(whining
about it beneath the cut, 1,596 words)
At
the beginning of this month, I got into an argument about sexual
abuse allegations against celebrities with him. The tone got pretty
sharp by our standards, and eventually I got so upset I stopped
responding.
When
we talked again the following day, neither of us mentioned the topic.
I was relieved and happy to let it be.
Two
days later, he sent me an email as part of an ongoing debate on
various other topics. He had added a section on the sexual abuse
discussion, arguing his point. I very much didn’t want to get into
that particular minefield again. I considered just responding to the
rest and simply dropping the section, but he frequently criticized me
whenever I didn’t want to debate a particular topic, and I could
already hear him doing so again even just thinking about it, so
instead I hammered out a furious first draft, took some time to calm
down, and then went back to clean it up later.
After
brief consideration, I kept a paragraph emphasizing how much the
debate upset me and about how I expected him to complain about that
again as well as a few of the original all-caps words. It’s a known
factor that he’s bad at picking up subtle cues regarding emotions;
maybe some caps would get across how badly the topic was affecting me
and cause him to reconsider and relent on his own.
For
the next few days, he didn’t message me as usual. I wasn’t sure how
to interpret his silence. Maybe he was pissed, maybe he was simply
busy, maybe he had stuff to think through and work on. Without
knowing details, I wasn’t sure how to go about messaging him first,
and feared that picking the wrong approach would lead to a fight. I
didn’t find the time and energy tor risk that outcome, so I waited.
In
his next email, he expressed disappointment that I hadn’t reached out
to him in his days of absence. The fact that I’d just let all contact
cease like that hurt him. (He had the reason wrong, thinking I was
afraid to be annoying rather than just afraid of a fight.) I felt
guilty about that for quite a while. (I’m not exactly good friend
material.)
Then
I read the rest of the email, which included the expected harsh
criticism of my inability to debate some topics without becoming
upset as well as that he could only hope I was as upset as
him.
He
referenced a mutual friend in his criticism who apparently agreed
with him, so I spent the next few hours in a state of EVERYONE
ACTUALLY HATES ME AND I AM HORRIBLE AND SHOULD NEVER SPEAK AGAIN,
trying to troubleshoot the issue in question and failing miserably
due to a lack of specifics and alternatives.
The
last time I had the complaint in question raised against me was after
I had expressed doubt about a statistic on what percentages of
information in social interactions were verbal vs. non-verbal. The
only alternative behavior I could think of that wasn’t outright lying
(which I very much do not want to do) was silence, but silence often
gets me complaints as well, and falling silent on the sexual abuse
debate had me earned the very complaint in the email. There didn’t –
and still doesn’t – seem to be any way to improve my behavior.
I
considered just writing back “you are right about everything and
I was wrong”, but I was pretty damn sure that would not be
received well either.
After
an evening spent visualizing scenarios in which I walked on egg
shells around friends even more than I do, responding in different
ways to things I disagreed with, and still not getting it right, I
got fed up with it, ruminated on the nature and value of friendship,
and decided I just wouldn’t have any friends any more and spend the
rest of my life alone, which didn’t seem too bad and was actually
quite a relief compared to the egg shell scenarios.
Then
I moved on to the statement about him hoping I was upset and
reconsidered.
I
may not have the most complete grasp on the nature and intricacies of
friendship, but I’ve watched enough children’s TV to know that
friends are supposed to care about one another, to comfort each other
and cheer each other up when one is upset, and to want good things
for one another. Upsetting friends is generally bad. It is sometimes
necessary and/or in their best interests, e.g. when their behavior is
harmful to others or contradicts their own deeply-held values, but
then it is a necessary evil, not a good thing. Friends may be willing
to risk upsetting their friends if necessary, but they will try not
to, and they definitely won’t want
to upset their friends. The people I admire and whose example I want
to follow tend to be people who even go a step further and don’t want
to upset anyone, not
even their (ideological or literal) enemies unless it is necessary.
And
now my friend, whom I believed to share my basic values (happiness
good, suffering bad), wanted
to upset me?
Necessity
did not apply: neither of us is in a position to make any kind of
policies around sexual abuse or allegations thereof, neither of us is
doing any significant activism regarding these issues, neither of us
habitually leaves public comments on articles and whatnot loudly
proclaiming our opinions, even the debate was private. Both of us
agree that sexual abuse is bad and false allegations are bad, so
we’re also not in danger of (intentionally) doing any of that. There
are virtually no consequences to our specific beliefs about sexual
abuse allegations among celebrities. Our opinions on the matter are
as close to existing in a void as opinions can be. If I completely
changed my mind tomorrow, literally noone would even know unless they
brought the matter up first.
Wanting
to hold only true beliefs – something both of us (I think) value as
well – also doesn’t apply. Neither of us has empirical data for the
level of detail we’re arguing about. All likelihoods are likelihoods
we basically pull out of our asses by anecdata, something that has
been true in plenty of past discussions for many somewhat-important
points. This is fine in mutually enjoyable theoretical debates that
serve to sharpen minds and argumentative abilities, but neither
of us was enjoying this debate. In fact, we were apparently both
horribly upset about
it.
It
didn’t make sense. There was some other value he was working off
here, one unknown to me that I did not share
and that was more important to him than basic principles of
friendship.
Granted,
we did not watch the same children’s TV, and we never really made
friendship principles clear, but he did express a desire not to hurt
me, and to keep me safe and make me feel loved. So I think it’s safe
to assume we were on a similar page regarding what feelings we wanted
our friends to have and what feelings we did not want them to have,
and that he violated his stated parameters regarding our
relationship. Or that I misunderstood them severely, or that they
changed since then.
In
any case, my model of him was
wrong in some major aspect, and I could not and cannot trust it.
Thinking
through and digesting all of that took me about four days. He
messaged me on the third to ask whether I had received his email, and
I didn’t answer. He repeated his message on the fourth, and that
time, I told him I wouldn’t respond
to the email, because apparently neither of us benefitted from it and
the expected harm didn’t seem justified.
I was prepared to argue the point, clarify as needed and ask for
clarification as the opportunity arose.
He
didn’t reply, and we haven’t spoken since.
Sometimes
I see stuff I want to message him about, and then I don’t. Sometimes
I think about stuff we’ve debated and start working on my next reply
in my head before I remember I won’t send one. Then I miss him. I
know I’ll miss him less over time, that he’ll fade from my head, just
like my mom. Eventually I won’t get the impulse to message him about
anything anymore, or maybe just once a year or so.
Sometimes
I think about reaching out, but he’s probably pissed at me. Hell, he
actively wanted to upset me even before. I have no reason to expect
anything good. And if it results in a fight, disengaging again will
be risky as fuck, and engaging further will be hell, and going
through some hell might still not get me anywhere.
I
should have replied to the rest of the email and just dropped the
abuse stuff. Maybe I should just do that even now? I don’t know if
acting like nothing’s wrong will be welcome or infuriating. (Fucking
people, how do they work.) And even if we just picked up where
we left off, I’d just get stuck having meltdown over emails again,
only this time without even the expectation that he might not really
want me to.
Is that even worth it?
I
wish I could have the nice things without the bad things, which is
probably what everyone who has ever been my friend wishes about me.
(It’s what I wish about myself too, come to think of it.)
Omphaloskeptomai 