It’s hard for me to keep a best friend. I’m partially to blame, but that’s another story.
Two years ago, I became close with an old co-worker, “Blake.” At first, I didn’t know if he was hitting on me or just being weirdly friendly. I’m reluctant to meet new people when it’s not necessary, so I might come off as rude half of the time.
When I realized he was just being friendly, we would chat every now and then about work. Most of it was about video games, television shows or drama at our job. I even got him into astrology when I found out he was a Scorpio.
Over time, we started to communicate daily via text messages or social media. I told my husband how happy I was to have a best friend again and he was happy for me. I’m not saying my husband isn’t my best friend, but it was nice to have someone else to talk to.
We would talk all the time about what was going on in our lives. With me, it was just about my husband and me getting ready to start school again. With Blake, he would talk about girls who would ghost him, struggles with school and the feeling of being alone all the time.
Over time, I grew to love him as a close friend. I hadn’t felt this way about a friendship since my old best friend from high school, “Veronica.” While he wasn’t the best at gift giving, he was a great listener.
Blake had been “in his feelings” for a while because of money issues. He had gone to visit family in his hometown one week, but forgotten where he parked his car when he went downtown with friends. It ended up being towed and his mom paid for the fee to get it out. Ever since that incident, his money problems just went downhill.
Near the end of our friendship, we had a fight. He had been hung up about his financial woes and feeling lonely since his dates with different girls had gone nowhere.
One day when we were texting, he didn’t respond to me for a full 24 hours.
I’ll reiterate it again: I might come off as rude half the time. When he finally texted me back, I said, “About damn time.” I then went on to tell him about my day he missed.
He got defensive and told me I was being annoying and should respect the fact he isn’t required to talk to me every single day. I was confused as to why he said we didn’t have to talk to each other every day when we already had been for nearly a year.
Things were still sensitive in the coming weeks. I would walk on eggshells just to not upset him. We had apologized to each other, but I was still being wary.
We had another incident where he felt I wasn’t being sincere enough with his bad day at work. I apparently didn’t acknowledge his stress, which I felt I did.
A week later, the breakup happened.
Early one morning we were texting each other and he stopped texting back, but I noticed he was on social media. A few hours went by and I texted him saying, “I’m getting tired of waiting for you to respond, so I’m gonna double text.”
Albeit, that probably wasn’t the right thing to say but I was annoyed. We got into another fight, but this time I didn’t hold back. I told him if he was unhappy with his life (the loneliness, the stress with his job), he should take some initiative and change it. I also told him how annoyed I felt that he purposefully chose to screen my texts.
Hours later, he sent me a lengthy text ending with, “Go to hell.”
I couldn’t help but wonder: Am I the bad friend in every friendship? Why can’t I apologize when I am wrong? Did he not realize he was being a jerk too?
According to Good Housekeeping, sugarcoating things to your friends makes you a bad friend. While white lies are polite in most cases, you should never alleviate truth when it comes to serious things. In other words, I should have been telling him how I felt when he was complaining about every single thing.
I recently sent him a letter to apologize for how I acted. I don’t think I was in the wrong to get upset, but I understand where he is coming from.
Blake had every right to not text me back. I get that now. We haven’t talked since last November and I think about him often. I do check up on his social media every now and then, even though we’re not friends online.
I’m not expecting him to respond to my letter, but it would be great if he did. I didn’t write the letter for me, I wrote it for him to know I am sorry. I miss him. I miss our friendship. But Scorpios hold grudges, so I doubt he’d forgive me.
