Dear friend,
I have read your letter about her and I understand why you wish to cut ties with her but I need to plead her case. She is your friend and I, an intruder to your friendship, yet I am also your friend. The problem is that you do not believe her to be deserving of this title of friend.
To begin, it would not be right to leave her out in the cold. Kindness then – or shall we call it “niceties”? – is a very key idea in day-to-day life- in spite of the fact that, like other day-to-day ideas, kindness seems unimportant.
In Greater Good Magazine, Kira M. Newman says, “If you go from [age] 15 to 65 and you smoke the whole time, it’s still better to stop than not, but some damage will have been done. And if you don’t pay attention to friends…, the same thing is true.”
In other words, you will do damage by cutting her off and that any repair you do by repairing your friendship with her will be overshadowed by the damage done.
You say how it is worse to stay yet you do not consider that with your own shortcomings, you are the source of her shortcomings. You exclaim how you cannot be lesser, nor can this friendship be late to the table; the friendship must be perfect and concise– still you give up. You demand perfection from everyone around you, but you would not meet your own expectations.
You forget that she was always there. Friendship was an attempt to avoid people feeling the loneliness of accepting their one company, which, sadly, was horrendous. Nostalgia made one unfeeling; happiness saddened, loners accept their own company. Without her you would have been left in the cold.
But you do not want the truth; you are questioning your image. You were always looking for a reason to stop that friendship and she has handed that reason to you on a silver platter. You ask, “What does friendship matter, compared to self preservation?”
When asked about a friendship, Nate Douty told the New York Times, “[the breakup] did feel like I was alone because no one really understood the type of pain I was going through.”
How could you cause her this pain and call pain self preservation?
To go back to my defense of her: kind, warm, trusting, you called her. Last week this was your stance. Nothing exists outside of us except the need for another, I think; a respite, for humor, for something outside these miserable duties, these annoying, these unnecessary, these rude men and women. You ignore that she has brought you out of that dark place, and, even if she never needs you, you will need her again because it certainly will not be me pulling you up.
Do not give her up as your friend or you will suffer all the more for your decision.
-Your friend
