I haven't talked about our social life much of late and that is mainly because Mac and I pretty much cut ourselves off from our friends back in October. It seemed like we suddenly realised that the friends we had were having a negative affect on our lives. I guess that was because most of them knew Mac and I back when we were with other people and some of them found it hard to understand that we were planning on being together forever now.

We did not make this decision lightly, I can put up with a lot of abuse before I call it quits on a friend. I forgave lies and patiently corrected rumours. I ignored being told things like "of course Mac keeps you around, you are his greatest fan and his ego needs you" and I didn't listen when I was constantly told that I was Mac's second choice.

I think a lot of it came from the fact that the subculture that we lived in had very little morals in regards to sex. The women in our group could pretty much have any guy they liked and often, the guys were shared around a bit. Mac used to call it a meat market. A new guy would come along and be fought over, sliced up and devoured by a few, then the bones would be tossed away and while the guy was still pulling up his pants, his name would already be dirt. No one liked used goods, besides, what use was a guy that dropped his pants for the first pretty smile that came along? So he would become a fringe dweller and be tossed a few scraps if someone was lonely for a night.

I hate to admit that there were times that I got caught up in the frenzy of new meat, but I did, although I only ever slept with one. Most of the time I would set out to make them want me and when they did, I didn't want them anymore. There was another who helped me through a hard time and I thought I cared for him, but I found out about two girls he was sleeping with and one more he was chasing and well, I didn't want to know him after that.

Mac was our anomaly. He was the guy all the girls wanted but couldn't have. He would rather go home alone then become one more carcass in the meat market. He set Himself apart from us in that regard. He was faithful to His girlfriend in a time when none of us were faithful. Even I had slept with someone behind my boyfriends back. My boyfriend, Christ, I don't ever want to know how many of the girls he slept with.

Then we grew up a little and a group of us who had settled into relationships moved on. Besides, we finished university and we were out in the real world now. It was time to start taking responsibility for who we were. I guess in some ways we still wanted to hang onto that party time and we still hung out with the smaller and more mature group. But sometimes, the past reared its head, too much for us to keep on ignoring it.

The final straw for Mac was an old friend of ours telling Him that, "Sarah wouldn't need to know." He was so disgusted that He came home and decided not to bother with those friends again. I on the other hand tried to keep the friendships for longer until someone else told me that she could have had Mac on a number of occasions before me, but had always turned Him down. I found that amusing at first because she obviously didn't remember confiding that she thought that Mac was gay because He never accepted her advances. She had been quite bitter about it. Then I got angry at the implication that I had accepted second best. I can put up with a lot of dirt being heaped on me, but I will defend Mac with my last breath. I realised that amongst this group it would never change. Mac was right. It was time for us to move on.

So for a while we have been keeping it quiet, other than a few nights out with the rugby crowd and of course Mac's party which was mostly rugby friends again. It is one of our rugby friend's wives that I am helping out with the data entry and I am enjoying being a part of that group. I was also invited out with the rugby girl's for a lunch a few weeks ago and although it didn't go as good as it could (we women can be real bitches to each other when we want,) I am not going to let a couple of rotten apples make me stop trying. I did tell Mac that I didn't want to get too involved with these women. When you care about someone it leads to trouble. Mac told me just to relax and go with the flow. If I make new close friends then so be it. He said I need the company and He should know.

I guess I just have to wait and see.