Today is a letter to someone who's recently hurt me. Easy-peasy, since I happen to have been recently wounded, and wounded pretty terribly. There is nothing worse than finding out a friendship is false.
Dear Girl-I-Shall-Not-Name,
I'm past being angry, mostly. I'm past being hurt, mostly. Now I'm just feeling foolish, betrayed, and used. I kick myself daily for losing two extraordinary friends over someone like you. Sure, they were far from perfect, but gods know I'm not either. I could have simply, quietly asked them not to make fun of people I loved to my face and told them that wasn't cool. Instead I pushed, and pushed, and finally exploded.
And lost them.
And you, you gained them. You guys are bestest buds now. For over a year, one of them said the absolute worst things about you every chance he got, while the other very quietly stepped aside and let him do it, never even quietly asking him to pick a more appropriate crowd to vent his feelings to, or at least tone it down a notch; permission seemingly given and agreement made simply by never saying no. Neither ever spoke up for you in any way, not even to just keep things cordial when in mixed company. In fact, they had no use for you at all.
I spoke for you, time and again. I supported you from the first day I met you. I often spoke up for you when people mocked you, in spite of the trouble it caused me. I stepped forward when others stepped away. I bragged about the comics you created to new people who had never seen your work and pointed them towards your creations. I talked out problems with you when others were afraid to speak up. I was the one who finally told you why the bad blood existed between you and your tormentors (yes they were my friends, but let's face it, they were definitely your tormentors)--everyone knew, but I was the only one who had the crassness to step forward. I did it to try to and start the process of mending fences; after all, you can't correct what you don't know about.
And why did I do all this?
Because I believed in you. From the bottom of my toes to the tippy-top of my head, I truly, truly believed in you. I believed in your ever increasing maturity, in your ability to change and grow, in the sweet, wonderful girl I met; I totally believed in you. I believed in your inner strength, in your underlying sweetness, in your competence--untried but there--and in the light of your unique and wonderful personality. I believed you were creative, outwardly fragile but with a tough inner core, quirky, irreverent, and fun. You see the world differently than those around you, and I thought that was spectacular.
And if you sometimes whined, or got mad over stupid shit, or caused drama, or made mistakes...well, no one in our entire circle was blameless of any of those behaviors, especially not your tormentors. None of us stood without guilt, so I could not see why your judgment--a young woman with emotional problems who barely had any real world experience--should be so much harsher than the reaction those of us who were older, wiser, and should have known better.
So I stood up for you, time and time again. For a year solid, I stood for you when others were putting you down. I supported you, reached out to you when you were in crisis, and did everything I could to be your friend. And when matters escalated, I went to the wall for you, and lost two friends that were very dear to me, friends I loved, and who, even now, it hurts to be without.
And you know what?
I made the wrong choice.
Because the upshot was you making up with them--which was good--but dropping me like a hot rock the first time I did anything wrong. Or maybe the second time. Or the third. Or the fiftieth, for all I know, since you never told me anything was wrong. I just looked up one day to find you had dumped me on the comic site and on Facebook, no warning, no explanation, just boom, gone.
And, fool that I was, I honestly didn't believe it. When Facebook and the comics both went silent, I thought maybe you were going through something rough and just not posting. When I saw people in chat talking to you but no longer saw the reply, I assumed it was just scrolling too fast for me to see it. It really never occurred to me that you would ever do such a thing, and when cold realization finally dawned, it was one of the greatest shocks I've ever suffered.
You were a person that, if you needed a place, I'd have opened my home to, despite never having met you in the flesh. That was how much I trusted that the girl I got to know was real and genuine and just plain amazing. That was how much I trusted we'd made a real connection, something more than simple internet buds. That was how much I trusted you.
You're telling me now that you were looking for the right way to let me know why you tossed me away without warning, but the thing is, your actions don't back that up. It was a good two weeks or more before I figured out what was going on, and you never even dropped me a note in that time.You said you didn't want to hurt me, but I can't fathom how someone of your obvious intelligence could have figured that doing things the way you did would have somehow hurt me less.
When I called you on it, asked you calmly and rationally what happened, it was two days before I even warranted an answer. Even then the answer only came after you ignored my inquiry and I went off. And I still feel more like you replied because you were afraid I'd cause some sort of trouble than because you actually wanted to speak to me, and that you continued to argue with me because you felt pressured to do so.
This was something you backed up yourself when you ended your first note to me with; "Maybe I should have told you all of this BEFORE, but the fact that I felt this way wasn't going to change (emphasis mine)." It's the first time you mention anything is wrong, and the very first thing you tell me is that the friendship I foolishly thought we were building meant so little to you that you'd made up your mind it was over before even talking with me.
And the ironic thing? You'd spent well over a year--almost two, in fact--hurt that you were never told why the people who hated you so badly felt the way they did, and upset you were given, not a second or even a third chance, but more like a fifth or sixth one. But when it came time to deal with me, you dropped me without telling me what was wrong and gave no second chances.
You did to me what was done to you, and thought nothing of it.
But the worst, the absolute worst part of it? You proved them right. Your then-tormentors-now-friends? You proved everything that was said about you 100% spot on. I was warned, warned you treated people like this. I was warned that you didn't like people disagreeing with you, which was apparently my sin, to not agree with you on more than one occasion. I was warned you sliced people out of your life like this with no explanation and no second chances. I heard horror story after horror story.
But, foolish me, I make it a point not to listen to gossip. To understand that people--young people especially--can and do change. To think that because you were treating me with respect, that meant you'd give that same respect to everyone, and do so continuously. To think that you had taken the rift between you and those who had dumped and then mocked you as a life lesson.
I was so, so wrong. No lessons were learned. It's possible you only liked me not only because I was nice to you, but because, on that site, I was the popular kid, and more than nice people, you crave popular people. Once my star fell and you hitched your rising one to someone with twice my popularity--someone who, coincidentally, no longer liked me--you sure dumped me hard and fast. After all, you really didn't need me anymore, did you? You have what you want, so why bother ironing out the rough spots in our relationship? You don't need to work that hard, not with all your new friends basking in the glow of your new found stardom, quick to give you all the ego stroking you'll ever need.
Even worse, I lied to my friends, if only out of ignorance. I told them you'd changed, mellowed, weren't the same girl you had been. I guaranteed it. And when they'd had time to get over the hurt we'd slung at each other, they went to you with an open hand of friendship, driven partially by my words.
And you're going to hurt them.
Sooner or later they will disagree with you one too many times. They might accidentally hurt your feelings or piss you off; it happens sooner or later in every relationship. It's an inevitability. And when it finally does, you will do to them what you did to me; what you have done at least twice in the past that I know of, and more often that I have been told about through gossip.
You haven't changed at all.
The day will come that you will hurt my friends. Sure, they have no use for me anymore, and why should they? Pretty harsh things were said all around. But I still love them enough that it hurts every time I know they are online and we don't speak, every time I see comments left elsewhere and smiles given to others, and I know that door is closed to me forever. I'm not sure it will ever stop hurting.
And the clock is counting down until the day I have to watch from afar when the drama explodes all over again, when they curse my name for ever convincing them to trust you. And they'll be right to do so. It will be no less than I deserve.
I stood up for you, for the sweet, shy, sensitive girl I thought I knew. I went to the wall for you, risked everything and lost it, over you. I supported you, believed in you, and stood by you almost from the day I met you. And this is all it's worth, this...summary dismissal.
Know this; I will never ever stand for you again. To anyone. I will not show off your work. I will not introduce people to you. I will not set anyone else up for this kind of hurt, or for this sort of betrayal given in return for loyalty.
I know you are not a bad girl, or even a truly malicious one, but you are incredibly broken. And you are shallow, shallow about your relationships, and shallow about yourself. And until you pull your shit together, you will receive not one more iota of support from me.
Frankly, you haven't earned it, and you don't deserve it.
If I could go back and erase the entire confrontation, take back everything I said to my friends, I would. But I can't. All I can do is learn from this, and I have learned well. You have lost my trust, and you may never gain it back.
But then, I'm guessing that doesn't mean much to you anyway.
Someday it will. Someday you'll find someone you'll really want to keep, and you will do to them what you did to me, what you've done to so many others. Why? Because you refuse to learn from your mistakes or your life. And someday that someone will say the exact same things to you that I am now.
And you will deserve every word.
Maybe then you'll finally stop shitting on people and get your damned priorities straight.
Goodbye,
Me.
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