#and u know not to play the victim bc im very evil and toxic and HOPEFULLY CHANGING all my post high school friendships have been positive

[homingpigecns]

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until last year i stayed friends with a grand total of One (1) friend i knew in high school and now. i have finally stopped talking to that friend. it is sooooo so nice to romanticize longevity and history and wow they have always been there but there's a point where it's like.

it is so embarrassing so i haven't talked about it because it's really like, fully pathetic, but i saw them the first time recently bc i hadn't seen any rl friends bc i had a years long slump where i just kind of took up space at home and i was embarrassed about it but i got my life together again last summer and i was like okay, i can respond to the question "how are you doing?" without breaking down into tears, and my friend did express interest in seeing me again and i really wanted to see them. so i saw them a while ago and i had fun and i was so happy and i was so grateful to still have this connection after all these years, after all the ways i've been and my colorful history, and i just. their birthday was about a month later and really extremely uncharacteristically of me i remembered, and i ordered them a weird little personal birthday tchotchke off etsy and got them a michaels gift card and hit them up like. happy birthday we should hang out soon on the day of and it was all very nice. i didn't expect something soon nor did i care too much. but a couple months ago when twitter was gonna implode i followed them on insta (even though i deleted my personal insta because i know personal instas only teach me things about people i don't want to know) and as a consequence of that i learned that my friend was not able to see me because i was not invited to their birthday thing. which was with a friend of theirs i kind of know and an old close friend from high school i lost touch with but asked about and sjdfhsdf. literally expressed interest in the time i just saw them.

DO YOU KNOW HOW PATHETIC THAT IS........JUST EVERYTHING ABOUT IT..........LIKE I AM A KICKED PUPPY. I AM 24.....I HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE............I AM A UNION MEMBER........AND I GOT REALLY EXCITED ABOUT MY FRIENDS BIRTHDAY AND I WASN'T INVITED TO THE PARTY...........

and you know there are probably actual reasons. i burned bridges with people in high school that they liked more than me, and i am too mature to care about who likes more than whoever now, and it is too insane to hold things from high school against them now that i am 24 and have regular cardiologist appointments. but it is also like. how many times do i have to die. i have grown past so many things the last three years that i thought i could never overcome and i can't, i don't want to, grow into someone who is mature enough to hold someone who's been important to me since i was 14 at arms length so it doesn't hurt when they inevitably drop me. currently, i commute an hour in the wrong direction so i can be on the same train as a work friend and i am aware the energy is insane but it is my energy and giving it and getting good things from it is like. this is better for my personal development than whichever way the other direction goes.

and it's like i don't even blame my friend from high school for how they feel about me because i was insane in a bad way in high school and i've done enough it's like. whatever. but it's like, also, when it's like, yeah this was half of the two people who permanently messed you up to the point people still are like "hey i didn't see you there. come over and say hi next time" when i avoid them because they're talking to someone else, who watched your friend group make a group chat and hang out together with everyone except you and didn't say anything and you were grateful they still threw you the bone to hang out one on one and it's like. i'm not. i don't really hold it against them, it was years ago, i don't think about those people anymore and yes i am still weird in many ways but for other reasons as well, but there is like. a very huge lack of pattern recognition and failure to learn and it is absolutely. my fault. when you put it like oh the person who killed me a thousand times throughout high school and college still has the power to kill me now and sometimes will? VERY OBVIOUSLY I AM THE PROBLEM.......i can't play high school anymore i have to play Being At Work and Surviving Capitalism Despite Everything, Did You Know I Am 24

anyway i decided to just quietly softblock my friend on everything, unfriend on discord, remove myself from the situation when there wasn't really an inciting event so i could just kind of fade out. but i did just find out that my friend did notice, and blocked me on twitter without saying a word -- which you know, is fine and understandable, because i did do all of that first. but what a metaphor you know. that is what the years of friendship are, and that they have stacked up this much to still hurt me is my fault. but hopefully for the last time.

#you know i still have the birthday tchotchke and it is too nice for me to throw out and im gonna feel SO clown at michaels but like. #im really not supposed to cut people off anymore. but. that mindset did truly get me here. at the ripe age of 24. #as a person with HEALTH INSURANCE. #that hurt me man. it is so stupid bc i did it first. but man did that rude as hell You're blocked hurt my feelings today. #i was like. trying to see if i could get our chatlogs back after i deleted them which i always do after i stop talking to someone. #so probably for the better. but also #also discord definitely is what gave me away but i have like FIVE friends on discord i cant see their username all the time......... #it will hurt my feelings. i already hurt my feelings every time i see the birthday tchotchke #and u know not to play the victim bc im very evil and toxic and HOPEFULLY CHANGING all my post high school friendships have been positive #but i am evil and toxic and i do still have those tendencies secretly and its insane that my evil toxicity still let me be pathetic this #long like what were the self sabotaging defense mechanisms for i wasnt even defended #brandon oscillates #personal #vent #its just. i cant be friends with someone anymore and theres seven asterisks. other people can do that probably but like #i cant even pretend i can. i have feelings you know. at work every day i pretend im unshakable i smile at people who yell at me #i cant smile off the clock anymore. if something is important i need to act the way i really am or i will lose that person