u/dominocurtain

I have a degree of sympathy for socialist thinking (I can absolutely see the rationale for nationalising the commanding heights of the economy). What I cannot quite get behind is taking small-scale private industry into public ownership. Practically, the possible benefits from systematically dismantling small businesses do not outweigh the costs, in my view. How do you reconcile this conflict?

I was having this debate with a friend. I argued in favour of World War I: the scale of the industrialised physical misery on the Western Front is hard to rival, in my view.

My friend, on the other hand, was adamant that the psychological and environmental terror of the Vietnam War surpasses it.

Of course, there will be other conflicts that are in this conversation. What is your take?

Throughout high school, I had the same friend group, which comprised of five members (including myself, all male). I had a particularly close friendship with one individual (for this purpose, let’s call him Henry). Henry and I both achieved highly academically, though he was more extroverted than I ever was. During our senior year, I was not having a great time: I had a string of bad news - some of which was standard (bereavement), others were more extreme (weird familial issues) - so my grades took a hit. Henry did not know about the more extreme circumstances I was facing, but was well aware of the basic reasons for my downturn. I think it is fair to say I wouldn’t have been much fun to be around during this period. Although, I had always been a reserved, pessimistic character.

I began to notice that my friend group were doing things without me, which arguably was the standard - they all knew each other prior to high school, while I knew none of them, so for the first year or so I wasn’t included in any social gatherings outside of school. This had since changed, and was a noticeable reversion to me. At this same time, Henry began to act strangely around me, and no longer initiated conversations, or asked to me spend time together alone. One night, I decided to start a conversation with him (a message) to ask to meet up with him on the weekend, because since he hadn’t really got in touch with me over the past couple of weeks, we hadn’t done anything for a while. I then proceeded to receive an image on Snapchat of my friend group at a restaurant together without me from another friend - who either did not think about who he was sending it to, or just did not care.

Anyway, I continued exchanging messages with Henry, and asked him what he was doing (knowing that he was with the rest of my friends). He told me he wasn’t doing anything. Annoyed with this, I responded by saying you don’t have to lie, and you can be honest if you don’t want to do things with me anymore, because I wanted some clarity, to know if I had done anything to upset him. Also, I should note, I had asked him previously if anything was going on to make him annoyed currently (not in those exact terms, I worded it in a more socially acceptable way), because he seemed to be angry whenever I spoke to him. For a couple of days, he ignored my message (about transparency), before responding with a fairly long message. I cannot remember everything that was said, but some phrases have stuck with me: he told me that he had ‘grown intolerant of me’, citing my ‘obsessive tendencies and constant negativity’. He also raised concerns that he would be ‘stuck with me by his side as we went to college’, and that he wanted to help me ‘find other friends’. I was pretty devastated by this message, he was my closest friend.

I apologised to him, and acknowledged that I am probably not an easy person to be friends with, and let him know that I appreciate everything he has done. Once again, his response was pretty clinical, unemotional. Henry told me that I did not need to apologise, because I had not done anything wrong: he had changed, not me. Seemingly, my life has become a caricature of the Banshees of Inisherin, minus the allegorical rejection of senseless violence and there also wasn’t any body part mutilation (thankfully). This all took place while we were off school, so I didn’t see or hear from him for two or three weeks. When we came back, he did not speak to me. I forgot to highlight: he also said, whether this is true or not I do not know, that my other friends agreed with his analysis of me. That felt particularly bad. I didn’t really know where to go, I had no one to speak to at school. I also did not know whether Henry was actually speaking on behalf of my friends, whether I was welcome to speak to them. I decided to take a step back, eat alone for a while to see if any of them would speak to me. They did not. High school ended, and none of them reached out to me over the Summer.

I was going to the same college as Henry, along with another member of our friend group (for this purpose, we shall call him William). Note: none of my previous friend group had reached out to me over the Summer, or asked for an explanation of what happened between me and Henry. I had a lecture that William was also in, unfortunate. He approached me as if nothing had happened, as if his friend group had not ostracised me completely. I was taken aback, but obliged him. Over time, this became increasingly frustrating to me, so I asked him directly: why did the group decide to exclude over the Summer? He said he did not know. This made me very angry. He did not know. A decision that had upended my social life, and he had not thought about it twice. I proceeded to tell him my side of the story to try and get him to see how I felt. He showed sympathy, agreed that Henry had acted unfairly. Over the duration of the year, William and I became pretty close: my falling out with Henry came up every now and then, he got awkward when discussing it, and tried to move the conversation on. This, again, began to annoy me. His inaction. I don’t know what I expected of him, but it was something - as opposed to what he did, which was nothing.

I had a lot of built resentment against many people, and William quickly became a lightning rod for my anger. On several occasions, I made my frustration known to him. It all came to a head when I saw Henry and William walking together on campus before I was meeting William. It had been over half a year, and he had taken no action to show me he cared, allowing Henry to face no social consequences for what he had done to me. In the heat of the moment, I decided I was done with it all, it was a psychodrama that had consumed me even though I had not wanted any of it. So, I ignored William, moved away from him, blocked all his numbers and social media. I felt I needed a fresh start. It’s been a month or so since I did this, and I am worried that I may have acted erratically, and bought into a narrative where I am the sole victim. This shouldn’t allow me to treat others the way Henry treated me, that is not who I want to be. The question is: was I justified given the circumstances? Any comments or help would be much appreciated. I really don’t excel at reading social cues, or navigating complex dynamics so this past year and a half have been pretty difficult.