Nuance 12

How does one end a friendship? I have ended friendships in the past, and it has always turned out a bitter and pyrrhic victory. A lot of pain was inflicted on all of us, and I don't want to do this anymore. By the same token, a lot of people, more than I can number, have rejected me. I still haven't recovered, this has been so damaging to me. There is a famous saying of Confucious, that if you want to seek vengeance, then be sure to dig two graves. I am not doing this any more, and neither am I rejecting any of you. I am simply stating that you have all really failed me as friends. I am willing to reconcile with each and every one of you, but first you have to start acting like real friends and including me more into your lives and showing me more emotional and moral support. To start giving back what I have been giving to you. To start reciprocating. Friend is a verb. And not in the Facebook sense. Post-recovery, I befriended a small number of individuals who over the past ten years have seemed determined to keep me at armslength. They would call this maintaining boundaries. But this has also meant keeping me at an emotionally safe distance, unless perhaps, they wanted emotional support from me, but otherwise treating me as some sense of free inspiration and entertainment. They have never really considered me a friend, simply as a useful idiot. None of these people have ever thought to include me in their plans for Christmas, for example, except in a couple of circumstances where I had to almost beg and plead not to be left alone and abandoned. But you have all, unlike me, had yoyur own families, and friends that mattered more to you than me, to take refuge with, not caring that I am alone and socially isolated and, especially at times like Christmas, needing to be welcomed, included, and made to feel wanted. I have been deeply hurt by all these years of suffering because of your selfishness, and there has always remained between us a sense of stigma. If I'm alone at Christmas and struggling with depression and temptations towards suicide, well, that's too bad for me, I guess. You people are not, nor have ever been to me, real friends. You have subtley and discreetly treated me like damage goods, like a freak, like a borderline sicko. Not like a friend. I have kept returning and returning to each one of you, like a beaten dog, hoping that you wouldn't reject me, not wanting to cope with the loneliness of abandonment. Knowing that I have no family and almost no friends, you have each taken advantage of me while stroking yourselves for being charitable towards me. This is finished. I am no longer reaching out to you. I have two people who live in Greater Vancouver, who actually are friends, have been supportive, and seem to accept me, despite areas of disagreement. If both of you happen to be reading this, then I will allude to you in language that only will be understood between us, so as not to betray your privacy, but also, in case you happen to be reading this, that you will know that I am still your friend. One of you has two of my bird paintings. One of them features black and yellow, red and blue tropical songbirds, and you love to cook and chat on the phone. The other one of you, you are exactly the same age as me. and you have a drawing of one of my birds, a beautiful orange-yellow and black oriole. Both of you I have known since we were in our twenties. You two are both exempt, I love you both, and this blogpost is not directed to you. All the rest had better take cover. I am not saying that we are no longer friends, rather that we never were friends because, frankly, you have never been real friends towards me. The friendship has always been unequal and for the most part one-sided. If you would like to change this, if you choose to stop stigmatizing and marginalizing me, if you want to actually include me as part of your lives, then of course I will welcome you back into my life. I always welcome people back. But I am not going to go out looking for you, and first, I expect to see in you the fruits of repentance. Till then it's bye-bye.