When Unsolicited Advice Ends A Friendship
Maybe He Was Her Knight & Shining Armor
Look, I’m only going by what she told me about this dude. Initially, I was supportive. He seemed very attentive and checked off many must-haves from her list. She gushed over him, providing all the details that girlfriends love to hear. He was smart, attentive, thoughtful, loved his family, and most importantly a magnificent lover. Everything is so grand at the beginning of a relationship, isn’t it?
A few weeks later, she called me to give me an update on this amazing guy. Surprisingly, she told me that he ghosted her. As in disappeared. Stopped taking her calls, ignored her text messages.
Say what? What happened? Why? I had all sorts of questions. She gave all of the answers. It was quite the story, filled with disappointment and heartbreak. When a friend is venting, crying, and talking in circles, the only thing that they need from you is a listening ear. And boy did I listen. And listen. And listen. For days, for weeks.
Still, she could not believe his actions. He wasn’t going to get away with ghosting her. She was determined to confront him to get the “real answers” and that’s when I totally ignored what I said in the previous paragraph about lending your ear to a friend in need. I said, “Well, didn’t he give you all the answers you needed when he disappeared?”
Silence.
It’s not like I asked that question in a nasty or shady tone. I was just asking a question that any logical person would ask. She called me a day or two later to tell me that she finally confronted him, well sort of she said.
“Sort of?”
She told me that he didn’t get out of his car.
“Didn’t get out of his car?”
“I ran into him at the gas station.”
Ran into him? Girl, you stalked that man. I knew she was lying, but I listened.
She told me that as she approached his car. He looked at her and then he drove off. I was listening with my mouth wide open on the other end of the phone. Thank God, we weren’t on video because I was making faces. Then again, she had an Android at the time so FaceTime was out of the question.
“Somethings not right,” she declared. “His eyes looked weird! This is so out of character for him?”
“How long have you been knowing him again?” I asked with one eye closed, the other eye counting my fingers as I tried to recall our last conversation about Mr. Wonderful.
“It’s been about a month.”
“Girl, take your L and move on!”
I had to tell her the truth. That truth came out unfiltered and rather loud. I wasn’t about to sit up there and lie to my friend. I was tired of entertaining the bullsh*t that she was relaying. She disagreed with me. He loved her and she loved him. She just didn’t understand why he was behaving and acting so different. She cried and continued to question his actions. I felt so bad for her. She was devastated.
“It’s better to know now than later,” I somberly said. My tone elevated quickly as I gave her some much-needed advice, “You need to delete him from your memory. Delete him from your phone. Block him on social media. Unfollow him. He’s trash, garbage, not worth your time, and not worth your tears.”
I was nestled on the sofa watching TV when my lovesick friend called. Did I want to take this call? I haven’t talked to her in days. I know that this may sound selfish, but I needed a mental detox from her and that man, but here she was calling me. I was doing so good. My mood had been lifted. I sighed. What kind of friend was I to take a break from her? I picked up the remote and turned the volume down. She told me that she forgave the guy that ghosted her and said that they were going to give it another try.
“Wow, OK well what was his excuse for ghosting you?”
“He had some family issues that he needed to address. Yesterday was the first time I’d heard from him. We stayed on the phone all night talking.”
One phone call and she forgave him? See, this is the kind of — She went on to say that she was certain that he was the love of her life. I was flabbergasted. There is so much that I wanted to say, but I would be repeating myself. When a person is in love or thinks that they’re in love you have to let them follow whatever path they need to take. I reiterated that if she’s happy, I’m happy, but I didn’t like any of this.
Friends should be supportive no matter how bad a friend’s decision is, right? I mean I’ll support an ugly hairstyle or hideous outfit. A friend with three cats, although I’ll never visit. I’ll support a jewelry line, or a YouTube Channel dedicated to picking the dead skin off of their feet, but an inconsiderate a**hole that showed his true colors early on? I don’t want to support that. Where do we draw the line in the sand when we see a friend making a very bad decision?
My friend was consumed by this man. Every time I called, she never picked up. I left her voice messages, shared funny memes. Sometimes she would reply with a smiley face. When we finally spoke she didn’t sound like herself. I asked how things were going, she told me that everything was fine. She told me that she would call me back. She never did. I was ghosted.
