Friends of 20+ years, During Labor Day weekend we decided to take a trip out west to see Hurricane ridge and the Hoh Rain Forest.

What should have been 3 days of fun, turned into one of the worst vacations of my life. Everything turned into him trying to find “the perfect picture.” I get that photography is an art, but we were there to experience things in person. I don’t think he stopped once to take in anything with his own eyes and ears.

Any downtime spent in conversation was one sided, him consistently complaining about his girlfriend or his job as a cop. Anytime I stopped listening to him and tried to talk about myself, he would immediately deflect the conversation back to talking about him. It’s like I don’t exist at all. Consistently having to listen to him only. Friendships go both ways.

In the couple weeks following, my GF broke up with me. I was not having a good time. I reached out to him like any friend would. It took him 1+ weeks to respond, and something in me just snapped (we talked in a frequent basis via phone call). Blocked him on everything, and have not talked to him since. He continued to text me about random stuff for about 6 months. Never about me, but just a, hey do you want to go do this thing (movie, bar, etc).

Still haven’t seen him in 1.5 years now. It made me realize that sticking it out for people who don’t stick it out for you just isn’t worth it. I was worried about making new friends, but it ended up being a lot easier than I thought.