I hate you. I used to be terrified of you, but now I know I was just too scared to hate you.

I hate how you're so blissfully ignorant about the way you treat people like shit and how clueless you are about how you make them feel. Maybe you know but don't bother to do anything about it.

What kills me the most is seeing my mother so tortured over words you so casually shoot out, like daggers, cold and sharp, straight through her heart. Do those 30 years of friendship mean nothing to you? How can you be so ready to cast them away because they decided that unlike most of your friends now, they would not get out of their way to kiss your rich ass and aren't afraid of disagreeing with you? And how can you not see that your husband actually cares?

I hate how I get so small when I'm around you and how I let you boss me around.

I don't get why we all have to fake these niceties and tip toe around "touchy subjects" so we can remain civil to each other. I don't even want to waste time and energy on that, because underneath it all, there isn't really anything left to cherish or preserve. Why work so hard for nothing? But out of obligation or whatever it is, we have periodic lunches and dinners where we get brief updates about everyone's life but I really doubt you'd be interested in mine. And damn, you should know that it really isn't working if you didn't know that my parents moved to a new place until 3 months later.

You preach the words of the Lord mixed with bigotry, forgetting that the one underlying theme of the religion spells L-O-V-E, the unconditional kind, not judgmental. The whole church thing has become a big corporate game in which you can buy your power and that's probably more blasphemous than any sex I'd ever have. You kept trying to persuade us to go to your church, but did you know that I feel the farthest from God when I'm around you? Ironic, isn't it, that when we persistently said no you decided that we weren't worthy enough. But that's ok. With that attitude of yours, I'd rather have my Hail Mary any day, thank you very much.

You want another lunch, and I said yes even though I'd much prefer to be in bed sleeping. It's the jetlag, nothing personal. But for the sake of a friendship that had lasted longer than I have lived, I'll make nice. I wish I could just say, "look, I'm gay. Don't bother my parents about it, they did nothing wrong. It's not because they sent me to an all-girls school, or because they didn't let me go to your church. If you want to talk, we can talk, only if you promise me that you won't try to convert me or make me feel bad about it. Otherwise, we have nothing more to say. Bye." (and heh, that would just be one small thing compared to a whole multitude of issues we'd have to address, but maybe that will shut you up, and if we can't get over this, I don't think we can get over anything else.)