[RabidRat]

Lol, I've been there. Sort of.

For years I was closest with my highschool friends, being that I've known them for a good 10 years now. It's just the convenience and familiarity, they'll always know you best because they're your oldest friends.

But one of the guys in this group of friends is a real dbag (the kinda guy you'd bail out and do all these favors for, but he'd just keep letting you down in return) and finally one day near the end of 2010 I decided fuck this, I don't need this shit: I'm cutting this guy loose. Felt great. I called him out and told him off, never spoke to him again and honestly my life was better for it. Until I left for a year for work.

That New Years Eve, two days before I left, I only got to see half of them, because the other half felt bad for the other guy and had to spend time with him. Feels bad man. Things were okay for the next year as I worked in Ontario. I made completely new friends and had a great time, but I always knew in the back of my mind that when I came home, my friends would all be there waiting.

Well, I came home. And with the exception of two of my best friends, I almost never see those other people. They never call me out, and when I call them out, they almost always decline as they're "busy, sorry". In the last three months I've been back, I've seen them all four times maybe. These are people I used to see 1-3 times a week.

And yeah, it was lonely when I got back. It was shitty. All last year I was away, every time I talked to my friends on the phone / IM they'd always bring up "hey man... you should try and patch things up with [dbag], it makes things hard and we don't know what to do". They know he's in the wrong but what are they gonna do right? And like in your case, he happens to probably edge me out in popularity with the rest of them plus they were all hanging while I left for a year, so I end up being the one to take the hit.

Anyway in terms of getting my hs friends back, there is no happy ending there. Instead, I ended up getting closer and hanging out with the friends I made in university. I'm finding it's a lot more fun hanging out with these people as we have a lot more in common and they're a hell of a lot more mature and career oriented. Sure we haven't been friends for a decade and they don't know me inside and out, but that'll come. Ultimately I think it was better to grow up and move on to better things.

Anyway we should grab a beer and take a look at retrofitting those AP2 headlights. I'll be back in Vancouver April 1st =p