You’re Not My Friend

You’re not my friend. If you were my friend it wouldn’t take you 18 hours to respond to my texts. If you were my friend you’d answer when I called, or at least call back…at all. See, I’ve spent enough time around you to know you’re glued to your phone; if anyone calls or messages you, you know. Immediately. How many times have we been together and you’ve ignored me to pay attention to your phone?

You’re not my friend. If you were you wouldn’t have flirted with me while claiming to be happily married. You wouldn’t have taken my arm at that concert and stuck beside me the whole day. You wouldn’t have kissed me at midnight on New Year’s Eve two years ago. You wouldn’t have casually touched my arm, my shoulder, my hand all those times.

You’re not my friend. If you were you wouldn’t have lied to me. You would have confided in me. That’s what friends do.

You’re not my friend. If you were, when I told you I had feelings for you you would have told me, immediately and unequivocally, that you did not reciprocate. I would have understood; I was your friend. I respected you. You could have told me the truth; I would not have hated you for it.

You’re not my friend. You tell me you miss me. You say you want to see me, but you resist every effort I make to see you. You give me nothing but mixed signals. You make me feel crazy, like I imagined every interaction between us. But I know I didn’t. Maybe you just wanted to feel wanted by someone. I get that. But you can’t just say now that it didn’t happen… Actually you can. You can say it didn’t happen. You’re perfectly free to do so. Nothing I can do about it.

You’re not my friend. You don’t respect me, you don’t seem to like me very much, and I’m tired of bullshitting myself. I wish you’d just admit that you don’t give a damn about me. You tell me you don’t want to be with anyone but I don’t believe you. I think you just don’t want to be with me and you don’t have the courage to say the words. But I’ll tell you something: I’ve already figured it out. So go on, be with whomever you want. I just can’t care anymore. I’ve broken myself into pieces for years loving you and I can’t do it anymore. But don’t tell me you want to be friends, because:

You’re not my friend. Friends don’t treat each other the way you treat me. Friends care about each other. I’d like to help you in whatever you’re dealing with, but I don’t know what you’re dealing with because you won’t let me in. And, quite frankly, I don’t have the energy or the inclination to do the detective work to figure out what your deal is. Maybe you’ve shut me out and lied to me once too often. And that’s why:

I’m not your friend. I give up on you. I’ll be here if you ever decide to let me in, to confide in me what’s really going on in your life. I still love you. I’m not writing you off… But things are not working for me as they are, and so I have to redraw the boundaries. So we can’t be friends in the sense of, “Let’s have a drink, shoot the shit.” I’m going to need my space, I’m going to need time to heal. So I guess that means I don’t give up on you. Damn. Ah, who am I trying to kid? Yes, I love you. I don’t know how not to love you. But I understand you have to go your way and I have to go mine for now. But you’re going to love me one day, right? Right? Let’s be friends.