Over the last years, twice have I been betrayed by those who were close to me.

They were kind, successful, made me felt like my opinion mattered. A friend. A mentor. A father figure, even.

And they were always in some kind of trouble, always from factors outside of their control. Everything is always on fire, all the time.

They showed me kindness, so I was loyal to them. Absolute loyalty, like I’m their dog.

And I tried to save them from their troubles. I did things I’m not proud of, nothing illegal, mind you, but horrible things nonetheless, so that in the future, I thought, these horrible things would never have to be done again.

The fires never stop. And I’ve reduced myself to cinders, a shell of my former self.

There’s no way they would leave me while I’m still useful, right? What would they ever do without me?

Wrong.

The fires only get worse, and as I run myself ragged trying to keep everything under control, they discarded me, like a piece of garbage, with a disgusting smile on their faces.

To teach me a lesson. Of respect. Both times.

The first time, I was caught off guard; the second time, I saw it coming, and I was ready for it, but it was too late.

There’s no way it would happen a third time, right?

---

It was one of those random messages you get on your phone. A random hello, by happenstance.

I’ve always thought of myself as somebody who’s too smart for scams. But this time, the person in the messages expressed interest in what I was doing. They were kind, successful, made me felt like my opinion mattered.

And most of all, they didn’t want anything from me.

They made me felt GOOD about myself.

So, I fell for it. For 2 days.

My friend told me this was too good to be true, something just doesn’t add up.

They’re going to want something from you later, he said. He doesn’t know what yet, but something.

And I scoffed. Good things can happen sometimes too, you know.

But he insisted. Then I thought about it. And I thought about it some more.

Red flags everywhere, nothing about their backstories added up.

And I chose to ignore the signs, because I thought by fate, a random stranger cared about me. ME.

I confronted them on the messaging app, hoping to make sense of all this, that there is a simple explanation for everything.

Do you know what they did?

They doubled down.

In the face of overwhelming evidence. Didn’t even try to justify anything, as if some how they can just put the genie back in the bottle, that I would just somehow forget about everything, and we can go back to the way we were.

Why question the beautiful connection from fate that brought us together, they said.

I didn’t know what was sadder: That I was scammed by complete idiots, or that I actually fell for it.

So, I laughed. Like I haven’t done so in months.

It was just all so absurd that I couldn’t help myself but laugh.

Because it was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.