My 16 problems according to my “friends”

When you become friends with someone you accept that they have flaws and they accept that you do too. The beauty of being friends though, is accepting these flaws, because you see them as a person and not a sum of their flaws. Sometimes the friendship is so strong that the flaws are forgotten, and only when a friendship is broken does one see the multitude of flaws they forgot a person has. Sometimes you see the flaws another person has, and other times someone brings your flaws to you, explaining what is “wrong” with you.

Growing up in a small town in Illinois, you get to know everyone pretty quickly. That being said, my real group of friends did not come to be fully formed until my senior year of high school. I had been friends with most of the people in the group separately for longer, but we didn’t turn into an actual group of friends until senior year. 

The first person I became friends with in the group we’ll call J. J and I met in the first grade. He lived down the street from me and we continued to be friends all the way through grade school, middle school, and high school. The next person in the group I became friends with was A. A and I were very different but became fast friends. A was very religious, and I was not. Through our school musical sophomore year we became friends, dated, broke up, became friends again, dated again, and once again broke up. A became one of my best friends and I would trust him with any secret. Next came M. M dated my sister, and once they broke up we became friends. The rest of the group consisted of AN, B, and T. I didn’t become friends with them until senior year, and did not have much history with them. 

We graduated high school in 2016, and had a great summer together, hanging out almost every night. When it became time to go to college, four stayed in Illinois, AN moved to Texas, and I went to Georgia. Our group chat kept our group strong, and we continued to talk through the first few weeks of college. We reconvened during fall break as well as winter break. Summer rolled around after freshman year and our group was as strong as ever. We hung out most days in the week, and would do almost everything together. The next term of school rolled around and we all went our separate ways once more. The activity on the group chat died down a lot, but we still talked occasionally.  I flew back for fall break, but didn’t see anyone from the group. Our schedules didn’t line up, and I was only home for a few days. I went back to Georgia and we didn’t talk much until Christmas break. 

I had been home for two days and was very bored. Everyone in the group was still out of town, and I had nothing to do. Their classes didn’t end for another few days so I was stuck. I texted A one day, who only went to college about an hour away. He drove up and we had a great day together just hanging out. The group eventually finished classes and we were finally all in town together again. We went to see the new Star Wars, we went to dinner, we played games, we were together all the time. Then New Years came.

We had a party we were going to. It was our group and another group we were also kind of friends with. We all went other than J. The party was great, and nothing too crazy happened. It was a college party so you can assume what you want about what happened. We went a few days after that and didn’t hang out. It was too cold to do anything, and most people were hanging with their family. I woke up a few days after New Years and checked the group chat. It said that I was no longer a part of the group. A few of the members were known to randomly kick people out, so I thought nothing of it. I texted M and asked him to add me back in. He added me back, and everything was fine. A few minutes later I went back onto the chat and saw that I was kicked again. I promptly got a text from M asking what I had done to piss the group off. Having not talked to the group for a few days I told him I honestly had no idea. He said he would ask, and the response he got made my heart sink.

The first thing that was said was from J to M about M adding me back. He told him “Rose is permanently done here. Do not add her back.” When M asked what I had done to make this happen the response that was given was that I was “annoying as fuck and has been a serious damper on the group.” M didn’t respond, which prompted a paragraph response by J of what all he didn’t like about me. Highlights of this paragraph include 

1. She talks about lifting too much

2. She ruins the fun for all of us

For these reasons, J, A, B, and T had decided that they were done with me.

A, my then best friend then responded saying that if I were to ask what happened to just respond saying: Strike Three. At this point, I was confused. I hadn’t said or done anything to piss of any of the members of the group. So I first texted J, my friend since the first or second grade. I asked what I had done to upset him, and said that I was sorry for whatever I had done to make him upset… His response… “Strike 3”. At this point I start getting mad. I decided to text A, who at this point I still considered my best friend. I copy and paste the paragraph of what J has decided he doesn’t like about me and sent it to A. I then follow that up by telling him: “Thanks, Thanks for not telling me that everyone including you didn’t like me. You’re a real great friend.” 

I will admit that that was a tad dramatic, but at this point I’m pissed. I don’t know if you’ve ever been called a burden before, but it doesn’t really boost your confidence. He opens the message, and doesn’t respond. Eventually he sends me back a few words, telling me that he can’t explain himself over text. I tell A that I leave the next day to go back to Georgia so he either needs to call me or do it in person. 

At this point, the only people I’m still talking to from the group are AN and M. They were talking in the group about how unfair this was and how I shouldn’t have been kicked out. As they’re petitioning for me to get re added to the group I’m sitting at home by myself deciding that I don’t want to be back in the group because they aren’t obviously my friends. Then A calls.

It’s a 19 minute conversation. Throughout those 19 minutes, I say less than 20 words. He starts by informing me that it is his time to talk and that I am to listen to what he has to say. So being the salty person I am, I grab a pen and a piece of paper. I decide to notate his tangent, so that when he tries to claim later that he didn’t say these things I will have proof that he did. Through this 19 minute conversation, I am enlightened to all the “flaws” that I have. 

I sat through a 19 minute rant of everything that A thinks is wrong with me. That was probably the worst and most heartbreaking thing I have ever listened to in my life. I had to sit through almost 20 minutes of my best friend telling me what is supposedly wrong with me, and what I need to be doing with my life. Through this conversation I found 16 problems that I supposedly have. Now some of these are not problems, but more rules that A has set for me. (Because apparently friends get to now set rules for each other) 

Here is the list I had to sit through. Imagine your best friends saying these things to you, and how that would make you feel.

1. I do not have respect for myself

2. I do not have respect for others

3. I enjoy being treated like trash

4. I talk about my old boyfriends

5. I talk to my old boyfriends 

6. He believes that I kissed a person that I didn’t ( apparently that’s a problem)

7. I got mad at A when he tried to say rude things to me on new years (apparently I can’t get mad at people)

8. I talk to AN too much

9. I talk and hang out with M too much

10. I do not take the proper steps to make boys stop talking to me and stop paying attention to me

11. I am no longer around to hang around A (Yah that’s right, he has decided that I am no longer allowed to hang out with one of the other people in the group)

12. I am no longer allowed around alcohol (A doesn’t drink, so he has therefore decided that I am no longer around alcohol, even though AN and B drink much more frequently than I do)

13. I am unfair to A

14. I am attention seeking

15. I do not take steps to avoid wrong things (yes that was the amount of detail he went into…. Wrong things…)

16. I need to admit that I enjoy attention.

These are the 16 things that are supposedly wrong with me. After he is done with his rant, I hang up so that A doesn’t hear me cry because of all the awful things he has said about me. I do not talk to any of them other than AN and M for a few days. I get back to school and start unpacking. My phone rings. It’s A calling me. Stupidly I answer. He proceeds to apologize for everything he says said. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a very proud person. If I am your friend I will defend you against anyone and anything. However, if you do something to seriously cross me, you’re out of my life. After his apology I inform him that was he did hurt me. I tell him all the advice I was given. I was told to ignore him until I had made my own 19 minute rant of all the problems I have with him and then list them off to him. I tell him that I refuse to do that to someone, because I know how shitty that is to do to someone. I hang up on him.

I don’t talk to any of them for three weeks. Today I get out of class and see that I was re added to the chat. They added me back to the chat with all of the messages talking bad about me are still present. I scroll through pages and pages and hours of conversations about me and how much of a terrible person I am. I learn that M, who said he was my friend and was telling them how wrong they were was lying, and was actually agreeing with them about how much a terrible person I am. 

Through scrolling through these messages for hours I see what they can do to someone. I decided to write this so that others can read it. I don’t expect the people in the story to read this, but if they do I hope they see that I decided to not use names. I decided to keep their identities private. I did not spread nasty things about them because I know what that can do to someone, and will not stoop to the level they did. 

If they do read this, there is one thing I want them to know: I do not accept your apology. Not now and possibly not ever. What you did was wrong, but I will not tell you your flaws or problems I have with you, because you were at one point my friend, and no one deserves to be put down in the way that you put me down.

My 16 problems according to my “friends”

When you become friends with someone you accept that they have flaws and they accept that you do too. The beauty of being friends though, is accepting these flaws, because you see them as a person and not a sum of their flaws. Sometimes the friendship is so strong that the flaws are forgotten, and only when a friendship is broken does one see the multitude of flaws they forgot a person has. Sometimes you see the flaws another person has, and other times someone brings your flaws to you, explaining what is “wrong” with you.

Growing up in a small town in Illinois, you get to know everyone pretty quickly. That being said, my real group of friends did not come to be fully formed until my senior year of high school. I had been friends with most of the people in the group separately for longer, but we didn’t turn into an actual group of friends until senior year. 

The first person I became friends with in the group we’ll call J. J and I met in the first grade. He lived down the street from me and we continued to be friends all the way through grade school, middle school, and high school. The next person in the group I became friends with was A. A and I were very different but became fast friends. A was very religious, and I was not. Through our school musical sophomore year we became friends, dated, broke up, became friends again, dated again, and once again broke up. A became one of my best friends and I would trust him with any secret. Next came M. M dated my sister, and once they broke up we became friends. The rest of the group consisted of AN, B, and T. I didn’t become friends with them until senior year, and did not have much history with them. 

We graduated high school in 2016, and had a great summer together, hanging out almost every night. When it became time to go to college, four stayed in Illinois, AN moved to Texas, and I went to Georgia. Our group chat kept our group strong, and we continued to talk through the first few weeks of college. We reconvened during fall break as well as winter break. Summer rolled around after freshman year and our group was as strong as ever. We hung out most days in the week, and would do almost everything together. The next term of school rolled around and we all went our separate ways once more. The activity on the group chat died down a lot, but we still talked occasionally.  I flew back for fall break, but didn’t see anyone from the group. Our schedules didn’t line up, and I was only home for a few days. I went back to Georgia and we didn’t talk much until Christmas break. 

I had been home for two days and was very bored. Everyone in the group was still out of town, and I had nothing to do. Their classes didn’t end for another few days so I was stuck. I texted A one day, who only went to college about an hour away. He drove up and we had a great day together just hanging out. The group eventually finished classes and we were finally all in town together again. We went to see the new Star Wars, we went to dinner, we played games, we were together all the time. Then New Years came.

We had a party we were going to. It was our group and another group we were also kind of friends with. We all went other than J. The party was great, and nothing too crazy happened. It was a college party so you can assume what you want about what happened. We went a few days after that and didn’t hang out. It was too cold to do anything, and most people were hanging with their family. I woke up a few days after New Years and checked the group chat. It said that I was no longer a part of the group. A few of the members were known to randomly kick people out, so I thought nothing of it. I texted M and asked him to add me back in. He added me back, and everything was fine. A few minutes later I went back onto the chat and saw that I was kicked again. I promptly got a text from M asking what I had done to piss the group off. Having not talked to the group for a few days I told him I honestly had no idea. He said he would ask, and the response he got made my heart sink.

The first thing that was said was from J to M about M adding me back. He told him “Rose is permanently done here. Do not add her back.” When M asked what I had done to make this happen the response that was given was that I was “annoying as fuck and has been a serious damper on the group.” M didn’t respond, which prompted a paragraph response by J of what all he didn’t like about me. Highlights of this paragraph include 

1. She talks about lifting too much

2. She ruins the fun for all of us

For these reasons, J, A, B, and T had decided that they were done with me.

A, my then best friend then responded saying that if I were to ask what happened to just respond saying: Strike Three. At this point, I was confused. I hadn’t said or done anything to piss of any of the members of the group. So I first texted J, my friend since the first or second grade. I asked what I had done to upset him, and said that I was sorry for whatever I had done to make him upset… His response… “Strike 3”. At this point I start getting mad. I decided to text A, who at this point I still considered my best friend. I copy and paste the paragraph of what J has decided he doesn’t like about me and sent it to A. I then follow that up by telling him: “Thanks, Thanks for not telling me that everyone including you didn’t like me. You’re a real great friend.” 

I will admit that that was a tad dramatic, but at this point I’m pissed. I don’t know if you’ve ever been called a burden before, but it doesn’t really boost your confidence. He opens the message, and doesn’t respond. Eventually he sends me back a few words, telling me that he can’t explain himself over text. I tell A that I leave the next day to go back to Georgia so he either needs to call me or do it in person. 

At this point, the only people I’m still talking to from the group are AN and M. They were talking in the group about how unfair this was and how I shouldn’t have been kicked out. As they’re petitioning for me to get re added to the group I’m sitting at home by myself deciding that I don’t want to be back in the group because they aren’t obviously my friends. Then A calls.

It’s a 19 minute conversation. Throughout those 19 minutes, I say less than 20 words. He starts by informing me that it is his time to talk and that I am to listen to what he has to say. So being the salty person I am, I grab a pen and a piece of paper. I decide to notate his tangent, so that when he tries to claim later that he didn’t say these things I will have proof that he did. Through this 19 minute conversation, I am enlightened to all the “flaws” that I have. 

I sat through a 19 minute rant of everything that A thinks is wrong with me. That was probably the worst and most heartbreaking thing I have ever listened to in my life. I had to sit through almost 20 minutes of my best friend telling me what is supposedly wrong with me, and what I need to be doing with my life. Through this conversation I found 16 problems that I supposedly have. Now some of these are not problems, but more rules that A has set for me. (Because apparently friends get to now set rules for each other) 

Here is the list I had to sit through. Imagine your best friends saying these things to you, and how that would make you feel.

1. I do not have respect for myself

2. I do not have respect for others

3. I enjoy being treated like trash

4. I talk about my old boyfriends

5. I talk to my old boyfriends 

6. He believes that I kissed a person that I didn’t ( apparently that’s a problem)

7. I got mad at A when he tried to say rude things to me on new years (apparently I can’t get mad at people)

8. I talk to AN too much

9. I talk and hang out with M too much

10. I do not take the proper steps to make boys stop talking to me and stop paying attention to me

11. I am no longer around to hang around A (Yah that’s right, he has decided that I am no longer allowed to hang out with one of the other people in the group)

12. I am no longer allowed around alcohol (A doesn’t drink, so he has therefore decided that I am no longer around alcohol, even though AN and B drink much more frequently than I do)

13. I am unfair to A

14. I am attention seeking

15. I do not take steps to avoid wrong things (yes that was the amount of detail he went into…. Wrong things…)

16. I need to admit that I enjoy attention.

These are the 16 things that are supposedly wrong with me. After he is done with his rant, I hang up so that A doesn’t hear me cry because of all the awful things he has said about me. I do not talk to any of them other than AN and M for a few days. I get back to school and start unpacking. My phone rings. It’s A calling me. Stupidly I answer. He proceeds to apologize for everything he says said. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a very proud person. If I am your friend I will defend you against anyone and anything. However, if you do something to seriously cross me, you’re out of my life. After his apology I inform him that was he did hurt me. I tell him all the advice I was given. I was told to ignore him until I had made my own 19 minute rant of all the problems I have with him and then list them off to him. I tell him that I refuse to do that to someone, because I know how shitty that is to do to someone. I hang up on him.

I don’t talk to any of them for three weeks. Today I get out of class and see that I was re added to the chat. They added me back to the chat with all of the messages talking bad about me are still present. I scroll through pages and pages and hours of conversations about me and how much of a terrible person I am. I learn that M, who said he was my friend and was telling them how wrong they were was lying, and was actually agreeing with them about how much a terrible person I am. 

Through scrolling through these messages for hours I see what they can do to someone. I decided to write this so that others can read it. I don’t expect the people in the story to read this, but if they do I hope they see that I decided to not use names. I decided to keep their identities private. I did not spread nasty things about them because I know what that can do to someone, and will not stoop to the level they did. 

If they do read this, there is one thing I want them to know: I do not accept your apology. Not now and possibly not ever. What you did was wrong, but I will not tell you your flaws or problems I have with you, because you were at one point my friend, and no one deserves to be put down in the way that you put me down.