We were at dinner, and he was commenting that a place he's looking at is too far away (17 miles!!). I said something like, if it's that or sleeping in your car, which would you take?
L: "You'd let me sleep in my car?"
Me: "Versus?"
L: "Well, staying in your spare room."
Me: "... Yeah, that's not happening."
After a bit more back and forth, he stopped talking. And then stopped eating dinner (he was only about half-way through). Fine, whatever. I paid for the meal, and as we were leaving, he still wasn't talking (which is really unusual for him). I asked if he still wanted to go to the movie ("The Imitation Game"); he said "yes". That was, literally, the last word he spoke to me for the next half-hour, then the length of the movie, then about 20 minutes after while waiting for the car.
By this point, I was annoyed. So, as we got in the car, I just said, "I guess I'm taking you home, then."
L: "No, I need to be out with people right now."
Me: "Well, I don't see any reason for us to hang out if you're just going to give me the silent treatment for the rest of the night."
L: "Is that what you think is happening?"
Me: "What else would it be? Prior to this conversation, you've said one work since dinner."
We went at it a bit. He said he was hurt, he thought I was his friend. "I know you've said repeatedly that
Me: "What, that I actually meant it?"
L: "Well, I mean... It's just..."
I laid into him a bit about bad decisions, about the people (including me) who have been shielding him from the results of his choices for like 10 years, of a few of the times where he's pulled shit, gotten caught/caught out, and ended up needing to be bailed out, etc. He started by denying it all, then slowly had to admit I was right.
Then he started in with the emotional manipulative shit. "It's hard to hate yourself." Well, yes, been there. "I'm not you, I can't just kill myself." Okay, yes, been there too, but that's a shitty, low blow. "How can you be friends with someone who is such a fuckup?" Not touching that one with a 10-foot pole, bud. "I've made bad decisions. I was afraid." Sure, but mostly afraid of the outcomes of bad decisions you'd made prior.
L: "I never wanted to use anyone."
Me: "And, yet, 30 minutes ago you were perfectly content to spend a night with someone you didn't want to be around just so they'd drive you places and pay for your drinks."
Anyway, he kind of accepted it eventually. At least, he wants to see a movie next week; we'll see how he feels tomorrow (it's entirely possible he'll work himself into enough self-righteous anger to blow me off lest I remind him again about how he's wrong). But at least the conversation is out there.
I still think he thinks he's going to manipulate/trick me into letting him stay here. One would hope that after all these years he'd know not to pull that kind of thing on someone with limited empathy.
The movie was pretty good, if a bit depressing in the end (but how else could it be?). And now, to bed.
2 comments:
Conversations like the above make me wonder what the upside is to remaining friends with L.
He's actually intelligent, amusing, and knows a lot about a lot of things. When he's not using people or being manipulative (which used to be rare but is unfortunately happening more and more), he's not bad.
The sad part is that his self-esteem is so tied to being the Authority and being in the upper class of society; he's got plenty of good qualities he should focus on instead, but he can't/won't. And now he's locked in a too-afraid-to-do-anything therefore more-bad-things-happen loop. That, combined with grasping at the last shreds of the aforementioned self-esteem and he's just destroying everything around him.
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