To the girl who nearly broke me, for no reason
Hi there.

It's entirely likely you have forgotten all about this past scenario. The level of crazy it takes to do something so irrationally petty and hateful would probably be the same kind of crazy that would write it off as a blip, or perhaps a dream. It took me three years to discover what you'd done, and all those years I thought there was something wrong with me...

At college, doing my A Levels, I had a bunch of mates that, 15 years on, I am proud to say are still my friends. One of them you went to school with. You had a fall-out with her over some bloke, but, seeing as I probably only had two conversations with you in the two years of college, and this happened towards the end, your presence, let alone your dispute, barely registered on my radar. You were an ex-friend-of-a-friend. That's all.

I get into one of the best London art colleges to do my foundation course. My first day, I arrive a few minutes late thanks to a bus, and I'm a bit nervous as I didn't get to chat to people outside the lecture theatre. I don't think much of it - it's a busy day. I chat to one girl, then don't see her for the rest of the day. I chat to another, and halfway through discovering how much we had in common, someone asks to speak to her, and she never speaks to me again. This becomes such a common theme, I give up. Something, simply, must be wrong with me.

I get depressed. Worryingly depressed. All my friends have gone off to uni all over the country, as they aren't on art courses. My parents are terribly worried about me. I cry pretty much every night, when I'm not fuelling all my energy into my artwork, which is getting fairly dark.

There's a hideous college trip to Dublin, which I'm still not sure why I went on. A last ditch attempt, I guess, to show people I'm not... well, whatever the hell they think I am. One person shows me an awkward kindness, but is very odd when other people turn up. Another does much the same. I simply want to get back home - I've never been so unhappy.

One friend of mine helps me. He's not at our college - in fact, he's retaking his A Levels. He pulls me up, gives me encouragement, meets me for drinks at lunch, tells me to get out of there the best way I can - by working hard on what I love, and leaving the college behind. His encouragement works - by the time I leave, I've barely noticed people being cautiously nice to me, and I'm actively ignoring tutors who are now seeing my talent and begging me to stay at their uni (which, of course, I won't).


So, let's skip on three years. In that time, I've gone to a different uni, made amazing friends I can't imagine my life without, I've had fun and been incredibly happy, and can barely believe how at any point of my life I had considered, genuinely, ending it all.

I'm sitting on a green with a friend. I had made friend with this person at uni, but he, in fact, had also gone on my foundation. We're sharing a bottle of wine and a picnic, and we start talking about foundation. And this very odd line comes out of him. Something along the lines of "well, of course, I never really understood what had gone on between you and V"

I had no idea what he was talking about. So I asked. He, bless him, was a bit shellshocked, and incredibly embarassed. But I had asked, so he told me.

The day I arrived at foundation, once you had spotted that I hadn't yet talked to anyone, you began saying things about me. You told people I was a dangerous sort of liar, a loner who shouldn't be trusted. I had stolen your boyfriend, slept with other people's boyfriends too. I was, apparently, a manipulative basketcase. When people had been talking to me, you had 'rescued' them by having people take them from our conversation and tell them about the spiteful things I had done when I didn't get my own way. In Dublin, you saw me coming around a corner, and made everyone, simultaneously, turn in the opposite direction*.

There is, of course, an obvious problem with all that. Not one word of it was true. I can't have slept with anyone up to that point, unless you have a very loose definition of 'virgin'. I'm generally a pretty nice person - when I'm in a bad mood with someone, I will tell them this then shun them for a bit, then stop being churlish, have a conversation about it, then go back to normal. I don't think that's manipulative.

You know what? I think you had, entirely, described yourself. Quite why you chose me didn't seem clear at first - but hindsight? You wanted a fresh start, didn't you? To be seen as the good, friendly one, so you found someone who was just a bit too nice at the time to start asking around about why people were being odd, who would just take it.

Sitting on that green with that friend, everything fell into place. I understood why people had been so awful to me. I started to see why, towards the end, they had started to cautiously have conversations with me. I now make a connection I hadn't - when one of the popular guys was working in a bar I happened to be in, with that most excellent friend of mine along with some friends back for a break, that my generally sociable nature and giggles came out as the drink flowed and I had a great evening, that the next time in college him and a few others stopped and had a full conversation with me as if meeting me for the first time.

See, though, VERITY, there's just one thing - I'm still a nice person. I am. But one year of that followed by three years of AMAZING friends, who built up my confidence and made me the person I am now, did one more thing. I, finally, got around to expressing myself clearly. I'm much more confidant. I can, as a bonus, now get ANGRY.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not half as angry as I was all those years ago sitting on that green with a bottle of wine in my hand, where if I'd spotted you I'd have, frankly, glassed your face.

No, I'm now angry *enough*. And by that I mean this. If I ever see you, I will make a point of being polite. And, with your loved one by your side, I will ask you why you spread those lies about me in college. And you will likely bluster and say I am lying. And then I will call my friend on the phone, and he will back me up. And he will, happily, call two other friends on the same course who he is still friends with, and so on, until the cacophony of voices telling you that YOU are the liar, the manipulator, the spiteful harridan become too much to bear and you go and seek comfort.

Because, at the end of the day, you did this for one central reason, why you chose do to this to ME.

I stayed friends with someone you didn't like any more. Even though I didn't know you.

Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with you. But I genuinely hope it hurts.

Ta for now

NAWAH x





*my friend, bless him, thought he should make a stand at this point, but was afraid socially to go against it, so made an executive decision to fall on his face.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Mon 8 Mar 2010, 20:06, 3 replies)

...and yes I said yes I will Yes.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 8 Mar 2010, 20:38, closed)

Tl:dr
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Mon 8 Mar 2010, 20:52, closed)

That was an evil Verity
Verities should be nice :(
( in vino veritas, Mon 8 Mar 2010, 23:11, closed)