Growing up I felt that I was lucky to have people love me. I thought that I would never have a girlfriend, ever get married, and have someone other than my mother who loved me unconditionally. So, I took it upon myself to jump at the first opportunities that came along figuring that it wouldn't last long; thus, I'd need to get the most out of the experiences as I'll end up lonely and alone eventually.
I was pretty nihilistic at that time in my life. And it was middle school through high school. Sue me.
One of the clearest memories I have was of a girl that I fawned over for my entire junior year of high school. She was really pretty, really nice, and we would talk forever in my American history class whenever we were allowed to. The fact she paid any attention to me was a blessing. The fact that I could make laugh was a sign of things to come in my adult life - I might have a chance to be with her even if it were for only a brief period. There was only one snag in my plan.
I spent a lot of time trying to quietly convince her to break up with her boyfriend. She would spend time in each class we had together telling me the problems they were having and since I had this strong belief that I could transcend being in the Friend Zone just by showing her that I was so unlike her boyfriend at the time because I was nice, a great listener, and really smart (I was actually pretty cute too but I couldn't see it at the time). I never had the courage to ask her out (she had a boyfriend, right?) or to tell her how I felt but I carried that unrequited crush through the end of the year into the next. We graduated and moved onto creating our own lives.
I always held a sweet spot for that time in my life and stayed in touch with her off and on through the years. We became friends on social media and noticed she didn't really keep up with it. I'd occasionally see a picture of family or of animals or of skylines. I didn't gain any real insight into her life - just figured she'd reach out eventually as my social media was always active (granted, it only shows my "improv life"). We (I assume) were friendly from a very far away distance.
Then Trump gets elected.
Radicalization of an Old Friend
During the last few years I started noticing occasional pro-Trump posts from her pop up in my feed. I was caught off-guard a bit. As background, I'm obviously anti-Trump but don't actively proselytize it, but if you engage me in talk, I'll let you know my stance. However, my vision of this person I knew over 20 years ago began a change to a negative portrait. My cognitive dissonance was in full effect.
I started checking in on her social media a bit more. She started posting a lot more and many of her posts were either sharing pro-Trump memes or links to unsourced right-wing websites that supported her political leanings. Gradually she graduated to posting up her "own thoughts" on the current political landscape; most of these musings were more like ultimatums that, like everybody else, she never really knowingly followed through with:
"If you support XYZ, I will unfriend you now!"
"IF you think I'm racist because I support freedom and liberty, unfriend me."
"The patriots of this country will rise up on those who believe in infringing my rights as an American. Don't tread on me. I will tread back. Der der der. 'M'r'ca!" (I added the last couple of sentences)
With every post, I ask myself, "How did an educated, beautiful, sweet person change into an ugly, misguided, uninformed conspiracy theorist hellbent on putting her hopes into a narcissistic, ineffective, twice impeached numbskull like Trump?"
I still have no answer.
What Now?
We still don't talk on the regular so I naively hold out hope that she'll come to her senses eventually. I am sure she's thinking the same for me - not me per se - but rather people who don't agree with her politics. I struggle to not taint my memory of her versus what I've seen her become. I do welcome a day she and I get to reconnect in person and see just how different we really are in a conversation. I won't hold my breath that day'll come though with our collective track records.
