How to be a Deadbeat Friend

It’s probably one of the easiest things you can accomplish, really. Like letting a cake burn just because you didn’t feel like paying attention to the timer. The buzzer rings, a warning to you that things are about to burn down around you…but you’re too wrapped up with other aspects of your life to notice.

You’ll get caught up in your relationship. You’ll sleep through breakfast dates because you were up late the night before with your sweetheart playing Uno and drinking wine. You’ll forget plans to see Magic Mike and see it with other people instead because it all just happened so fast. The text message quantity between the two of you slowly lowers as the silence begins to builds its strength. Eventually you won’t be able to tell them about all the cool things you and your beau do together because you’ll feel guilty you ditched your friend to do them. The guilt manifests itself as a behemoth; squeezing itself between you two on the couch. It gets its own glass of wine. Less to share between the two of you.

Other danger signs will begin to slip through your notice. They’ll get their haircut and it will take you a week to even notice. You’ll almost forget their birthday and give an empty promise to make it up to them. It’s not that you’re trying to do this. You’re young! You have your own job, school and boyfriend to care about, right? Right?! You’ll justify it to yourself until you think you’re right. You’ll begin to force yourself to not notice how often they tear up talking about their painful summer because the guilt has gotten to be too much to bear. You’d rather pretend you’re not doing anything wrong than allow that guilt to crawl into bed with you at night. Hugging you with it’s icy embrace.

Maybe eventually you and your significant other won’t work out. You’ll feel sad and attempt to crawl back to your friend. They’ll comfort you the best they can, but things are permanently damaged and you know it. You won’t be able to find enough to talk about when you get together. You’ll find yourself rambling on because it’s easier to talk about how classes are going than address the actual problems at hand. You’ll want to apologize but the words will lodge themselves in your throat. You’ll wonder what to say. “I’m…I’m sorry I was such a crappy friend…if it’s any consolation, I still care.” They’ll feel hallow even in your mind, because you know that no apology will truly justify how distance you two have become. It’s terribly sad but eventually you convince yourself it’s in your best interest to cut them loose, it’ll let you both grow. You’ll both be better people. Even though you know it’s them that deserves better than you.

I’m sorry.