Member-only story
Writing stories, losing friends
Is honesty always the best policy?
I recently lost a friend because I wrote an article on Medium.
Well, it’s a little more complex than that. Here’s the story.
About a year ago, a friend of mine, let’s call him Kevin, started to date someone, let’s call her Jackie. Two weeks into their relationship, an incident happened that bothered me.
I found Jackie’s behavior appalling and told Kevin so. He even agreed with me at the time.
Then I wrote a Medium article. It had a paragraph in which I referred to the incident between them. I made sure not to use their actual names.
Fast forward a year. Kevin is now married to Jackie. We’ve all socialized together a few times. I thought all was well.
Then a few days ago I got a text from Kevin. It seems that Jackie had read the article I wrote way back when. Now Kevin and I are no longer friends.
I understand. I was careful when I wrote the article not to mention either of them by name, or to use any details that might identify them. I was not trying to hurt or embarrass them. Yet I did.
I took responsibility for my actions. I apologized and offered to make amends.
