It’s any friendship’s worst-case scenario: Your friend is currently complaining about something you do constantly. Time to panic!
Your night started out normal enough. Kiera, your friend from college, came over for some wine and your favorite shared pastime: Trading stories about little annoying things that people do that neither of you will ever confront directly. But everything changed when Kiera mentioned her hatred for people who act really apologetic when they cancel plans.
“It just seems really patronizing, like they think my whole life revolves around whether they can see a movie with me,” says Kiera as you begin to spiral.
Did she forget that the last time you were supposed to grab drinks, you canceled with your standard, “I’m sorrryyyyyyyyyyy I’m the worsssssssstttt” response? Sure, she could be talking about someone else’s even more egregious apologies, possibly with more ys and ts than yours. But she could also be trying to send you a message without calling you out directly.
You could maturely say, “Oh, I think that’s something I do, and I never realized it came off as patronizing. Thanks for the insight!” You could also start crying, and say “I’m feeling really attacked right now.”. But, most likely, you will take the path of least resistance, and say something like “Yeah, it’s so fucking shitty when people do that.”
History indicates passive lying is your preferred course of action such as the time your mom kept pointedly mentioning how sad it is when people didn’t know what colors look good on them, and you said “yeah” but also stopped wearing burnt orange around her. Or the time a guy you met at a bar said, “You don’t seem like the kind of girl who wastes her time watching reality shows,” and instead of saying, “I actually really enjoy The Bachelor,” you said, “Yeah, I wish those vapid bitches would roll over and die.”
So what’s a girl to do? Another possible way forward would be to just stop caring about this and be chill for once in your life, but we all know that’s not going to happen. So probably do the crying thing.
