Well, he’s dead and I’m not sorry about it.
People tend to talk to me about themselves. They say I’m a good listener. I’m not a nice person, per se, but I do have a reservoir of caring and empathy. I’ve had to learn to be particular about who I give access to that reservoir. Some people might think that’s jaded or callous. Other folks with family histories of substance abuse and personality disorders call it ‘forming healthy boundaries.’
So this guy, he’s in my group of college friends. We get together regularly to play video games, drink, debate philosophy. One night at a party he decides to avidly pursue me despite never having displayed any romantic interest before. I’m bummed out that this guy I thought respected me intellectually is sloppy drunk and manhandling me. I manage to kick him off multiple times and leave the party.
He contacts me. I tell him he made me feel pretty shitty. He asks to hang out because he feels bad about it and wants to talk it out. Sure. I’m a listener.
We’re at the beach, he’s telling me about his home life, how his dad’s a womanizing dick, how he doesn’t think he ever learned how to interact with women appropriately. I sympathize. He says that he’s so unhappy and lonely. I tell him I’m his friend, I’m there for him. He asks for a hug. I hug him. He gropes me. I call him an asshole and bail.
He texts me later, emotional, saying he knows he’s an asshole, he’s such a piece of shit, blah blah blah. When he threatened me with suicide if I didn’t respond, I used those healthy boundaries. He wasn’t the first, last, or closest person to threaten this to me in my personal life. I told him if he said it again I’d call the police.
He didn’t. Instead a week or two later he just took whatever pills he could find. He actually made it to the hospital and they pumped his stomach, but he died later of pneumonia. And yeah, that’s really sad, but it’s sad in a pathetic way. It’s sad that a person can feel perpetually terrible about what a piece of shit they are and accept that suicide is an easier solution for them than being a better person.
Suicide is selfish. It’s quitting. It’s the easy way out. His friends and family had to watch him wheeze himself to death in a hospital bed because he couldn’t stop being a self-involved little bitch for long enough to become a person he enjoyed being. They will never forget that. They’ll have to carry that around the rest of their lives, wondering what they did wrong, how they failed him. You don’t get to put responsibility for your life on others. You don’t get to emotionally blackmail and wound other people because of the actions you choose. I’m not saying you have to do it on your own, but you do have to take responsibility for it. I’m not going to.