On intent
Thirty days….
Felt like three months, but I scrolled up to verify and it was “just” thirty days. So much can happen in thirty days. I don’t know if this happens to a lot of people or I’m just a forgetful person, but I tend to forget some things pretty quickly, e.g, why we didn’t talk for thirty days. Actually, we spoke in between those thirty days but it was because you ordered a shirt for my birthday before all of this, it arrived in the midst of the thirty days and I’m way too polite to not have sent a message saying thank you… or maybe I just missed you and that was the best excuse I had.
For real though, if you randomly asked me why we stopped talking, I’d say I can’t remember, because I really can’t, but I‘m looking at the chat history and I see why; we’d been arguing back and forth for a while and then I said “Like, I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think I want to continue our friendship anymore.”, I’m cackling so hard now because that sounds so fucking dramatic, or maybe it isn’t.
Did I mention I hate looking at old chats or in this case “receipts”? I’m not sure why, but I feel like I say dumb shit all the time, so I try to never read my old messages to avoid coming face to face with my dumb shit. However, I had to in this case, if I was going to remember what happened, I had to read the chat, and see where the strength to say “I can’t do this anymore” came from. Hehe, I see it now. From what I see (my crystal clear, non bias version ofcourse), you were being too nitpicky of random things I said, it wasn’t the first time, second, third, fourth or even tenth, and at it all felt too overwhelming when I was pitted at the toxic friend, so I was like, nah G. If I’m going to be called toxic, I better be consciously aware of my toxicity, but if I’m going about my day with no intent of being toxic, yet still being labelled toxic, I better cut off that relationship. I don’t need one more thing to make me feel shitty about my life. Thank you, next.
One of my favorite quotes is Maya Angelou’s “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”, but the thing about this quote is, the intent of someone in their act of showing doesn’t really come into play, or maybe that’s the beauty of the quote — if someone is consistently being toxic with or without the intent of being toxic, maybe they’re indeed toxic and you should by every right call them out for it, and that’s what you did. I mean, being pitted as “toxic” is something no one wants to hear, especially if they weren’t trying to be toxic or they “thought” they were “joking”.
When I think of those thirty days, I think “Intent really doesn’t matter if you’re being a shitty friend”, emotions like this are hard to admit because everyone wants to believe they know themselves and every other person should just see that, but the truth is, people can only see what you project, and if you’re giving “shitty friend” attitude, don’t be mad someone sees “shitty friend” attitude and calls you out on it. Don’t be mad. Don’t be mad Douglas.
Anyway, glad we found our way back to this friendship. I respect you fam.
