Turning a Good Friend Into a Great Enemy

My true story of how I (accidentally) destroyed a new and potentially promising enemyship.

Once someone told my neighbor that I had slandered him. For several years my neighbor had been a good friend, but in his anger, he put a letter in my mailbox telling me that he NEVER wanted to talk to me again. I was convinced I had been misquoted, but if my neighbor didn’t want to talk I had no way of explaining myself. In the following days, I was affected by the situation. Not only did the thought of meeting my neighbor make me feel uncomfortable, but I also had an unpleasant feeling of uncertainty when passing his house.

A few days after getting the letter my neighbor walked past me in a supermarket. For a split second, we had eye contact but in his eyes, there were no signs that he knew who I was. The experience made me feel even worse and for the next few days, I increasingly racked my brain trying to decide what to do.

When considering the situation it struck me that not talking to my neighbor was not my biggest worry. What made the situation unpleasant was the uncertainty of no longer knowing how to relate to him. For this reason, I decided that I needed to act and as a result, I went to his house and knocked on his door. While waiting I was convinced that he would…