Dear busy friend:

I hope you don’t take this too personally. To be honest, this is a compilation of feelings and thoughts towards all those busy people that I have come across in my lifetime… you just happen to be one.

I am not going to be hypocrite, I know I am a busy person too: I like to fill up all my schedule so that at night, when my insomnia crawls to my eyelids, my mind is forced to shut it down for my biological wellbeing. On top of that, I am a perfectionist and a work alcoholic, I invest too much in things that others may consider emotionally unprofitable or unworthy; my readiness to sacrifice a fun party in order to complete an essay is astounding.

However, I believe you have crossed some lines you shouldn’t as a friend. Last time I checked, being a friend had a bidirectional connotation: it involved an equation in which both sides received and gave the same. It meant that, if I forsook my very important assignments to hear and hug you as you cried because you couldn’t deal with your boyfriend and cheered you up when you were stressed, I deserved to be treated the same.

Instead, apparently, the meaning of friendship has changed. Suddenly, the me wanting to have a chat over a cup of coffee because I was having a hard time (and you knew because I clearly told you) was deemed by you as having too much expectations. As being too clingy, too petty, too inconsiderate and too childish. Just too much.

Dear busy friend, I said I was not. And you knew I somehow got mad. But did you really? Because you never asked why, because you were too busy to. Because when I acted normal again, it seemed as if it wasn’t necessary, was that it? Is it my fault then? Should I have spelled it out? Was it that hard to look at me once and ask me about the other day? If I was still angry? Why had I gotten angry?

I tried to be supportive and give you your space to sort it out. Honestly. I know that obsessive rush of adrenaline that appears when you are busy. I know how self important and fulfilled it makes one feel. So, even though I was slowly crumbling apart and needed someone to reach out, I waited for you to ‘make time’ and ‘do everything you had to’. I did in spite of how deadly that blew on my self esteem and how empty it felt when my heart whispered that I would have —and had — run to you leaving everything behind without a second thought. Because that is my definition of friendship.

But when I heard you were ‘too busy’ to talk the very same evening in which you later told me you slept as a baby, and when I saw you walking around, hand in hand with your boyfriend and hanging around with his friends when you told me you had ‘a lot to do’, I couldn’t help but feel hurt and dissappointed. Because well, it clearly showed that I wasn’t important enough for you to make space among your wide variety of activities.

It may be me overreacting, but somehow, I can’t help but feel betrayed. I think about every time I struggled to finish studying at 3:00am because instead of doing so at 3:00pm, I was listening to your anguished complaints of that girl threatening to steal your boyfriend. And I know you, I know what you would reply: ‘You should have told me you were busy, nobody asked you to do it for me’.

I hope you understand that is not how friendship works. Because being a friend involves feeling concern and care for another. It means holding someone’s hand when they need you, even when they’re chasing you away. It means holding someone when they’re having a hard time, even when they’re smiling and hiding it.

Attempting to hang out with a friend should not involve asking for an appointment and presenting a business proposal about why and what will we do and talk about. It should not because you don’t become a friend with someone in order to spend a ‘productive’ or ‘profitable’ evening.

Of course, I did not become your friend expecting the exact same treatment. I know very well how my expectations may feel burdensome and too much. However, I felt the need to speak out because I also did not engage in this friendship in order to get hurt. And I was.

Alas, maybe it is my fault. Perhaps we just have different definitions, perceptions, opinions… just plainly contrasting lifestyles. And I respect that a lot. A whole world, really. But I feel like, instead of compromising, I am the one sacrificing and investing more in order to enable the equation to work out. I like to pretend I am strong, that I can take it and that it doesn’t matter… but I am also very good at lying to myself and if this continues, I think I will end up believing it and I won’t be able to forgive myself if that hurts me irrevocably at the end.

I do not want to hate you. But if your indifference continues, it may become the thing I’ll do in order to protect myself. Let’s make a choice, shall we?

Sincerely,

A wounded friend.