How to Ruin a Promising Friendship

A story about how controlling your emotions and getting the help you need could have saved you from ending up alone.

When was it...?
I struggle with this sometimes. Flipping back through pages tells me it was just under a year ago, but in my mind, it seems so much more recent.
Eleven months ago- that was when it happened. I made a mistake. Such a careless, foolish mistake which, at the time, I couldn't have known would end up being one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I can blame it on something called Summer SAD, even though it sounds completely idiotic. But SAD can only be held partially responsible for my stupidity. After all, a disorder doesn't make choices for you...

Let's back up, though. Just a few months to when it began.
It was late June- that hot, muggy part of summer when I'd normally stay inside. And sometimes, I ask myself, "Why didn't I?" If I'd just stayed inside, none of it would have happened. Maybe I'd still be just as lonely, but I wouldn't be living every day in so much regret.
I thought it was a picture...
Since I moved out of my mother's house and into one of my own, I've hosted my two younger brothers for certain periods of time in the summer, allowing them time to relax and feel free.
I won't lie, there may have been ulterior motives involved, namely my desire to be less lonely... But I can't blame them for my fate.
It was I who decided to take them to the arcade that day. I thought they would have fun.
"Hey, look, it's your friend." That was what my brother said.
My first thought was, "I have friends?"
I followed his gaze over to where a tall, skinny guy with shaggy dark hair was stepping away from the DDR machine, glinting with sweat.
"Oh, him."
The person he was referring to had, at one time, worked at the arcade before they decided to move it to a new, crappy location. I didn't really know him well, not even enough to know his name. All I knew was that we had met briefly once, and swapped friend codes on our hand helds.
Still, he greeted me with a smile and an air of familiarity, approaching me as though we were old friends who had been out of contact for awhile.
We chit-chatted a bit, and I finally learned his name.
It's stupid, now that I think about it. The thing that actually started this...
An awkward silence fell between us, with him just grinning shyly and doing odd things with his phone. I tried to lighten the mood by asking something silly, like, "What, are you shaving with your phone?"
He shrugged, got awkward, and said he had to go.
Then, it occurred to me that maybe he was trying to take my picture and was embarrassed.
That one, stupid little misinterpretation put my entire mind in a dazed state of delusion, which only continued to grow as we became closer, until everything I knew was just one long chain of misinterpretations and misunderstandings.
He bleached his hair, and quite soon after the person I was with had bleached his own hair. Once, I saw them sitting together, playing their hand helds, both red- their blonde hair, glasses, and 5 o'clock shadow making them look like twins.
Later, he'd send me cute little pictures of hugging cats, forming a heart. We hung out a lot, and had what I thought was a lot of fun.
For my birthday, he made me a beautiful origami dragon.
He went out of his way to come see me on numerous occasions, and during games he'd call me lovely, or utter a cute "I love you!" when the tables turned on me.
Small, stupid things like this that people do all the time... I took them the wrong way. I deluded myself into thinking he liked me as more than a friend.
That's probably the most pathetic thing of all... That I only fell for him because I thought he liked me.
Did he?
Well...
That's where it all falls apart.
When your brain thinks it's in love, you do stupid things, and unless it's happened to you, there's no way to fully understand it.
Now couple this with the aforementioned Summer SAD, short for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Most people get SAD in the winter, but being a night owl who prefers the cold, I was affected in the summer, instead, causing me to go just a little crazy... to feel unreasonably depressed...
This affliction had been temporarily blocked out by the giddy daze of misguided love until one day, I lost it.
I'd been fighting myself about it for months. Deep inside, I felt no one could ever truly love me. I knew I wasn't skinny, I wasn't very pretty, and I had a sense of humor that few people weren't offended by.
But I forgot about all that for a short time when I deluded myself into thinking I'd met someone who didn't care about any of my faults, and just liked me because I was me.

I felt tortured. I was all alone that day. My family had promised to come visit, but decided not to. I felt worse than scum, so being the genius that I am, I decided the best thing would be to break out the vodka and numb myself out.
Let's just say that I haven't drunk so much as a drop of alcohol since then.
It was a horrible day. I spent the first half crying over my vodka, wishing my feelings would just disappear so that everything would be easier and I wouldn't end up ruining the great friendship that was beginning.
Still, all could have been saved if I hadn't had that drink.
In my drunken stupor, I saw that he'd messaged me. I mistook it for him calling me out, and foolishly, I spilled my guts. From there, I couldn't go back.
My stupid secret had been revealed, and there was no saving me now.
I finished the vodka and then spent the rest of my day either puking my guts up, or passed out on my bed.
By the time he got off work and could talk to me, I was sober again. However, the sober that comes after an intense day of drinking is a sour, sad, and truly empty feeling that, when coupled with my affliction, made everything seem like a huge waste of time.
We talked. He confessed that he'd never loved me. We were just friends, and the whole time, I was being an idiot and deluding myself.
Why? Maybe it was because I was lonely. Maybe it was because I wanted to feel like I wasn't too physically grotesque for anyone to ever like me.
The let down was awful. I had a moment of true lament. I unleashed a side of myself that was so dark... so horrible, that even though he promised he wouldn't avoid me, he ended up doing just that.

It's hard to feel like you're useless... Like no one could ever like you, and you're just a disgusting blob of forever alone. It wasn't him that made me feel so bad, it was me. I tried to stress that to him, but I just ended up wounding him more than I should have even had the power to do.

I wish I hadn't felt so bad. I wish I hadn't wanted to die. I wish I hadn't said most of the things I said, or reacted the way I did, because even then, I might still have saved the friendship.
But I was careless and stupid, and I acted like a huge, immature a*s, which succeeded in nothing, other than scaring him away for good.
My loneliness is my own fault.
The only good thing that came from the ordeal was that I finally sought help. I got medicine to help keep me sane through the summer, and it really helped. Within just weeks, I had mellowed out substantially and felt the way any normal person should feel.
The same couldn't be said for him, though. The idiot stunt I pulled rattled him hard, and it was a long time before he even spoke to me again.
But the speaking didn't last long, and I only saw him once after that. Eventually, he stopped speaking to me altogether.
I wish I could tell him how much I miss him. It's summer time again, and everything reminds me of the short time we spent together as friends.
I only want to start over and try to be friends again, this time without screwing it all up.
But I guess I'm too shy.
I'm afraid that he still thinks of me as the temporary idiot I once became.
Mostly, I'm afraid of putting myself out there to get shot down, as so often happens with me.
All I can do is write this all down and hope that he might read it and understand. Maybe we can start over and pretend like the bad things never happened.
Or maybe I really have ruined what could have been a promising friendship.