😬 Confessions of a Bad Friend
Last year I had to admit something to myself.
I haven’t always been a good friend.
Nothing scandalous. Just the kind of mistake you make when you’re young, ambitious, and ignorant.
My first real attempt at “being in business” was in 1996 through an MLM offer a friend brought to me. I was eager. I wanted out. I wanted to work for myself. And this felt like a door.
Part of the strategy, of course, was to start with your friends.
Get ten people under you, the pitch said, and you’re making serious money. And the framing was always the same: your friends will appreciate you for sharing this. You’re helping them.
So I called them. And if I’m honest, I cornered them.
Looking back, I can see what I couldn’t see then. Even if my intentions weren’t malicious, I shifted the dynamic. I wasn’t just checking in as a friend anymore. I had an angle.
And once there’s an angle, it’s not the same.
If someone approached me today the way I approached them back then, I’d feel it immediately. That subtle sense that the conversation isn’t just a conversation. That I’m being evaluated. Positioned. Pitched. It’s happened to me a handful of times over the years, and it’s uncomfortable every time.
Some of those friendships probably weren’t that strong to begin with. But that doesn’t excuse it. If anything, it shows how casually I treated them.
Over time, a few of them drifted away. I told myself we were just growing in different directions. But the more I replay it, the clearer it becomes: I turned friendship into opportunity.
I betrayed the spirit of the relationship.
So to the friends I burned through ignorance and ambition… I’m sorry.
You’ll probably never read this. We’re not in each other’s orbit anymore. But if one day you Google my name out of curiosity, I hope you find this and know something:
I know better now.
This isn’t self-punishment. It’s acknowledgment.
An apology isn’t always about reconciliation. It’s about alignment.
People have hurt me. I’ve hurt people too.
You can’t build anything meaningful if you refuse to audit the wreckage behind you.
