Why I Have No Interest In Being Your Friend

I don’t want to be friends with you because you’re a taker, not a giver. You’ll sit here and laugh at my jokes, asking me to tell more stories, but you won’t give me anything in return. You’ll come to me for advice but fail to even ask how I’m doing. You suck the energy out of me. You don’t add anything to any given situation and I’m too old and busy now to carve out time for people who don’t mean the world to me.

I don’t want to be friends with you because the one thing that bound us together is now over. It might’ve been college or the fact that we both liked to drink a lot and now I’m getting sober or because we had no other friends and needed someone to latch on to. Whatever it was, it’s now over. I realize now that we were close by circumstance and our bond wasn’t strong enough to withstand changes.

I don’t want to be friends with you because we hang in different crowds. You go to sports bars and listen to Rob Thomas on your iPhone and have a casual belief in Jesus Christ. I don’t. Sometimes the surface things don’t matter. Sometimes best friends can like different music, clothes, religion, politics, and lovers, and still feel like they’re Feeling Twins. But other times, interests and hobbies are the ultimate decider. I didn’t make the rules, okay? The high school cafeteria did!

I don’t want to be friends with you because you’re shady. I thought you were cool. On the surface, everything checked out, but then I dug a little deeper and was creeped out by what I found. You’re just a total Etch-A-Sketch. You’ll air kiss me into oblivion and make me agree to brunch plans. Then, in the same breath, you’ll say something vaguely insulting about me.

I don’t want to be friends with you because I want to have sex with you. Like a lot. It’s getting to be too much for me. Ordinarily I would just deal with the fact that we’re platonic but with you, it’s too much. I will never not imagine you naked, which is a serious red flag for a potential friendship. You can either have none of me or all of me. Pick one.

I don’t want to be friends with you because you don’t get it. I don’t know how to make you get it. If I could bottle “GETTING IT” and sell it at the Friendship Store, I would but I can’t. I also can’t describe exactly why we don’t click as friends. The differences are subtle but they’re there. They’re there enough for me to be a flake and never show up to any of our plans. There’s no point in us getting coffee. All it’s going to do is make me feel depressed and remind me of how many people there are that I don’t relate to.

I don’t want to be friends with you because you don’t talk crap. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a friend who’s evil but I need someone who has opinions and likes to talk about them. If I could choose between spending time with someone who’s bland and agrees with everything I say {“OMG, totally. Yeah. I agree completely. Yup.”) or someone who’s completely different from me but has interesting thoughts, I’d definitely choose the latter. At least I wouldn’t be bored. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

image – Lorraine Bruce

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