Oldest elf, with the baker’s hat, please step forward.

I tend to scrap these kinds of posts, because I like being liked. If it were possible, I’d want to be liked by everybody. I’d be perfectly happy and content if I was an upstanding member of a small community, with a good reputation and role to fulfill, with both acquaintances and friendships. And posts like this aren’t made by people like that.

But she had it coming. For this post, and this one post only, I’m going to be pompous. I’m going to be arrogant. I’m going to be snobby. I’m going to act like I had the world on my side, because that’s how I felt. I felt that what I observed about her actions was true no matter how you looked at it. I was offended continuously, day after day, and she didn’t pick up on the hints I gave. I repeated what was feeling again and again, this time bluntly, and she didn’t acknowledge it. She trivialized it.

She made it seem like it’s not her fault. That it’s one of her inherent qualities, a quality that I should accept. A recurring insult that I should accept, because it’s inherent. That she can’t change, because it’s inherent. That she shouldn’t change, because it’s inherent. She’s sorry, but for nothing, because it’s not a problem. It’s a perfectly rational action: when you can’t answer someone, you act like they didn’t say anything at all. The proper course of action is to board another conversation as soon as possible.

I’m not sure what irked me the most. I was upset that it happened again and again, day after day, in groups as small as three. But when the pile started shaking and moving my vocal cords, I stabilized it, before the band could get up to episode seven. I had let it go once with them already, and another time with her friend, and was currently making a hat trick. I had semi-calmly told her what was wrong, but it didn’t register in her mind that it was a problem, so she acted like nothing had happened, that she didn’t hear me say what I was pissed about. So she asked. And I embraced that elf and told her what I was pissed about. I told her again and again, trying to drive that one fucking point into her head until her stubbornness would submit.

I later realized that it might have been a battle I should have forfeited. On the separate train back I was thinking of apologies I could make. “I’m sorry that I talked about an issue that was bothering me.” “I’m sorry for being so open.” “I’m sorry that your mind couldn’t accept the fact that you hurt someone.” “I’m sorry that apologizing is beyond you.” “I’m sorry I didn’t give up and accept a lighthearted response to an issue that I found dead serious.”

And I realized that I shouldn’t apologize. She was the one that was being an ass. She was the one that refused to acknowledge that the issue existed, that my feelings existed, that I existed. So fuck her.

And I realized that if I had the chance, I’d apologize all the same.

Let’s keep this one my one and only. Please.

3 comments on Oldest elf, with the baker’s hat, please step forward.

  1. I implore you not to blame the whole thing on her being an “ass,” as you say, because she understands you as much as you understand her. Which happens to be very little.

  2. i understand completely both sides of the issue. i live the wrong one all too often and your side is completely in the right.

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