by RICK MORTON
Laughably, my friends have long treated me as some sort of relationship Oracle. This is strange because I have zero to no experience in the field. It’s like going to Chuck Norris for advice in diplomacy. And yet, here we are.
But maybe they beat a path to my door because I always told them what they wanted to hear. I nodded sagely, counseled appropriately and lied through my desperate teeth because I didn’t have the heart to analyse their frequent and consistent shortcomings and tell them the bald truth about their relationship or why he left them.
(The answer, almost always, had something to do with their penchant for clingy obsessiveness and flair for melodrama).
But I’m about to reveal the lies I told. I need to atone for the sins of my past by dismantling the house of mistruth I built to ward off unscheduled bouts of crying. So here we go.
1. “He hasn’t returned your call because he’s probably off visiting a sick relative in Peru.”
I lied. He doesn’t know anyone in Peru, probably couldn’t find it on a map and hasn’t called you because he’s met another woman called Chanice.
2. “No, he is definitely not gay.”
He is gay-er than a fedora filled with poodles. Sorry.
3. “Of course he’s not lying to you about his night out.”
And maybe he’s not. Maybe he was just standing there on a street corner and they built the strip club around him and maybe he was trapped. Maybe.
4. “No, he’s not boring at all!”