A Letter From The Friend Zone

Right now, it’s still dark and cold, and about 4-something in the morning here in the Friend Zone where you left me. I didn’t even look back as you started to drive away into the starry morning horizon, my pride wouldn’t let me turn my head, and tears were impeding my vision anyway.

Even as I type, I’m not doing so in the dangerous convenience of your iMessage box, because I don’t even know if I want to share this with you. There was an even shorter time in that brief period of our acquaintanceship that I could tell you anything, but that is very moot at this moment.

The silence in my room echoes the insult to my ego’s injury. “Friend” and “buddy” resound through my hollowed heart, when just days ago, I was your baby cakes, and I still have the texts to prove it, but so what? What for? I didn’t misread anything; there weren’t any lines between others to be interpreted, we weren’t on the same page because you changed the book midway through the plot.

Just like that, a few weeks of infatuation and an ever-so-active imagination ended in the midst of an unusually cold August morning. This connection that sparked almost instantaneously was essentially lost over the duration of the four and a half hour commute it took for you to get to me. It seems as if neither Father Time nor Mother Nature were rooting for me this weekend. So I had no idea that when I practically threw myself at you, you weren’t going to catch me. I fell flat on my unreciprocated face.

Oh! And how history repeats itself: the same overwrought rhetoric that I told you in confidence that my last guy spewed about me over hyper-sexuality is implied with your insistence that sex will complicate things (for you, not for me). You knew that sex would cause difficulties during our hour long FaceTime conversations that highlighted our needs for one another and the text messages and suggestive pictures that we precariously sent one another, and suddenly my attempt at a simple kiss would imply some more explicit acts? I was (and still am) sorry you perceived me to be that way.

So from that point on, I held back as much as I could. To disclose my discontent wasn’t an option in your presence. Out of respect for you and your honesty, but honestly, I’m upset. You let me down. Fuck you. Okay, I don’t mean that, but OMG, I do!

Okay, honestly, I didn’t mean that last part. But I am upset, and I do feel let down. I’m sure you can imagine it, right? Of course you can, because you said you’ve been rejected all the time. Just like I have.

A part of me doesn’t feel like you’re being practical at all. I think you’re a little scared, which I can totally understand. I was too, and for different reasons, I’m sure. But I was willing to give it a shot. The words all in even came to mind once or twice. In the short time we’ve been talking, we’ve shared a lot. And that means more to me than you’ll probably understand right now.

Just remember: I promised you that I’d always listen; and I meant it. But I don’t want to be misled again, so don’t take offense if I listen with an insecure ear.

It’s not you; it’s me, too.

Until next time, dear friend.