I'm Sorry

To a certain someone. You know who you are.

When I was younger, I was cursed with the inability to socialise and extreme shyness that only worsened this further. My strange behaviour along with my way of speaking and standing posture were considered to be abnormal by both my classmates and teachers. It wasn't long before I became a social outcast and a victim of the bullies. But that all changed when I met you.

Heh. I can remember our first conversation. It was about food poisoning. A very bizarre topic to discuss in a first conversation with someone you’ve never spoken with before. You were curious as to what food poisoning is like to have. I can remember telling you what it was like: “It feels as if your arse has exploded. Your bowels seem to have a mind of their own and you get stuff coming out of both ends at once.”

Our friendship grew as we discovered that we had much more in common between us. We both love history, we share similar political views and views of the world we live in. Not only that; we’re both bisexual which also seemed to help shape and mould our friendship into what it is now. The only difference we seem to have is in music tastes. When you defined my music tastes as “gay” I couldn’t help but laugh. Whilst I loved listening to Kool and the Gang, you loved listening to Foals. I can remember the bollocking you gave me when I called Foals gay (“there are no ‘oohs’ in Cassius” and “Celebration… so gay”), purely to make you laugh and feel outraged.

At first, I developed this insane and crazy crush on you. I could hardly contain my feelings. I became excited every time I received messages from you. Slowly, over the weeks, my insane crush on you diminished, and I loved you in a way as a sister would love her brother. I found myself looking up to you in awe and respect, and thinking, “I want to be just like him when I’m older.”

You’ve always been here for me. You told me to hold my head up high and to not let people get to me. When I struggled to express my emotions, you expressed them for me. You’ve helped me to pull through my depressive episodes and cheered me up when I was feeling down. All these times we’ve laughed and cried together are my favourite memories of our friendship. But we’ve always had our ups and downs. Sometimes, our jokey insults or jokes would push one of us too far and we’d end up hurting each other instead. Looking back, I’ve realized that I’ve hurt you many more times than you’ve hurt me.

I made that mistake tonight.

Because I’ve never had a friend as close as you before, I’m still learning the boundaries in a friendship. I’m not saying that I’m entirely blameless, but I did something stupid and was insensitive to your emotions and feelings. I never realized that what I was about to say would hurt you. I deserved every word you threw back at me. I deserved to feel the pain that you felt.

I just want to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all these times I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry for ending our conversation with “fuck you” and storming off when you hurt me back. I don’t expect you to accept my lame apologies for the millionth time. But I want you to know that I’m sorry for what happened tonight and that you’ll always be like an older brother to me. I want you to know that I understand why what I said hurt you and that if we continue to speak to one another, I’ll never repeat what I did and that I’ll learn from that mistake I made.

I’m sorry.