It is good to talk to you again, despite your wariness of me, your distrust of my words. I do not blame you. I do not seem to trust you as well. Behind your justifications, your excuses, I see little else but cause to believe you to be wrong. I suppose this is normal.

We have come to a point in our so-called relationship where trust has ceased to exist completely. What is left is perhaps a hollow shell of politeness and civility. Sometimes we give it freely to one another. Sometimes we do not. We hide behind the mask of friendship and yet, deep down inside, we know we cannot remain as friends but merely polite acquaintances.

Why? Simple. Because we both have our own little burdens to carry. Burdens that eat away against the positives of a friendship – respect, tolerance, understanding, patience, kindness. In time, the only things left would stink of hatred, distrust, insecurity and discomfort.

Reminders of the past. Your memory is littered with them. Mine as well.

You asked me many times of how and why I hated her. Your question should have been more precise. It was what you both represented that I so hate now. Do understand this. At least try to see what I saw, what another women who might be possibly your partner one day would see or experience…

It was never hatred I felt in the beginning for her. It was respect, admiration and friendship that I accorded her. But those things begin to wither away when I saw how she took it lightly and made fun of it in public – in front of you and your friends. Our friends. But even then, what I felt was hardly hatred. I tolerate it for as long as I could because I respected you enough to believe in the sanctity of friendship.

Given my beliefs of how relationships are to be formed, continued and last, it is therefore hardly surprising that I view any intrusion of the sort to be, at the very least, the work of a third party. It is hard to explain this concept to you since you do not share my belief.

One can love many beings, you said. Rightly so you are but then again, when we love many people, we do not let any one of them infringe upon the love that we bestowed on others and neither do we allow that love to come in between your other loves. Love begets love, not hatred and mistrust. Your love for her should beget love from others for her not negative emotions. Her place was as your best friend not mine and thus, her place was to advice you not me. What was lacking in the whole situation, that finally ticked me off, was propriety and decorum. She overstepped her boundaries and I have no doubt that she was aware of that.

You see…no woman in the right frame of mind would tolerate such a thing. I hope that you can learn from this should you wish to begin another relationship. No woman would ever stand the idea or action of sharing her partner with another emotionally or mentally.

A relationship is between two people – the good and the bad. When you run to someone else for support while your relationship is crumbling, you are telling your partner that you do not trust her, your relationship itself, and the faith that she has in you. You are giving a piece of yourself to someone else. Instead of growing together through trials and tribulations, instead of learning more about each other, you grow apart and with the distance comes the mistrust and ultimately, the separation.

Perhaps we were under the illusion that things were really well up to a point in time. Perhaps we were wrong. The warning signs were all there but we ignored them for the sake of being together, for the sake of being belonged, for the sake of being with someone instead of pining for one we could not have.

Both you and I have our own insecurities.

I suppose the main difference between us both is that I have stopped examining myself to the point where I lost sight of the good things about me. I refused to let the negative part of me cloud the best of what I have to give. Yes, I still have some things that need fixing but I no longer mull on them any longer than I should. For me, the wave of depression is no longer a valid excuse for not putting in more effort to save yourself from drowning.

Worthless people are not born worthless. They become worthless by their own doing.

It is strange how this turn of events had impacted both our lives. At least mine anyway. I write this because I have a faint inkling in my heart (gut instinct, they call it) that you will never stop wondering why I hate her, why there is so much loathing between the two of us…even though I have already put most of it behind me. You should too.

I am tired of speaking of the past. I am tired of having to live it over and over again each time we speak to one another (because somehow, someway, it always manages to creep up into our short conversations); of having to explain things to you. My blog entries, myself, my words…and in your words, we are not even friends.

Even if our conversations are meant to be cordial and polite, can we leave the past out of the present? Is it so hard for you to let go of the knowledge that somewhere, someone out there dislikes her and thinks badly of her? Is it so hard for you to understand that the love and care we once shared is now long gone and dead, replaced by civility for civility’s sake?

I loved a dream while I was with you. Now I love a man and he is not you.

Please learn well from this ‘encounter’, ‘experience’, whatever you may call it. I have. Now it’s your turn.

All the best.

I hope life will bring you much joy and fulfillment as it had brought to me.