Oh, boy... I went through a pretty nasty friend breakup in college. I quickly became close with a guy I met through Yale Children's Theater (the program that hosted my improv workshops for middle school students). We bonded over our spontaneity; he was down for pretty much anything, from taking on a part-time job at the local haunted house with me to embarking on a journey to the nearby PEZ Factory to chatting with random strangers on Omegle. I admired his boundless optimism, sense of humor, and ability to make anyone feel appreciated within a few seconds of conversation... But there were a few elements to our connection that didn't feel perfectly natural. His idolization of celebrities irked me. He chose a different star to fanboy over every month... First it was Ellen, then it was Katy Perry, then it was Taylor Swift. He'd share every update on their personal lives and careers with me; I wasn't particularly interested in any of these people and was somewhat creeped out by the parasocial aspect of his fawning, but I would listen dutifully, knowing he needed an outlet for his excitement. He also ran a charity that kind of seemed like a scam?? The basic premise was that he collected letters for lonely elderly people. He didn't manage a pen pal program or anything; he would hop on Zoom calls with Fortune 500 companies and play Disney music and in the background while the employees half-assed cards with generic messages like "Dear Susan, keep smiling!" He got paid soooooo much money to do this. Like, sooooooo much. He could get his bag while major corporations got tax deductions... And everyone involved had the added benefit of getting to feel like a good person for doing very little work. On top of that, his relationships with other friends were always failing; one or two friend breakups is natural, especially during the tumultuous time that is adolescence, but three or four in a row is a bit eyebrow-raising. I never voiced my concerns about these developments—after all, he was generally sweet, smart, and sincere—but they gnawed at me internally.
Anyway, I'll cut to the chase: we were in each other's "COVID bubbles" or whatever during the pandemic. We were both lonely and inexperienced. We kissed as a "joke," although he was a gay man (not even bi), and one thing led to another... Soon, we were making out and rolling around for HOURS, although we never actually took off any clothes. Afterward, he told me that he was glad he had experimented with me and found me visually attractive, but still only wanted to have sex with men. I wasn't offended—though I had also enjoyed the hookup, I didn't see him as a romantic prospect in the slightest—but I can't deny that the interaction changed our dynamic. He became more affectionate, sometimes clingy. Looking back, I can see that I also became more demanding of his attention, subconsciously getting jealous when it was directed elsewhere. He met his first boyfriend shortly after. While they were dating, I was in the midst of writing an emotionally taxing senior thesis about school shooters and incels; I was also dealing with the aftermath of a near-fatal car crash as well as my self-destructive teenage sister's recent hospitalization for alcohol poisoning. When he broke up with the guy, he accused me of not being a supportive friend. I really was trying my best, but I do concede that it probably wasn't enough.
Was it a bad idea for us to share a New York City sublet that summer? Of COURSE it was—but we did it anyway. Guess what? Unbeknownst to us, the sublet only had one bed. While we didn't relapse into another quasi-sexual encounter, we constantly woke each other up; our different schedules led to a fair amount of bickering, which translated to latent resentment. Just a few days before the end of the month, he told me that he "couldn't handle the city" anymore. Amongst other things, he cited financial concerns, despite the fact that he had tens of thousands of dollars in a savings account. He took a plane back to Ohio, leaving me to find housing all by myself. I ended up using the majority of the grant I had received that summer to take up residence in a hotel.
We tried to reconnect over FaceTime, but when he told me that he was going to start a for-profit organization that would charge people to volunteer, specifically targeting the lonely and the friendless, I was stunned. He added that he wanted to switch lanes from the elderly to the environment, "because the environment is really trendy right now." When I asked him why he felt driven to do so, he admitted that he didn't know anything about helping the planet or even particularly care about the cause. I should have shared my feelings, but I started to distance myself. After a few weeks of not talking, he confronted me over FaceTime, accusing me of ghosting him and leaving me with the words, "You're a shitty friend." I wish I had handled things differently. At the same time, I doubt we were meant to be.