I am writing this knowing I will not have the courage to send it. But I need to say it, even if you will never hear it.

The truth is I have grown to hate the way you act and talk and who you have become. You treat me like you are better than me, like you are some goddess or something. And then you say that I am derogatory towards you. If you really believe that, then you don't know me at all like I thought you did. I've only tried to make you feel bad to show you what it's like, to be the one being hurt, but obviously that didn't work. Fortunately, I don't have to defend myself anymore, because I do not like to be around you anymore. You made me feel bad about myself over and over again until I came to expect it. For a while I tried to dodge it. Then I came to detest it. And when I recognized its source, I began to detest you.

You think that you are different, more special than everybody else. You always do things to try to make yourself stand out, even if you don't really like what you're doing. You end up looking like an idiot. You took the idea, "It's ok to be different. It's even sometimes better to be different," and made it, "I have to be different no matter what." You go out on a limb to be special. A lot of the time the limb breaks. I wonder if you notice. You don't seem to.

The thing is, I can see glimpses sometimes of who you really are and what you're about, and it makes me unhappy because you really do have potential. If you would only get over this obsession with being the oddball, you could be a really fascinating person. A person that I want to take the time to get to know and develop a friendship with. But the way you are right now I don't want to be your friend.

You say I've changed. I've always been the same. I do what I like; sometimes you agree with me and sometimes you don't. I don't agree with a lot of things you do, but that didn't hurt our friendship before, not until you started disliking some of the things I like. Is that it? Or is it that you stopped respecting my opinion, and decided that everything I like, you must hate? Either way, who's the one who's changed here?

I don't know why or how all this happened. Just last summer I considered you my best friend. We were over at eachother's house every day. I was open with you about everything. Now whenever I see you I have to think about I say this or that will you accept my opinion or bash me to my face or go talk about behind my back? The last two happened more often.

A lot of the time what I say to you now is what I think will make you happy. I can not say what I am really thinking, because goddess Lindsay doesn't care about that. So I pretend to be interested in the latest object of your affection or band you're obsessed with. But my mind is somewhere else, on something I really care about.

The thing is, I hate what you're doing to me and to yourself, but I can't hate you. I remember those times we laughed together and obsessed together and were really friends. I had some really fun times with you. Big Red and Barbie Girl and staying up all night; French (when that didn't bug you); Daria and X-Files; fun with the pool. But this rocky friendship will never do. You understand that even better than I do. I am always tiptoeing around you, trying not to set of a fuse, while you're just jumping around on the rocks cutting up your feet without even noticing. If we end it now, maybe we will remember the good times instead of the bad. I tried to salvage our friendship. I really did want it to last at one time.

But we both know it will never work now. We've grown apart like a lot of people do. Goodbye, Lindsay. I wish you all the happiness you deserve. Whether that's a lot of a little, God only knows. Thanks for the good times.