Someone once told me that all evil will come to pass. Time and again it seems to prove itself true: the thing you dread becomes the thing you have to face, sooner or later.
So here’s my little offering to the god of life’s disasters, to the slow decay that eats away until the structure finally breaks and forces the moment to it’s crisis.
…
We’ve had a long, painful friendship, built on a bedrock of enmity and betrayal. I moved somewhere new, became friends with his friends, and he hated me for what he thought was me displacing him. And I hated him right back for it. It’s not easy to like someone who wants to take away the only good thing you’ve found after having your whole life uprooted.
But those friends dried up in the drought of high school, and we were left with each other. It was dysfunctional, but it was better than having no one or nothing, so I overlooked occasional attempt at social sabotage and he endured my harsh criticism and attempts to get between him and his self-destruction.
Then leaving for college brought out the fights we’d suppressed, especially when he decided to stay in our home town at community college and in his mutually abusive relationship, quit a couple months in, and decided a career in Burger King was the life’s purpose he’d been searching for. Things get worse but I’m trying to avoid making this entirely about painting him in a negative light.
See, we’ve both got problems, we both had shitty, domineering fathers and we share a lot of our worst qualities. I was harsh and critical and not really aware of how bad it was, and he ate a lot of that, as did any other friends in high school.
And he’d remind me of it, and I’d feel guilty, and it’s hard not to cut the guy some slack when you’re convinced you’re a monster. And it’s not like he’s entirely wrong, I’ve had plenty of issues with other people along similar lines, but he’d always mix in his personal vendettas with it. And it was never just about him, it was about how everyone thought I was awful.
I don’t have a history of healthy friendships. It’s taken me a long time to separate the issues between me and him and the personal stuff I actually have control over, the stuff I can change, instead of being trapped in this narrative about how cruel and heartless I am.
…
I’ve tried to change. I’ve realized that half the problem is trying to get along with people I just don’t like. I pay a lot of attention to the way people lie to themselves, to the way they treat other people, and I talk about it.
Recently a new guy’s started hanging out with our group online. Friend of a friend of a friend. The kind of guy who knows he’s better than you, who doesn’t make mistakes, who’s happy to tell you that you’re wrong but hates it if you actually want to argue with him about it. No one’s been happy listening to us talk, and even when we aren’t arguing I’m on edge being close to him.
The other night he starts bitching at some random people on our team in the game we’re playing for something.
I’ve done it, everyone has, and I’ve had it done to me and it’s awful, it’s stupid, and I hate it all the more because it’s so characteristic of how I used to be in high school. Casually telling people how stupid they are for doing this or that, because they deserve it by being stupid and I’m only joking anyway right, why do they take things so seriously?
I still restrain myself, but I can’t help but comment on it. And then he starts defending it, saying everything that would have gone through my head. And I’m not focusing on the game, I don’t even know where I am, because more of this shit keeps pouring out of his mouth and I hate him for being everything I’ve hated about myself.
And to my great surprise my friend from high school jumps in, telling me about how I’m worse for snapping at my teammate like this and not playing the game and losing us that round.
Our other friends have had similar reactions, except they don’t turn it into an argument or jump in or try to escalate it. They just yell at us to stop arguing.
But this is what he does. He’s been carrying that chip on his shoulder since high school and he’s not going to miss an opportunity to get a shot in when I’m distracted with someone else, when I can’t respond without getting deeper into an argument and proving him right.
So I shut the fuck up and try to talk to him afterwards. “Thanks for that back there, it had been a while since you jumped into a conversation just to fuck me over.” I know, not really constructive or civil. But I needed to say something, needed this to not be like all those high school arguments we never grew out of where we say nothing and pretend to forget while sharpening knives in our head. And those were all the words I could find. It’s not like I was a good guy in this story anyway.
He just says “If everyone who’s played with you had has a problem, you’re a problem” and leaves.
And I can’t do this anymore with him.
…
I can’t handle him turning every issue he has with me into a story about how everyone hates me, I can’t handle these fucking guerrilla tactics and the refusal to actually talk about anything. I can’t handle the fact that we’re pretending to be friends just so he can be there to kick me when I’m down.
And hey, today it got worse. I backed out of plans a group of us had for next week, which of course he was surprised by. And his response is just a soliloquy about how everyone’s just so fed up with me and he’s the only person defending me and he’s so sick of it and he’ll be so sad if the plans get cancelled because it’s the only thing he’s enjoyed doing with me.
I don’t even understand what the point is. To get more shots in while I’m backing out? Maybe he’s just so far away from even being able to think that there was anything fucked up about what he did that he’s trying to convince me to stick around and everything that comes up is just more shit about him martyring himself to convince himself he’s the good guy in this.
It’s not like any of us are good guys. This kind of garbage doesn’t create itself, and good people wouldn’t have stuck around long enough for things to get this fucked up.
So I’m out, which is terrifying, because not seeing him means not seeing everyone else and everyone having finally gotten sick of me is just what I’ve always feared and maybe it’s all true, and it’s all over.
…
I keep telling myself, it’ll get worse before it gets better, and I know, this is the only way anything gets better. I’ve spent so long making excuses to myself, making compromises and pretending everything’s okay.
The really fucked up part is I thought he’d changed, I thought things were the best they’d been in forever, that maybe everything was finally turning out all right and we were getting passed all the shit.
But I’ve held on too long. This has happened before, and before, and before. And I look back on the time we’ve spent together and I’d have been happier without it.
I’m just afraid I’ll have nothing to replace it with, but that fear’s kept me stuck, because it’s stopped me from really trying. It’s the kind of compromise that drags you down with it. A broken thing that only breaks further.
I wish any of that made this hurt less. I wish I’d had the conviction to do this a long time ago. I wish I could see some light on the horizon, that I could know this wouldn’t hurt forever, that this could really be about finding something better in the future.
But for now it can’t be, because for now it just has to be about destruction, about losing something, about letting go. Because even if the only alternative is nothing, it’s better.
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