I’m going to have to ask for suggestions.  I got another message from Mr. Cheap Phone yesterday.  He asks, “What can I do to regain your friendship?”  Then he says that he would love to talk to me.

Here’s the backstory.  Mr. Cheap Phone and I met on our first day of college.  (And just in case you’re wondring, he’s Mr. Cheap Phone because in an emergency situation he refused to make a call on his cell phone because he didn’t want to use all his minutes.)  We became best friends and became more involved than that as time passed.  After three years, our relationship became somewhat romantic, yet casual.  Then he started dating someone without telling me, which violated all the rules we established.  I was willing to try to salvage our friendship, but when I invited him to meet for a meal he gave flimsy excuses why he could never meet me for either lunch or dinner at any point in the future.  After that I didn’t speak to him again.  He worked at the same place where I went to law school, and at least once he came to a public place where I was and took the long way around to avoid having to walk near me.  I felt heartbroken, angry, and scared.  I had fantasies about keying his car or punching him in the nose.  I was really angry.  After I finished school I kind of just forgot about him for a long time until he started contacting me within the last year.

I am really confused as to what I should do.  I want to try to be as kind as possible, but I don’t want to get stuck in our old pattern of having an unhealthy and co-dependent relationship.  I am now leaning toward contacting him, but I do not know the answer to his question.  The question is leading and implies that there is something he can do to restore our friendship.  Also, it seems like almost any answer I could give would either sound too pious  or too saccharine or too demanding.

Manchester says I shouldn’t contact Mr. Cheap Phone because I’ll be doing exactly what Mr. Cheap Phone wants.  He also says that he thinks Mr. Cheap Phone will constantly contact me thereafter, against my wishes.  Personally, I think Manchester is just feeling a little insecure, even though there is no chance that Mr. Cheap Phone and I would ever bee romantically linked again.  As I said in an earlier entry, I’d want my apology to be acknowledged and accepted.  And even yesterday when I contacted someone to apologize, I can tell you I would have been crushed had he not accepted my apology graciously.

Any advice you can give about the proper way to handle this situation would be helpful.