“Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead”
From the song, “Someone like you” by Adele
Hate is an emotion that I was not born with. I never learned to hate someone, I have felt disappointment, sadness, anger, frustration but never hate. People are stupid and selfish but it is who they are or chose to be, who am I to hate them for something they want to be.
I have always wondered why people hate each other. You can disagree or dislike but hate is a very strong emotion which seeps in from arrogance that you are the best. So, I don’t hate people because I’m anything but perfect. I’m strongly opinionated and hence I might dislike a lot of things but never amounting to a level that I would start hating. However, lately, a friend of mine (or should I say ex-friend), made me realize that maybe hate could be a real thing.
It so happened that one night we decided to hangout with a group of friends. Let’s call my friend Mr. A. I met him around 2 years ago, we crossed paths at work and somewhere from wishing good morning everyday to texting good night, we became really good friends. We could talk about everything to each other without shame, without judgement, it became our safe comfort zone. Sometimes an ear to listen and a nod to acknowledge is all you need to feel good around a person.
A friend is someone extremely precious to me because you choose your friends and decide to keep being friends in spite of knowing their flaws. You could say that you choose your partner as well but in a relationship or marriage, you need to make adjustments, compromises and changes to bring some compatibility. You cannot be your true self in a relationship because there is always a fear of the other person leaving you. With friendship, you have no fear, you have no exit plan, you stay who you are, you don’t need to pretend because you know your friend will never judge you or leave you. That’s why, for me, friendship is the strongest bond to hold on to and to be able to find a true friend is a blessing.
So, going back to the night when A and I decided to hangout with a bunch of other friends. I reached slightly earlier and had a couple of beers before A came, I had an extremely hectic day and was really looking forward to a night where I could simply relax. Things got weird when A came, he was mean to me, kept on making silly remarks and ignored me when some other friends came. So, I called my other friend and chilled out with her, had a gala time, danced my heart out and went back home, slightly nauseated but happy.
Little did I know that my happiness was going to turn into a drama hangover. Apparently, Mr. A felt bad for some random reason (I still have absolutely no idea why), started giving me radio silence, stopped responding to my calls and messages. First I thought he got into some accident or trouble and started worrying. When I was assured that he is fine, I started thinking of other possibilities but none could justify his behaviour. Honestly, not talking to someone is an extremely childish behaviour because as mature adults you expect people to talk it out. Almost 10 days went by without any update from his end, still I kept on texting / calling. When he did finally speak to me, his lame excuse was that he felt my behaviour weird as I was apparently having fun!
In that moment what I felt was hatred more than anything, hatred for breaking the unspoken rule of friendship, for judging a friend for all the wrong reasons and not even talking about it.
Something that stuck out for me from the entire episode was the fact that he was OK not talking to me and would have been OK forever if we never spoke. Maybe I had different expectations or definition of what a friendship is and maybe this is how the rest of the world lives. I thought I had at least understood the concept of friendship but I guess not. No wonder I have trust issues and can never discuss my personal life with other people, if this is how friends are supposed to be, then I’m better keeping my life to myself rather than open to a mean world who will speculate, judge and pass on a verdict whether you like it or not.
Just found a song to summarize my state of mind…listen and enjoy!
It’s a thin line between love and hate by The Pretenders.
