Tade

During one of my weekend meanderings, I bumped into Tade. Tade was the one I wrote Letting Hope Go about. I realise now that I can’t actually be friends with him anymore.

Quick Synopsis of Our History

Tade and I first started going out during my A-levels. We broke up due to my commitment issues. We got back together again and broke up again. After that we tried to do the friend thing. One night I went out with him and his boys and made out with one of them. Unbeknownst to me, he was still feeling me at the time so he never forgave me for it. We stopped speaking for a while but made up and became friends.

We became really good friends. We used to talk all the time and tell each other everything. Sometimes the lines would blur and we would stray into the more than just friends’ zone but he would always remind me of the incident and tell me nothing could ever happen between us again. After a few years of drifting in and out of each other’s lives, we became really close again and started hanging out in earnest. I used to go up to spend the weekends with him in the country. One time things became really blurry as we were quite intimate but we, no I, pulled back at the last minute. I wasn’t sure where we were and I hate uncertainty. When we finally talked about it, he let me know very clearly that nothing had changed – he was willing to sleep with me but would not have me as his girlfriend. Now I understandably got upset because that made me feel like shit. I also got mad because, I knew he had feelings for me, but because of something I did years before (when I was young and stupid), he wouldn’t let things happen between us. I don’t know, maybe I was being idealic and wasn’t prepared to face the truth.

Anyways we stopped talking for a while but became friends again. The truth is, he is one of the sweetest guys I know – he’s really incredible. Bar his treatment of me, I can’t actually fault him. He’s very kind and generous, plus he’s really funny, smart and outgoing, basically one of those people that people gravitate to. So we became friends again and we used to talk about everything. He’d tell me about the girls and I’d tell him (watered down stories) about the guys. We used to talk almost every night for at least an hour or so each time.

One night as we’re talking, this girl calls him who’s one of the “groupies”. She was basically this young child (ok girl) who had a huge crush on him and he was trying to let her down gently. He was soo sweet about it (he was speaking on the other line) that I was compelled to blurt out – “What are we doing? Why aren’t we together? It’s hitting me again how much I really care about you!”

He went very silent and reminded me that we could never be together. Too much had happened. Choking back my hurt/disappointment (I mean come on! This again?), I told him – it was fine. I would accept his decision and would never bring it up again but that seriously for his sake, he shouldn’t close himself off to people as he may blind himself to someone who’s great for him – basically he should stop being soo stubborn. Believe it or not, this was an incredibly painful and difficult speech to make.

A week or two afterwards, it was a friend’s birthday and we all went to this club to celebrate. There was this girl who I don’t really like (she’s … one of those girls that just doesn’t mix well with other girls). I don’t know maybe it’s just me but we just never quite gelled. Anyways, I see Tade and her dancing together and next thing I know he’s dragged her off to a corner and they are making out.

I went into shock. It hit me that they were actually together. It also hit me then that all that time, I was giving that painful speech, he was with her. He never told me or gave me any indication. He figured that the best way to let me find out was to see them together. All of a sudden, I found myself wailing in the bathroom. The attendant was really worried because I just wouldn’t stop. I have never lost control like that in my life but I cried. Even when I got out of the bathroom, I continued crying. I cried in a club in front of all my friends and his friends (who knew our history). I cried those big overwhelming tears that just wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t help myself and I didn’t know how to stop. It was mortifying. Even till today, I can’t believe it happened.

I couldn’t forgive him. For the longest time, I couldn’t forgive him. It wasn’t even that he was having a relationship with her, it was the way he let me find out that hurt. It was that despite everything and above all else, we had been friends. He let me go through that excruciating conversation when I told him how I felt and didn’t say anything. He treated this random school girl who had a crush on him better than me, who was his supposed friend. Never mind that he didn’t reciprocate my feelings, as his friend, I feel he should have treated me with more respect. His excuse was that they only just got together that night. There was “nothing to tell” before hand. We stopped talking after that. (I swear I wrote a poem about this but I can’t seem to find it)

About a year later, he called me to talk. We tried talking but I got frustrated because … well because he wasn’t saying what I wanted to hear. I wanted him to own up to what he did (and then apologize) and he wouldn’t. That was around the time I wrote letting hope go. He suggested we meet up to talk things through but I was a bit wary about it. I didn’t want to put myself in an awkward situation that could later be misconstrued. We’d try and meet up but something would always come up his end or my end. Eventually we stopped trying. We’d talk every now and then but nothing like how we used too. He’s still going out with her.

Finally bumping into him has made me realise – we can’t actually be friends anymore. I don’t know, maybe I’d been lying to myself all this time thinking we were actually ever friends. Reading back now – I don’t even know if he ever cared about me. I always felt guilty and that it was my fault things were the way they were, because I messed up. But enough. We are more than even now.