This took me a long time to articulate.
It’s been roughly 2 years and I still find myself filled with so much anger and betrayal at the thought of you. Something in me wonders if fully expressing myself and the number of ways that you hurt me would make me feel any better. I figure I’ll try.
You’re a bad friend. And this is not an opinion — this is empirical and evidence based fact. You meeting your husband was actually just your next opportunity (or excuse) for you to play me to the left and do me dirty. Just like with the man before that. And the man before that.
I always found it fascinating that when you weren’t feeling up to socializing, the only person explicitly excluded from your life was me. Because we aren’t going to pretend that you weren’t posting photos and videos of whoever you were with when you were with them. To me, you just “didn’t have time,” or you were “too busy with other things,” so I wrote it off as the natural result of adulthood.
Until I realized that it was only ever me that you were “too busy” for.
And maybe, that was my foolishness. When you came back and said you were sorry for ghosting me and dropping out of school behind some man I should have actually been a sceptic enough to notice a clear pattern of behavior. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I am clearly a fool.
I am rude and petty and pessimistic.
But I am also caring and loving and giving.
I left my job to help you with your goals. I endured mistreatment and underpayment at the hands of that garbage spa woman and when you found out, you made up an excuse to keep patronizing her establishment. That’s how much my respect and dignity were worth to you.
I put all of my time and energy and intelligence into helping you build your future. And when you saw it on the horizon you joined an influencer group and kicked me out of our CRM that I was actively still paying for. And then when I asked you about it you acted as though you had no clue what was going on. You felt secure enough in my intelligence to build your contracts and invoices and workflows, but also secure enough in my stupidity that you assumed I would believe you.
When I asked you about the influencer group and the fact that it seemed only to be of benefit to you, you said, “No! This is for US. KatNia is a subsidiary of KashTheory so this is for US!” More examples of you thinking I’m an imbecile. Maybe even an example of you being right, because for about 2 weeks I believed you.
I believed you when you told me that I wasn’t good enough to be forward-facing. I believed you when you told me it was best if I stayed back-of-house. I believed you when you told me were were building something together. I believed you when you said we were fucking friends, bruh.
My ability to maintain my delusion lasted all the way to mother’s day.
In April I had helped you keep your lights on. This is not me bemoaning doing something for someone I was meant to care about. I’m an actual friend to people. I don’t mind helping. But you were very aware that after that horrible spa situation (that you had just finished screwing me over for anyway) that us doing UGC was my only source of income. I gave what little I had to help you keep your power on, and in exchange, you stopped answering the phone. You stopped responding to messages.
You pretended like, “what gigs?” Suddenly, you were too busy with your actual life to give a fuck about your alleged Business Partner. Which was especially hilarious that mothers day as I was searching my home for nickels and quarters and dimes for me to maybe be able to afford a burger and a side of air to eat, that I log onto instagram and see you and That Man on an influencer trip in Washington DC having a wonderful meal in a lovely restaurant. I think I looked at the $3 worth of change that I had spent 15 minutes gathering and I laughed. Hysterical laughter. Unhinged laughter.
And even then, I still attempted to give a fuck. I still attempted to keep reaching out to you. Because, maybe I was just mistaken. Maybe I was misunderstanding. Maybe you weren’t actually leaving me for dead. Once again, I was wrong.
Your son had gotten hurt. I don’t remember if he had broken a bone or sprained something, but I just remember being so concerned.
“Oh no! My friends offspring has been hurt! Someone that I care about is hurting!” So I kept calling and I kept texting, because I wanted you to know that I was there to support you. Even then. I wanted to support you. I said, “I don’t know why it was so hard to contact you, but I didn’t want you to get the impression that I didn’t care.”
Your response continues to haunt me in it’s callousness.
You said, “It has never crossed my mind to care about what you think.”
Now, imagine someone that you actually cared about saying some shit like that to you.
Imagine that you had left job security for someone to say some shit like that to you.
You left financial stability.
You left the ability to eat food when you were hungry.
For someone. That you cared about. And sacrificed so much for.
to. say. some. shit. like. that. to. you.
I stopped calling after that.
And then you called me on June 3rd. I, once again very foolishly, thought you were reaching out to me to be a friend.
I thought that you had noticed that my best friend had died. I thought that you had noticed that I was hurting and pleading and sad and desperate and alone and that maybe for once you would give a fuck about what was happening to me.
You had actually called to inquire about the workflows on the website that you had locked me out of.
I don’t even know if I was capable of feeling at the time. Losing Marquis had made me numb to the experience of every emotion outside of my grief. But on a deeper level, I’m certain that it hurt. Maybe I just added it to the pile of all the other ways that you had hurt me.
Recently, I have been having daily panic attacks fueled by the existential dread and literal threat of the loss of my humanity in the face of racism in America. This has caused me to once again feel enraged by you.
So much of our time was spent with you belittling me and my thoughts and my experiences.
“Racism is only real if you let it be.”
Every right I lose, every time a racist chips away another piece of my personhood, I think of you.
“My boundary is that I choose to not let negativity into my life.”
Big pop-psychology terminology from a person without the self-actualization to realize that she needed a therapist and not a life coach.
“I don’t understand why you’re so mean to white people.”
So that you can tell me that I’m making up racial biases and discriminations. Racism is a thing of the past! Not sure who was supposed to give that memo to the rest of america. More than likely you, right?
Every time I spoke about a pop cultural reference, you gave off an air of burden. “What are you even talking about this to me for?”
I remember one time you and That Man both hit me with a “Why is she talking to us about this?”
Even he knew that giving a fuck about my thoughts, feelings, interests were of no consequence. Because of course they weren’t.
Yes, I’m aware that you called to apologize last year, however I am more than positive that you only remembered me at all because Chef’s *allegedly* were letting us go, but honestly, I’ve believed this entire time that that’s just what you told me because you believe I’m a fucking idiot. Why would you have stopped?
I do not know how I am supposed to forgive you. But that is a burden for me to bear. You will more than likely go back to not caring about what I think after you’re done reading this, if you’ve even made it this far.
You’re a really bad person.
But I wish to be free from my anger. And maybe this will somehow help me do that.
