The Pity Friend

Elementary school was a strange mixture of popularity for me, as I was never really considered one of the cool group, but I had a lot of friends for a good long while. It was around the third grade that a lot of people started to shun me, but I never really cared that much until grade four, when Isabelle, one of my closest friends and first crushes, would end up ditching me.

During the few years that Isabelle and I were friends, I always had a secret crush on her, but I never told her because I wasn't sure how she felt, I was too young to know what people do on dates, and I was scared that she would stop being my friend.

Over the summer between grades three and four, one of our mutual friends, Velma, had stopped talking to me, and I wasn't sure why at the time, but I eventually learned that she felt she was too cool for me. Isabelle was far too nice to let me know that she, too, was too cool for me, or, at least, she wanted to be, so she continued to hang out with me during some lunch hours.

It never occurred to me that she would only hang around with me every second lunch hour, while she would just disappear after class during the other ones. It only clicked when I noticed her playing with Velma during one of the off days, and that's when I started to wonder if she might only be my friend out of pity at that point, because no one else wanted to be.

Isabelle had been a friend to Jill as well, and even though Jill never mentioned anything about Isabelle abandoning us for someone else, she had clearly noticed long before I did, apparently having experienced the same thing before.

One afternoon during hour lunch time, Isabelle and I were walking around the building talking idly about something, and I could see how uncomfortable she was when we passed by Velma. As much as it killed me to do it, I offered her an out and told her it was okay if she wanted to go and be with her friend.

She paused for a moment, considering my offer, and then refused, saying that she didn't "want [me] to be alone." I told her that it would be okay, because I could find something to do, and she continued to refuse, stating that it wouldn't be fair to me.

This is when I decided that it would be best to tell a white lie that became increasingly elaborate as I spoke. I can't remember the specifics of it, but it involved twins, a boy and a girl, who were transfer students and needed help learning to speak english. Isabelle clearly didn't believe a word of it, but she did seem to appreciate that I was trying to cut her loose and let her be who she wanted to be away from me.

So I let Isabelle go that day, and I think it was a bittersweet moment for her, and I'm pretty sure I died a little inside on that autumn day. Isabelle and I would only talk briefly in class as one student talks to another, but we wouldn't have any really substantial conversations again until I would ask her out, and by then she clearly no longer felt any guilt about having had to ditch me.

It would one day come to the point that she would pretend that we had never been friends, and she would look away any time that someone was hassling me in class, but I understood how things worked, and I never blamed her for feeling that she needed to ignore me in order to climb the elementary school social ladder.

But I guess if you love something, you have to set it free.