Безобразие
I'm going to say something in English because I have no idea now to put this in Russian. Especially with gender and pronouns I'm not sure about; I don't know this person enough to assume.
This is addressed to a single person with whom I lost contact a long time ago, but I have a tiny hope that they might come across this at some point, since I know they know who I am here on livejournal. If they do, they will hopefully know it's addressed to them from the title. If you know who that is and are in contact with them, please, point them to this post, but don't insist that they read it; they don't have to, if they don't feel like it.
I want to start by saying I'm sorry. It all went down over two decades ago and I'm still not over some of it, but I am really, genuinely sorry for the way I, and some other people around me, treated you.
I'm sorry. I know that if you ever cared for the way we felt about you, you would have been hurt. The way I felt back then was no excuse for lashing out. And definitely no excuse for misgendering you, which was what I did repeatedly without realising how damaging that could be. That's the thing I regret the most, although there are a lot of things from back then that I regret. I'm sorry.
I'll put the rest of my rambling under the cut, because you absolutely don't need to hear anything else unless you want to reach out to me and mend some fences. Which you absolutely don't have to do, of course. If you've read this far and considered my apology, that's good enough for me.
The thing is, I'm pretty awful at friendship. I'd like to be able to say that I got better with time, but that wouldn't be true, I just got a different kind of bad. But back then- well. You were one of my closest friends. My best friend, at times. The one person who kept me sane, at some point. It was really, truly, fucking awfully painful to discover I wasn't even on your top-ten, that I could actually make a separate top-ten out of people who thought they were your best friends. It was even more painful to discover that I'd been ghosted. It was devastating to notice that not only didn't you want anything to do with me, you also were happy to join in on looking down on me and mocking me that, as it seemed, was going on in our group of friends back then. I might have been imagining the mocking, it's been too long and I can't be sure anymore, but I definitely wasn't imagining the ghosting, not when at least three other people told me they had the same experience with you. I was devastated and heartbroken, and in a way, I'm still not over it.
You were, however, fully entitled to stop talking to anyone who made you feel uncomfortable. I could have used a bit of a warning - like, "hey, I'm going through some shit and don't want anything to be holding me back, thanks for all the fish", but, well, you were as young as I was, and if I didn't handle it with enough dignity, you didn't have to, either.
I think I might have a slightly better idea of what you were going through, now. I might be entirely wrong, I don't really have enough information, and I know I'm not entitled to speculate, at least out loud, but if what I'm thinking is anywhere close to the truth, it is more than understandable that you handled it the way you did. I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could share with me and ask for my support - I was ignorant, not bigoted, even if the two things sometimes appear similar. If you had explained, I would have listened. I'm sorry I failed to make you feel like you could talk to me, but of course you didn't have to.
I had feelings I didn't even recognise back then; it took me years to see them for what they were, but even then I did not quite comprehend your side of things over my own heartbreak. And what is worse, my ignorance combined with my hurt resulted in me talking to you the way I did. I actually believed I was keeping most of my anger at bay; all I did was-
use the wrong pronouns. That's it, that's the worst I can remember. It is also probably the worst thing I could do back then and there, even if I'm wrong about what happened, because that's an awful thing to do regardless of how safe the person is with their own gender.
Funny thing is, I've learned how hurtful misgendering is quite a while ago. And I've known which pronouns you preferred since, well, you used them in front of me. And it took me until a few years ago to catch up on the fact that those two things combined meant I hurt you. And then I took some years on top of that to understand that I need to make an apology. That's probably why I'm awful at friendship, you know?
So, this is me, telling you I was awfully hurt by you ghosting me, but still horribly wrong for lashing out and using the wrong pronouns on top of that. It was wrong; no one deserves being treated that way. If I had known back then I wouldn't have done it, but, you know, hindsight.
2021. It's been over twenty years. I'm very, very sorry. And thank you for being my friend back in the twentieth century, I'm definitely a little better for having had you for a friend.
This is addressed to a single person with whom I lost contact a long time ago, but I have a tiny hope that they might come across this at some point, since I know they know who I am here on livejournal. If they do, they will hopefully know it's addressed to them from the title. If you know who that is and are in contact with them, please, point them to this post, but don't insist that they read it; they don't have to, if they don't feel like it.
I want to start by saying I'm sorry. It all went down over two decades ago and I'm still not over some of it, but I am really, genuinely sorry for the way I, and some other people around me, treated you.
I'm sorry. I know that if you ever cared for the way we felt about you, you would have been hurt. The way I felt back then was no excuse for lashing out. And definitely no excuse for misgendering you, which was what I did repeatedly without realising how damaging that could be. That's the thing I regret the most, although there are a lot of things from back then that I regret. I'm sorry.
I'll put the rest of my rambling under the cut, because you absolutely don't need to hear anything else unless you want to reach out to me and mend some fences. Which you absolutely don't have to do, of course. If you've read this far and considered my apology, that's good enough for me.
The thing is, I'm pretty awful at friendship. I'd like to be able to say that I got better with time, but that wouldn't be true, I just got a different kind of bad. But back then- well. You were one of my closest friends. My best friend, at times. The one person who kept me sane, at some point. It was really, truly, fucking awfully painful to discover I wasn't even on your top-ten, that I could actually make a separate top-ten out of people who thought they were your best friends. It was even more painful to discover that I'd been ghosted. It was devastating to notice that not only didn't you want anything to do with me, you also were happy to join in on looking down on me and mocking me that, as it seemed, was going on in our group of friends back then. I might have been imagining the mocking, it's been too long and I can't be sure anymore, but I definitely wasn't imagining the ghosting, not when at least three other people told me they had the same experience with you. I was devastated and heartbroken, and in a way, I'm still not over it.
You were, however, fully entitled to stop talking to anyone who made you feel uncomfortable. I could have used a bit of a warning - like, "hey, I'm going through some shit and don't want anything to be holding me back, thanks for all the fish", but, well, you were as young as I was, and if I didn't handle it with enough dignity, you didn't have to, either.
I think I might have a slightly better idea of what you were going through, now. I might be entirely wrong, I don't really have enough information, and I know I'm not entitled to speculate, at least out loud, but if what I'm thinking is anywhere close to the truth, it is more than understandable that you handled it the way you did. I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could share with me and ask for my support - I was ignorant, not bigoted, even if the two things sometimes appear similar. If you had explained, I would have listened. I'm sorry I failed to make you feel like you could talk to me, but of course you didn't have to.
I had feelings I didn't even recognise back then; it took me years to see them for what they were, but even then I did not quite comprehend your side of things over my own heartbreak. And what is worse, my ignorance combined with my hurt resulted in me talking to you the way I did. I actually believed I was keeping most of my anger at bay; all I did was-
use the wrong pronouns. That's it, that's the worst I can remember. It is also probably the worst thing I could do back then and there, even if I'm wrong about what happened, because that's an awful thing to do regardless of how safe the person is with their own gender.
Funny thing is, I've learned how hurtful misgendering is quite a while ago. And I've known which pronouns you preferred since, well, you used them in front of me. And it took me until a few years ago to catch up on the fact that those two things combined meant I hurt you. And then I took some years on top of that to understand that I need to make an apology. That's probably why I'm awful at friendship, you know?
So, this is me, telling you I was awfully hurt by you ghosting me, but still horribly wrong for lashing out and using the wrong pronouns on top of that. It was wrong; no one deserves being treated that way. If I had known back then I wouldn't have done it, but, you know, hindsight.
2021. It's been over twenty years. I'm very, very sorry. And thank you for being my friend back in the twentieth century, I'm definitely a little better for having had you for a friend.