all: should I forgive her at all? Come to think of it, what did she do to me? Should I wait for an impossible scene where we'd all come humiliated, hug, just forget the ugly past, and get on with life? As a physicist, at least one thing I've learned: the ideal doesn't exist. Period.

Or maybe I should start the talking, get things straight. But the crippling doubt remains. What if she doesn't care?

The crappy thing about humans is that we don't get to know what people think until we actually talk to them.