I’m coming to a point in my life where no matter how desperate for friendship I may be, I don’t have time or room in my life for bullshit. I don’t have time to worry over and miss someone who claims to want me in their life, but can’t be bothered to make time for me. If you can’t even bother with an occasional text message, then I need to move on. I don’t care how deeply I care for this person or they supposedly care for me.

I don’t have time to worry over a casual friend that has to complicate every transaction. We could be great friends under certain conditions but conditions are starting to sound like work and there is only one condition that should really matter and that’s the one they draw the line at. Aka rules for a friendship are bullshit other than needed boundaries. I set up a boundary, however, and suddenly I’m complicating things. Uh uh. I don’t have time for these games.

This last one, however, is hard.  This person really got me and I could talk to them for hours during the lonely hours at night.  Then they made a couple of posts that were kind of racists.

Now, stepping back a second, here is a little clue about me: I’m all about tolerance.  I view all people on this earth as fully equal no matter gender, race, sexuality, religion, age, or anything else.  The only thing I’m not tolerant of, is other people’s lack of tolerance based on these thing.  Aka I don’t have patience with homophobes, racists, or sexism.  The only thing that effect equality from one person to the next are personal actions.

Meaning:

Very recently someone I would consider to be a terrorist went into a church filled with black people, listened to the sermon for a while, and then opened fire killing many.  That terrorist gave up his freedom to have certain rights and those black people are now unquestionably better than him.  Not because they are black, but because of his actions.

I think this is fair.

Now, this friend posted a couple semi racists things.  Or, more accurately, she liked and commented on them and they showed up in my feed.  I was highly uncomfortable with it, but as she hadn’t until that point otherwise shown signs of intolerance, I wasn’t sure what to do.  I suppose I could have let it go, but that thought gave me a bad feeling in my belly.  So I decided to come out and ask her about it.  My aim wasn’t to accuse, but instead to test the waters and see how she really felt.

The thing of it is, I’m not exactly good at beating around the bush and tend to be rather blunt.  So while I didn’t come out and call her racist, at first, I did come out and ask her how she really felt.  I learned, and then I called her racist.

She needless to say was not thrilled with this assessment, which I can’t honestly blame her, and I walked away from the conversation to better assess how I felt.  The two primary questions being, can I respect someone who is racist, and can I be friends with someone I don’t respect?  Then she openly attacked me via messenger.  One simple line that burned through to my soul.

I have not spoken to her since, but I did receive and email a day or two later.

It opened with an attack on my mental health (aka my black and white thinking).  Then it went on to what could be considered a well constructed apology.  Or at least to start with.  It was essentially the I’m not racist because I have a black friend argument, but a lot more in-depth and respectable.  I easily could have read that, understood where she was coming from, and regained some respect for her.

Then she ended the email with this: “You really don’t even deserve an explanation.”

Well ok then.  You no longer deserve to be my friend.

I know I don’t have much to offer, but… wow.

With all due respect, I’d rather be alone than surrounded by those that cause me pain.  A hard lesson I’ve had to learn over the years.  I’m not perfect but I try really hard at being a good friend, and I deserve someone who recognizes that, respects that, and puts equal effort into it.