What To Do When You’ve Been a Bad Friend
Few things in this life feel worse than letting down a friend. Our families are contractually obligated to love us no matter what, and we all expect a certain amount of drama from our Significant Others, but when it comes to our friends, we’re supposed to be our best selves, united in a neverending sitcom theme song of love, trust, and inside jokes.
Yet, other than regrettable matching tattoos, few things come with the territory of close friendships more than inevitably screwing up.
Case in point: when I was twenty-three, my friend Alex needed me to pick her up from the airport. Not a big deal, right? But when the time came to do it, for a lot of “reasons” that now sound a lot more like “excuses,” I flaked out. I sent her a text saying I’d pay for the cab, but I’m not even sure I followed through on that promise. It seemed like a small mistake, but it changed the way she looked at me. She felt she could no longer count on me, and that made me feel like I could no longer count on myself. It took years to repair the damage I caused to that friendship, and if I had it to do over again, here is what I would tell my younger self (in addition to “wear clothes without holes in them”).
Apologize: Okay, maybe you could have thought of this one on your own, but it’s important to get it right. Don’t just apologize for the thing you did, but for what it meant. Let them know that the guilt is killing you, explain the extenuating circumstances if you can, but mostly: make it about them.
Make A Gesture: So you’ve apologized and it still wasn’t enough. Don’t get discouraged, or worse, defensive! The next step in friendship repair is a tangible, physical act to show that you are committed to being a better person in the future. So even if you can’t replace the violin you left on the train (a thing I have done), you can bake a cake, buy a gift, or make sure you show up at every one of their band’s concerts for the next year.
Live And Learn: Here is a crummy truth: regardless of how sincere your repentance, you cannot actually force someone to forgive you. Even if you’ve apologized, made a gesture, and put in real effort to change the behaviors that caused the problem, it’s possible your friendship still doesn’t feel the way it did before. But even in this worst case scenario, all is not lost. You’ve learned one of those valuable, painful lessons that are a big (the biggest) part of growing up. You’ve learned that your actions have consequences (yay! you matter!). You’ve learned that your friendships aren’t just frozen snapshots of two people laughing, but living things that are the product of every decision you make within them. And you have learned to always check the overhead compartment on the train, to suck it up and drive to the airport, or whatever specific lesson is most applicable to your situation.
Time: Once you’ve done everything you can to make amends, you’ve just got to wait it out. Time certainly doesn’t heal all wounds, but scar tissue does eventually fade. In a bizarre twist to this story, I happened to be in the same city as Alex a few days ago, and told her that my stranding her at the airport was my inspiration for this piece. And get this: she, like, barely remembered it. My failures determined the course of our friendship for a while, but it felt wonderful to come back to it as people we both know we can trust. And then we proceeded to make some new friendship memories, involving a lot of Ben & Jerry’s and some hotel employees who really wished we would shut up.
Have you been a bad friend? What have you done to make it right?
