about a friend

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i was listening to lean on by major lazer et al while summoning these words using nothing but my fingers and an overpriced thinkpad running an aptly priced operating system (yes, it's gnu plus linux)

during my IT apprenticeship, i never really connected with my fellow humans at work apart from one 16-year old who i'll call F. for me, it was almost like a "younger brother i always wanted but never had" type of situation. the two of us were the first to arrive at the welcoming event for new apprentices held by our employer, and i started a conversation that laid the foundation for what was going to be a cool friendship in my mind

he was obviously very green, both in terms of work and private life, having just received his mittlere reife, and was frequently the butt of jokes due to him asking countless naive questions to which the answer seemed obvious. at least from the perspective of a normal young adult. i always kind of admired that willingness to look stupid, though i did join in on the ribbing, mostly due to social dynamics and my fear of becoming a target for bullying for going against the stream. when i was that age, i would have rather failed my classes (which i did) than showcase my lack of knowledge in front of other people. in that aspect, he was and is far more advanced of a human being than i ever was, and he was only 16 years old. the potential for growth is immense, and i hope he sees it as the hard skill it is

while we were hitting it off at work, attempts to meet up in private always fell flat due to some sus excuses that sounded like he made them up on the fly. it's funny because when i was 16, i also made up paper-thin excuses to avoid social gatherings with people i didn't like that much. maybe he didn't make it all up, who knows. either way, i gave it three tries and then wrote him off as a friend since i assumed bad faith and ultimately wasn't interested in routinely being disrespected. shortly before that, he started flirting with the idea of switching to the more programming-heavy specialization to maybe realize his dreams of becoming a game developer in the future. that left me speechless. it felt like i was in the process of losing the only friend i had in this school environment, and i wasn't even halfway through the apprenticeship. somehow i felt offended that he would abandon me like that and proceeded to take it very personally, despite the fact that he owed me nothing of course

in my head, the switch had flipped, and the emotional protection mechanism kicked in, resulting in me ignoring him for the rest of our time together. it's like he was air, completely non-existent. that switch-up probably left him somewhat confused, maybe even hurt, and in hindsight i regret doing that to someone i legitimately liked, even loved as a brother. he left our class and my radar shortly after. the initial training phase was over at that point. our now different schedules didn't overlap in any way, and so our bond returned to dust

wherever you are, i hope you're doing well

I’m a negative of a person. All I want is blackness, blackness and silence - Sylvia Plath