Cruel To Be Kind..
Life has a funny way of letting you know who to keep around in your life.
You leave school to start college and some friends may join you and others may not. That’s life. That is life telling you that it’s okay; those people you left behind were not meant to be in your life anyway. Thank you Life. Thank you for showing me the way..
You might make friends at work who you see everyday and feel close to. But then you leave that job a year later for a more lucrative role and of course, you promise all these work friends that you’ll stay in touch. Sure, you might even meet for lunch the following week and send each other a few texts…but then, you don’t meet up again, the texts become less and less frequent and that ‘close friend’ you thought you once had is now a stranger. That was life that did that. Or it was you just being lazy with a friendship. It was one of those.
But the fact of the matter is, if you wanted someone to stay in your life you would try your best to ensure it happened.
But what if someone really wants you in their life but you’re not interested?
I randomly get a message on Whatsapp a few months ago. It’s a number I don’t recognise. Turns out, it’s an old friend of mine from school, we’ll call him Sean, someone who I’ve not spoken to or seen in over 15 years…Sean managed to persuade a mutual friend to give him my number..
My reaction was pretty much:
Let me break it down for you:
- First of all; Sean was right in wondering if I remembered him. Truth be told, we were not particularly close in school. I mean, the fact that we hadn’t been in touch in 15 years should pretty much reflect how close we used to be, i.e. Not at all.
- Secondly “TBH, not keeping in touch with you was the biggest mistake I’ve made”. I mean, if not keeping in touch with me was the biggest mistake you’ve ever made, then quite frankly you must have been living one incredible life! You must be poppin’ that champagne bottle every night! I mean sure, I’m pretty freakin’ amazing but ‘biggest mistake ever’?
- Thirdly: “Am sori”? Yes, you should be sorry, for your undeniably terrible ability to spell; it should be “I’m” or “I am” not ‘Am’…and “sori” does not end in an ‘i’…Just saying…*Takes grammar Nazi cap off*
- And lastly: You’re getting married in 2 weeks?! And NOW is when you decide to invite me, the biggest mistake you ever made, to your wedding?! I mean, surely if I meant that much to you, you would’ve invited me sooner and not send an invite by Whatsapp of all things?!
I stared at this message for a good 20 minutes. Wondering whether I should even reply. I found out from the mutual friend who gave my number away that Sean had been planning this wedding for the last year, he lives in London but the wedding would be in Southampton, where the bride lives. Sean realised quite late into the proceedings that there were a number of friends who simply would not be coming all the way to Southampton for the wedding…so the groom’s side was looking a tad empty. Somewhere along the line, Sean must have whipped out his old school yearbook and decided to invite his old pal, Danny. Lucky me.
I had to politely decline his invite, right? Look, I know I could have been a really nice guy and just turned up to make the numbers but quite frankly, I didn’t want to. If Life had wanted Sean to be a part of my life then he would’ve been years ago. Life would’ve made that happen dammit!!! Besides, Southampton felt too far to go for a stranger’s wedding. It’s not like I would be there like Owen Wilson in ‘The Wedding Crashers’, having a great old time:
No, I would more likely be like this guy..
I wouldn’t really know anyone there. People would see me and ask “Oh, how do you know the groom?” and I would stare back before replying “…I don’t..”. That’s how I envisioned it all turning out. And the overriding factor in my decision was pretty simple; I just didn’t want to know Sean again. I’m sure he’s lovely and all, but I just wasn’t keen on reigniting a friendship that was never that important to me to begin with! And the fact that Sean was inviting me to a wedding when we barely knew each other was, well, a tad creepy to me.
So I did what any decent human being would do in this kind of situation. I lied. I told Sean I couldn’t make the wedding because I had work. “Ohh, it’s too hard to get out of, sorry!” Yes, it was a lie, but I didn’t want to be cruel. I’m not a monster dammit!
And so that was it; The end of mine and Sean’s already non-existent friendship. Well, that was until last week…
I’m just at home, just minding my own business, living my life, when I receive a message from Sean:
Yes, I shall break this one down too:
- Firstly, I appreciate the sentiment but this was not just a week after New Year’s Day, this was a WEEK after New Year’s Day at 2am. What exactly is going through a person’s mind where a week after New Year’s Day, it gets to 2am and you think “Hmm, let me message THIS guy who’s not really a friend of mine!”…
- Next; “Sori”…with an ‘i’…*sighs*
- “We need to link up for old time’s sake”….Do we? Really? Do we really?!
- But then there was the weirdest, cryptic New Year’s message..”While others wait in anticipation for you to call it quits”…Wait, what? Who?! Who is waiting in anticipation for me to call it quits?! Is it just me or does this sound like a threat?! Does Sean want to kill me? My God, he wants to kill me doesn’t he?!
So there I am, sat wondering whether my declining his wedding invite has led to Sean wanting to see me to my demise. Why hasn’t Sean taken the hint? Maybe I just needed to be cruel to be kind and just say “Yo dude, this friendship you crave from me…nah, not happening..Life doesn’t want it, and neither do I” but I didn’t. Instead…I simply replied back “Happy New Year”.
On reflection, this may just make Sean think that I still want to pursue this non-existent friendship…Maybe I should have been more blunt but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it…and so now I just sit, waiting for Sean to send another strange, badly written text…before finally finding me and killing me for not wanting to meet up and be friends..
Life has a funny way of letting you know who to keep around in your life. Life also has a way of being a bitch and bringing potential serial killers back into your life. I don’t know at which point I did something to piss Life off but Life? If you’re reading this, I guess I just want to say…Am Sori.
:)
TYS