Just in case you ever do need to apologize for such a betrayal, how do you recover from such a thing? What could you possible say or do to rebuild a relationship in which you randomly betrayed someone, used their greatest insecurity against them and jumped them and took their money? The answer is a lot more simple than you think, but still no easy task.
It would all start with the return of his wallet and money because possession is more important than an apology. Then you would have to tell your new friends to back off your ex-friend. Because reputation is more important than an apology. Then a good speech, walk up to that ex-friend of yours and say something like, “Look, I had no reason to treat you the way I did [look down, stutter the word “I” for a bit, look back up and right into his eyes] I'm sorry.”
A perfectly executed apology. Your friend will remain mad at you but in good time you'll be able to overhear him talking to someone and join in the conversation. Because eventually he'll forget, no matter how bad it was, as long as it doesn't continue.
Yet sometimes it is best to tell someone the ugly truth. The tricky part is when they won't accept that truth. What do you do? Do you just keep repeating it? Or do you just let it go? In all honesty if can be a tough call sometimes, but if someone isn't willing to listen now, they never will be. You gotta' just ignore it and move on. Otherwise you'll end up in a very painful place, full of headaches and anger.
There's always a person out there with a very large list of flaws, a list so large it would take hours to go down. How can you tell a person about those flaws without making them mad? Isn't listing them off one by one just as bad as repeating the same flaw over and over to people like this? How do you handle that? It's impossible, even if you mentioned on flaw per month. Eventually the person is gonna' get mad, eventually your gonna' earn yourself a new enemy. The harder you try to change somebody the harder he'll take it.
It's good to tell the truth, tell someone they need to lose weight if they ask. Tell someone his Broadway performance was bad, his cooking tastes bad, his artwork looks horrible, he can't write for the life of him, or anything else. Just be honest if someone asks. If a person doesn't ask there may be a reason. Maybe he's heard it all before and is just tired of it. Just because someone isn't making the effort to become a better person doesn't mean he's stupid and lazy. It doesn't even mean he's satisfied with his life. It just means he's not in a position to change.
People need to quit trying to criticize each other and just live their own lives. If you are asked to criticize, criticize. If not just keep your mouth shut and stay away from the situations or people you can't stand. It all comes down to the old walking away strategy.
And that, as I always say, it today's quote.
