The writer elaborates on what makes reconciliation unthinkable 20 years after the fact.
For months, Friend heard how happy and optimistic I was. I told her what I was doing, asking her for advice, which she gave, and giving her inside information as part of what I thought was building emotional intimacy. Friend ended up getting that opportunity before I found out I’d been rejected. She left a folder in our booth at one of our happy hours that got knocked onto the floor. I cleaned it up.
She never once let me know her intentions, which was hilarious because I was going to find out anyway! I had to “untell” all those people, and it was even more humiliating because they all knew Friend too. An affair would have been less humiliating because not that many people would have known!She frittered the opportunity away and left town. I have a draft response to her that says, “Our friendship didn’t drift apart. . .
She could have intended to tell you, chickened out a bunch of times, then panicked because she waited too long as you told everyone you knew that you were going for it, and maybe she figured she wouldn’t get it anyway and she’d never have to tell. Versions of this story hit my inbox constantly, typically with affairs or dating someone’s ex but in many other ways too.
Why do I presume to defend her, at the risk of ticking you off or invalidating you? I watch and think about and read about people all day, and it is so incredibly common to believe people who hurt us are evil when a lot of the time they’re tormented, sloppy, weak. As I said a couple of weeks ago, you have zero obligation to respond to her message. You can delete it and live your life.
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