Imagine you are at school. You’re with your buddy, walking, holding a bunch of markers. You’re having a great time chatting with them when… BOOM! You trip and all of the sudden you fall. Your Instincts kick in and you raise your arms so you take the impact but to do that you drop the markers you are holding. They spill everywhere. All going in different directions. Then your buddy helps you up. They help you pick up all the markers, they look in every crack for the markers, they keep on searching. And while they execute this you think the whole time: “they are so kind,” and then you start thinking how they are so much better than you, and it makes you feel… it’s impossible to describe but one thing, it doesn’t make you feel good. It is the feeling that your friends are better friends than you are. And It makes you feel terrible. You feel that you need to do that more and start worrying and worrying. And you can’t stop worrying that they are spending time for you and you are not. And you wonder why they are friends with you in the first place.

Have you ever  wondered why you are friends with someone when you have an argument? Have you ever had arguments with your friends? I don’t need to be asking this, you have, okay. Everyone has arguments. It’s inevitable, even your bestest best partner will have a dispute with you eventually. It’s normal, people have disagreements. There’s no way to stop it. If I asked you to tell me one story about a disagreement you had with your partner you would be able to. I read that arguing with your best friend is normal and it can even prove your friendship. Friends tell the truth though, and sometimes the truth can hurt the other friend and start an argument.

You may be wondering, Ian, how does this relate to you? I thought this was your experience? I will get there. Just like you, I have had disagreements with friends. And what’s stupid about it, is it’s over a little thing. Like once, me and my buddy Noah were playing a weird game where there were coin flips and if it was heads, you got something good and if you got tails, you would not get the thing. Well Noah won the game, and as we were walking back from recess, Noah said, I have a trick for predicting the coin flip.

Now this was not really a big deal at all, I don’t remember the strategy, but I don’t like that kind of thing, and it got me mad. I told him, then you cheated, and that’s how you won. He told me that It’s part of the strategy. You can see where this started going as we kept on quarrelling . We kept saying these same lines over and over again and by the time we got back to our different classes we were in a full scale dispute. 

When we came to lunch, Noah came out and told me he was really sorry. I said 

Sorry too, but it made me feel awful because the way Noah said it made it seem like he had been practicing to say it, unlike me. Looking back on it makes me feel lousy because it was me who started it. Everyone has arguments though, but I still feel lousy. I know those out there who are reading this are probably thinking, “Ian, why do you feel this way? You said that everyone has arguments!” But this is my perspective, and Everyone is different.

Do you ever feel when your buddy is nice and does you a favor, you feel worried that you are not doing the same. Whatever, this is not your opinion, it’s mine, but think about that question. I feel this way, don’t ask me why. Those of you, or almost all of you are probably thinking, “Ian! You are such a weirdo! Why are you pouring your heart out to us and sharing everything so personal! Do something normal! You’re even writing about something weird!” And to those of you who are saying that, well go ahead and say that, this is about my experience and your the one who’s reading this. And I hope you keep listening because writing this is oddly interesting and I want somebody to understand. Anyway, we need to get back on topic. Sometimes I feel this way.

At lunch, sometimes Noah helps me compost my food scraps. I know that seems little, but even that makes me feel thankful, but also crummy. I never do that for him. Actually once, I thought I did him a favor, but I actually didn’t.

So I was talking to Ethan, my other friend, and we saw Noah’s food tray on the table, But he was gone. Ethan and I both saw this and we asked each other, where did Noah go? We looked at Noah’s tray and I said, “I’m going to clean this up.” I grabbed Noah’s food, and I walked over to the compost bin, and composted his food scraps, well actually there was a lot of food on his plate still, which was a bit strange.

Noah got back pretty soon after that, and I told him I had cleaned up his food scraps. He said, “oh… I was kind of still eating, it’s okay.” Shoot my brain went, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. “Sorry,” I said somewhere around a billion times, “sorry, I’m really sorry, I didn’t know, sorry!” “It’s okay”, he said, but it wasn’t for me. I did read that apologizing way too much can sometimes mean anxiety but we need to get on topic.

I know this is not a big deal. I know I know I know I know I know already! Now that I think about it, everyone makes mistakes, nobody’s perfect. But it’s not about that, even though I know that it still makes me think this way.

I have been talking about this feeling throughout this essay. This feeling of… it does not really have a name. This sense that you are not being a good friend. And I thought I was alone on this feeling(which is why I talked about it so much). And I don’t doubt that some of you don’t know what I mean by this and would like to be reading something else that is not so weird. But I now know and realize that I was wrong. I am not alone. I know that some of you out there reading this know what I am feeling and have also experienced this, maybe only a smudge, but you have.

As I have been writing this essay, I have realized that I have picked to write about a very weird topic. But I want you to see and understand me. I hope you remember this. I want you to see how I connect to this weird and not good feeling that makes me feel that I am not a good friend. I want you to see and remember this so that whenever you feel this feeling and feel alone, remember that you are not the only one. From the start I was questioning about this, and now I am sure it is weird. And weird was what I was afraid of. But now I am not sad I chose to write about such a weird topic. I feel that if I had written about an ordinary topic I would have not had as much joy about writing about that. And the reason I think that is because I got to tell you about something important to me, so thank you for reading and I will…

SEE YOU ALL LATER!