In December 2022, Mary Grace went on a trip to Washington State having a friend there, and came back to Georgia six days later breaking things off and no longer having that friend in her life. This episode is a very detailed account of the six-day series of events, bottled-up emotions, harsh conversations, awkward confessions, and the reality of taking an eight-year online friendship offline, just to see and unravel all of the reasons that it was a friendship never meant to be.
(00:00) Intro
(00:32) Episode Overview
(03:24) First Day in Bothell, Washington
(06:33) First Night & No Privacy
(09:45) Second Day & Mercer Island
(11:52) Second Night & the Restaurant
(14:13) Third Day & Seattle
(17:06) The Workout Session
(18:10) High Expectations Salvaged & Pet Peeves
(20:37) Fourth Day & Moments of Truth
(26:13) My Mistakes
(29:01) Fourth Day Cont’d & Bust in Leavenworth
(30:42) Fifth Day & Decision to Leave
(34:41) Morals of the Story & Reflecting Now
(37:30) Episode Wrap-up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Once Upon a Trip podcast,
(00:02):
where we dive deep into sharing everything
crazy travel stories, dating adventures,
culture fusions, and plenty of takeaways
to entertain and feed your inner curiosity and travel bug.
I'm your host, Mary Grace Crawford,
travel enthusiast, content creator,
ex-digital nomad, avid storyteller,
(00:23):
and lover of all things Europe,
based now in Atlanta, Georgia.
Today's episode is a kickoff to the December holiday season,
and what better way to do this kickoff of this new month
than to dive deep into a friendship breakup story of mine
(00:45):
that happened on my December trip
to Seattle and Washington state nearly two years ago now,
to the day, with someone I was virtual friends with
for eight years.
I actually filmed a video on this very story
that I never ended up publishing anywhere.
So today's episode is going to be more or less
(01:08):
a refined, updated audio version
that I believe you will get a kick out of
and perhaps even be able to relate to.
Friendships and friendship breakups,
like relationships and relationship breakups,
are all part of our lives, and we all go through
at least one somewhat substantial friendship breakup
(01:29):
at some point.
This Seattle story that we're going to be diving deeper into
today is mine and is one of the rare moments
that an aggressive, assertive, confrontational Mary Grace
came out, which, if you know me,
you know that I am none of these things normally,
if like ever.
(01:51):
I went to Seattle, Washington with someone
I presumptuously thought was a good friend,
and six days later, at the end of that trip,
I came back to Georgia without that friend
because I ended this friendship.
I will go ahead and say that I definitely made
my own fair share of wrongful assumptions and mistakes
(02:14):
that put myself in a number of these awkward situations
that you're going to be hearing with this friend
who I'm going to be referring to as Arthur.
Name changed.
I look back now a couple of years later
on this entire Seattle story and series of events
that could have been prevented had I not been so naive,
(02:35):
and I do feel sorry that things happen the way that they did,
but these sorts of valuable lessons
are what make our lives that much more wise and meaningful.
I hope that you take some lessons away
from today's episode and story,
and that you don't repeat some of these mistakes
that I made with any online friends that you may have,
(02:55):
or even a friend who you've kept in touch with virtually
for a long time and haven't actually seen in person
for a good minute.
Let's go ahead and jump into this Seattle story
with all sorts of mistakes, awkward moments,
and ultimately dive deeper into why leaving behind
(03:16):
and moving on from this specific friendship
turned out being the right course of action to take.
In December of 2022, I took a six-day trip
to Washington State to finally see Seattle,
gorgeous nature in Washington State
during the start of the Christmas season,
(03:36):
and to visit my friend Arthur,
who lived with his parents in the nearby suburb of Bothell,
right outside of Seattle.
The first day that I arrived, Arthur,
or I should say Arthur's mom,
picked me up by car from the Seattle airport,
and Arthur just rode along in the car
because at the time he didn't have a driver's license
(03:59):
and couldn't drive,
therefore couldn't pick me up by himself at the airport.
This is one of the many annoying little things
that will come up again as we go through this episode,
and you'll later understand why.
When we got to Arthur's family home,
we stayed in their apartment,
and he and his family were kind and generous
(04:22):
to go and pick up lunch takeout
from a local Asian place that was really delicious.
We ate our lunch together at home,
and afterwards, Arthur and I spent the entire first day
indoors, and we did some fun
and festive Christmas activities together,
since this was right at the beginning of December.
(04:43):
We built a couple of small gingerbread houses,
like I had mentioned I wanted to do beforehand,
and it was really nice of Arthur and his parents
to go ahead and put up their Christmas tree,
as well as make sure that we had at least two boxes
of gingerbread house parts for us to be able to build houses.
Arthur also prepared a few little candy gifts
(05:06):
and some little touches that really meant
a great deal to me, since I am such a holiday girly.
We also watched a couple of Christmas movies
and just chilled at home.
It was a really lovely and normal first day.
Little side note here, one thing I discovered
and remember about Seattle and the metro area
around Seattle is how much higher and more expensive
(05:29):
the cost of living there is compared to Georgia
and the Southeast and many other US states in general.
In Europe, I have always known and expected
to see many families living in smaller homes
and apartments, because that's the lifestyle and culture.
Going out West and seeing American families
(05:51):
live in similar style apartments at the time
seemed more unusual to me, since I had always grown up
in Georgia with everyone I knew
living in a standalone house of their own.
I'm not sure about now, probably even more so,
to be honest, but at the time, I had learned
that to live in a three bed, two bath house
(06:14):
in the Seattle area easily cost a minimum of $1 million.
Wow.
That same amount of money in Georgia
can get you a three story house.
Welcome to the West Coast.
But anyway, I digress.
Continuing on now, that first evening
(06:35):
of the first night in Bothell, I learned
that I was going to be sharing and sleeping
in the same room and even the same bed,
dare I say, as Arthur.
I actually wasn't really bothered by that,
since I thought and shouldn't have assumed,
as you'll see later, that we were really just friends
(06:56):
and nothing more.
Let me go ahead and tell you that this is where
the beginning of many misunderstandings took place.
That I was not the slightest bit attracted to Arthur,
that I never for a second had even seen
or imagined any sort of realistic future with him.
That I had just seen him as a good friend
(07:17):
who I had met on a pen pal website eight years prior
and I kept in touch with on and off for that span of time.
That first night, and basically for the couple
of next nights after that, I was a bit jet lagged.
Seattle is on Pacific time and was three hours
behind my usual Atlanta time.
(07:38):
And although that's not a huge difference to many people,
it was enough of a difference for my body at the time
to wake up wide awake at 2 a.m., which was 5 a.m.
in Georgia when I normally always got up.
Yes, I am a huge early bird.
I mention this because this is where some weirdness
(07:59):
and invasion of personal space begins with Arthur.
When I wake up wide awake at 2 a.m.,
I thought I'd just go and have some peace
in the living room and grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen.
The second I got up, he sensed it somehow
and he also got up, turned on the lights
(08:20):
and stayed up with me and just stared at me.
Like, hey?
Good morning?
I was just thinking to myself, okay, this is weird.
But okay, and then I asked Arthur,
why are you not going back to sleep?
(08:41):
Are you not sleepy?
And he responded to that with, oh,
well, I thought we were gonna hang out.
We need time to hang out.
And of course I'm looking at him and I'm like,
it is two in the morning.
Two in the fucking morning.
You think now is a good time to hang out?
(09:01):
I don't understand your logic.
I said I was going to the kitchen for coffee
and what does Arthur do?
He gets up with me and follows me step by step
to the kitchen behind me and stares at me making coffee.
And again, I'm thinking, you know,
(09:22):
you don't need to follow me to every single place I go.
This isn't necessary.
I think eventually I did get a little more shut eye
after that quick little weird and awkward moment
of Arthur following and staring me down in the room
while I got coffee, but I was still weirded out.
(09:43):
And that was just the beginning of it.
On the second day, what I loved about the morning
was that it started snowing in Bothell.
And if you know me, you know that I'm a sucker
for any snow day since in Georgia,
we rarely get these beautiful snow days with our climate.
I enjoyed a peaceful morning with some snow,
(10:04):
snow pictures, and coffee.
Before Arthur and I took off later in the morning
to see Arthur's old childhood hometown place
called Mercer Island, which is a middle point place
between Seattle and Bothell.
We went to Mercer Island and walked around for a bit
to no specific place.
And even though it was a childhood home to Arthur,
(10:26):
he apparently didn't know anything that was there
or didn't research again to remember what was there.
Arthur just told me, oh yeah, my dad and I
used to just take a walk around here or a hike,
but that's about it.
And I'm thinking, okay, was there not a specific favorite
(10:48):
spot that you used to love or cherish?
This is when I started to realize very quickly
that Arthur didn't know a lot of things
about a lot of things, at least in terms of anything
outside of his immediate close quarter home.
This was the very beginning sign of me realizing
that he was extremely touchy and clingy to me.
(11:12):
He would just randomly grab my hands out of the blue.
And whenever we were sitting down anywhere,
Arthur would touch my hip and start caressing it.
And I was just thinking again to myself, what the fuck?
Why is he touching me?
Like, why are you doing this?
Ew, get away from me, ew!
(11:32):
I didn't say that out loud in the moment,
but I definitely should have.
I was just going with the flow, rolling with the punches,
trying to keep the harmony intact.
I eventually did start backing away from him
every time he tried to touch or caress me,
and I think he realized it.
(11:53):
I believe that it was also the evening of the second day
that Arthur and his parents were so kind
and took us out to a beautiful, delicious,
kind of fancy dinner place with a cozy fireplace vibe
where we all got dressed up in really nice clothes.
Or so, at least that was the expectation.
(12:15):
When it comes to friendship, a true friendship
isn't about the superficial things,
like the way someone dresses,
because friendship, when it comes down to it,
goes so much deeper.
But you have to admit that you do expect your friends
to also care about how they carry themselves in public
(12:36):
and how they dress on certain occasions,
at least to some degree.
And Arthur's version of fancy for a nice dinner
made me internally and literally raise my eyebrows.
It was definitely not my personal taste or personal thing,
but that was his style.
(12:57):
I can't even remember now exactly what he was wearing,
but I do remember that I was wearing
a blue sequin maxi dress with long black boot heels
and black stockings.
And he must have been wearing something like black jeans
with an ugly dress shirt that didn't match well
(13:17):
or go together with his shoes and coat.
I remember when we were sitting at this fancy restaurant,
Arthur tried to grab my hand again under the table,
and I evidently also backed away then.
More awkwardness, why?
I think when we got back,
and in a couple of days after this,
(13:38):
Arthur's mom would joke around
about how we were total lovebirds
and how we were so cute together.
And I was just thinking,
oh my God, we are not together, woman.
No, no, no, no, hell no, uh-uh.
When we got back to Arthur's family home that evening,
he continued to follow me everywhere
(13:58):
in the apartment that I went.
And it got to a point where I felt suffocated
and really felt like I didn't have personal space at all.
Every time I walked into a room, Arthur followed me there.
The third day rolls around,
and of course, I wanted to see Seattle.
You don't come to Seattle and stay near it
(14:20):
and not see it anyway, right?
People of course go to Washington State
for the outrageously stunning nature,
but they also go to experience city life
and more in Seattle, me included.
And although Arthur lived less than half an hour
away from Seattle, like his childhood town of Mercer Island,
(14:44):
he didn't know anything either about Seattle
and hadn't researched anything.
To add insult to injury, he was super, super scared
of crowds and had a crowd phobia,
anachlophobia, I think is what it's called.
Arthur told me that he didn't remember the last time
that he had actually been in Seattle himself.
(15:05):
He didn't know anything about the space needle.
I asked him questions and he couldn't tell me answers.
He didn't know anything about any place anywhere in Seattle.
He didn't know the best kind of fish
at the Pike Place Market where people buy fish
and all sorts of yummy other goodies.
He maybe knew that Starbucks
(15:26):
and the first ever Starbucks coffee shop
was from and is in Seattle,
but he wasn't a coffee drinker either
and probably didn't know much else about Starbucks.
When we went into Pike Place Market,
Arthur had to ask his dad what the best kind of fish was,
especially salmon-wise, which I learned
(15:48):
was king salmon, by the way.
We had to use my phone navigation
to get around Seattle, not his.
I would have been fine going around Seattle
all by myself without him,
especially since Arthur's arm was constantly clinging
onto mine and rubbing up against me,
since, again, he was uber, uber, uber scared
(16:11):
of crowds wherever we went.
I didn't personally think Seattle was,
on that specific day, that crowded, but to each his own.
I got really annoyed with the clinginess,
so I purposely tried to speed up
and walk really, really fast down the streets of Seattle,
way ahead of him, so that he couldn't keep up with me.
(16:33):
Arthur was practically running to keep up
with my speed walking up hills and down the streets,
and he was practically sweating
and trying to catch his breath.
That's also when I realized that Arthur
wasn't as fit as me either.
At the time of this Seattle story,
I was really into a fitness phase,
(16:53):
and I would run about five miles most days of the week
and had reasonable endurance.
So I was really in better shape
than I am now at the end of 2024.
That's another thing.
Arthur and I worked out together earlier that morning
at his apartment complex gym
before we went into Seattle later in the day.
(17:16):
I just happened to have a really good day that day
and had the stamina to go six miles
with ongoing energy afterwards.
On the other hand, Arthur went barely three miles
and was walking most of it, if I remember correctly,
and he was just winded and done the rest of the entire day.
(17:39):
Granted, I do and did understand at the time
that he said he hadn't done cardio in a long time
and wasn't used to it.
And I again just had really gotten lucky
and had a really good day.
But again, Arthur didn't even run the three miles.
He walked most of it and was worn out.
(18:01):
Arthur did manage to bite the bullet
with his remaining energy for the day
and do what he could to get around Seattle.
So I do have to give him that.
There were so many unattractive turnoffs about Arthur
that were all slowly culminating and accumulating
as the time with him went on.
Arthur didn't seem to have done any research
(18:23):
on his home state or on Seattle
before I traveled a long way there from Georgia.
If I'm hosting someone in Atlanta or in Georgia,
I make sure to plan as much as I can
to have places readily available
to recommend doing or foods to try,
places not to miss, day trips, et cetera,
(18:44):
because I want my guests to have a truly wonderful time
and experience here.
Going back to this point that I mentioned
at the beginning of this story,
Arthur couldn't drive and didn't have a driver's license.
In many places in Europe or Canada or elsewhere,
especially in a bigger city,
it's actually okay for people to not necessarily have a car,
(19:06):
let alone drive.
Arthur's parents had a car,
but his dad had to use the car most of the time
to go to work, completely understandable.
What I didn't mention up to now
is that Arthur wasn't working and didn't have a job,
so he couldn't rent a car himself for us to use,
but I wanted a car,
so I went out and rented one myself for us to use.
(19:30):
I just started eventually making a list
of all the things that annoyed me.
He doesn't know anything, he's less fit than me,
he doesn't take an interest in any sort of outdoorsy
or going out kind of thing, he's truly a homebody,
he just likes to quote unquote chill at home.
Literally, every time I asked him at the apartment,
(19:50):
oh, what are you doing?
I would be watching the World Cup on my computer
or I'd be working on a gingerbread house
or I'd be actively doing something,
and Arthur's response to this question was always,
oh, I'm just chilling, no, I'm just chilling,
just chilling, I'm just chilling, oh my God,
(20:12):
you are so boring.
There was this one afternoon on another day
when he didn't quote unquote just chill
and did quote unquote work out at home,
carrying heavy jugs of water back and forth
from his room to the living room and back,
breathing in and out heavily.
I was just sitting in the living room
(20:33):
trying not to watch this.
By the fourth day, I was really over it
and I was really losing my shit.
I really couldn't take the clinginess, friendship
incompatibility, awkwardness, misconceptions,
and discomfort any longer.
But I didn't wanna spoil the rest of the trip
(20:54):
as much as I could because Arthur and I
were still going to be spending a couple of days together
in a German-style village in Washington called Leavenworth
that I really wanted to see for the Christmas season.
So I held in my bottled emotions
and I tried my best to hide them, which spoiler alert,
(21:14):
I totally failed at that on the morning of the fourth day.
I tried to suppress the annoyance that I had.
I remember Arthur had told me on the very first day
that he had taken his mom's bottle of red wine
from the kitchen somewhere and hid it in his closet
before I arrived in Washington,
which, okay, taking your mom's wine and not telling her
(21:39):
is smooth.
Since Arthur knew that I liked to drink wine,
but he didn't personally drink any alcohol
because of a family history of alcoholism,
so I couldn't drink with him.
It was 10 in the morning on this fourth day
and we had to prepare for this drive to Leavenworth.
With me driving, again, noted,
(22:00):
I tried to avoid making direct contact with Arthur
that morning as much as I could.
And I managed to sneak that bottle of red wine
out from the closet, took a glass from the kitchen,
went into the bathroom with the door closed
to start putting on makeup and start getting ready,
and I started drinking that wine just so I could calm down.
(22:23):
And after I had to open the door,
Arthur soon realized that something was up.
I had gotten two glasses of wine in my system by that point
that he had approached me and asked to talk to me.
We went into his bedroom and we talked.
I was pissed and the wine helped me just let everything out.
(22:43):
I exploded.
The very first thing I did was point my finger at him,
cornered him, and I said in the coldest, most serious,
pissiest tone that I ever had in a while,
Arthur, do not fucking touch me.
You get away from me now.
And that's a side of me
that I know most people have never witnessed
(23:04):
because it's very rare that someone pushes me to that limit,
but this occasion was one of those.
I was not playing and I was so done.
I really felt so mean.
I said so many things that I can't repeat
because I don't remember now,
but they were not nice things.
(23:24):
I criticized how boring Arthur was
and how he didn't know anything about anything,
all of the reasons I never liked him and why I never would,
that it was ridiculous how he didn't have
his driver's license and didn't have an interest
in getting it whatsoever,
and how there were so many misunderstandings between us.
Matters only became worse
(23:45):
and he didn't help his case at all whatsoever.
When I learned more about his living situation
with his parents early on, and I never tried to judge,
I really tried to understand,
but after I learned what I'm about to share,
I totally did judge.
I had known before coming to Washington
(24:08):
that Arthur didn't have a job.
I didn't know the reason.
I thought his parents have health problems, which they did,
and that he didn't work
because he served as their primary caretaker,
but actually, no, that's not the reason
why he didn't have a job.
Arthur told me, oh, I had a job before COVID,
(24:30):
and then I couldn't work after COVID because I got laid off,
and then I just got lazy and I didn't get another job.
Oh, yikes.
That was probably one of the most unattractive,
frustrating things of everything that he said
during that whole trip.
That infuriated me more than this podcast episode
(24:54):
can truly encompass.
This characteristic of laziness and lack of ambition
were not and are not what I needed from people in my life.
Again, no driver's license or desire to even learn
how to drive a car for any emergency,
especially in his parents' case
when he couldn't drive them to the ER.
(25:16):
He can't help them.
No passport.
You live very close to Canada,
and you can't even go to Vancouver
because you don't have a passport.
You aren't actively seeking out employment
because you got comfortable and you are lazy.
At the time that this story happened,
I also was living at home temporarily with my grandparents,
but the difference was that I was actively trying
(25:39):
to get out of there,
and I was working towards doing that purposefully
with the full intention to move out that following year.
And what is Arthur doing,
not aiming higher and just sitting on his ass?
It became even more apparent
that this was just not my kind of person friend-wise
or acquaintance-wise,
and partner-wise was already way out of the question.
(26:02):
I don't wanna surround myself with people like you
who don't want more in life,
who don't wanna constantly strive to be better,
and I told Arthur all of this.
Arthur had the wrong idea all along,
but in his defense, I am very much to blame.
I wasn't transparent or explicit enough
(26:22):
in making sure that he understood
that we were only just friends
and all we ever would be was friends.
It does sound unusual for a girl
to fly across the entire country
to visit a guy who is only a friend,
but the thing is, I saw the whole trip
as an opportunity to see Seattle anyway
(26:44):
since I had always wanted to go,
and I thought, well,
it's a good opportunity to see it now
if I also know someone who lives close to there
and who is a good friend who I can see it with,
or so I thought was a good friend.
I mean, in my past life,
I used to travel to other countries for the weekend alone,
(27:05):
so to me, it's not that unusual.
Arthur started a trend where we would message each other
and call each other lovey,
and I would call it back to him
since I didn't think much of it at the time,
and thought, oh, it's just a silly pet name, whatever,
but Arthur thought it was more than that.
I should have watched my words more carefully
(27:27):
and been more vividly clear that it means nothing
and that there is nothing between us.
He misinterpreted my other messages to him in the past
since at the time, I was in my dating season
and was seeing a number of guys who I would tell him about,
and whenever a guy didn't work out,
I would tell Arthur,
yeah, so-and-so didn't work out,
(27:49):
I can't wait for our time together,
but I meant as friends.
Arthur interpreted that statement as not friends.
If I like someone,
I make it damn obvious that I like that person.
I make it known that I really like you
and that I'm interested in you,
and I never once did that for a second with Arthur.
(28:10):
All of these are my bad, my mistakes,
my reasons for getting into this mess in the first place.
I was, of course, angry at Arthur,
but I was also especially angry at myself,
thinking, how could I allow myself
to have had and kept a friend like this?
I thought I knew who this person was.
(28:31):
I thought Arthur would have been as sweet
and supportive of a person as he was online.
In terms of his personality,
Arthur was perfect in terms of listening,
being emotionally available,
and being a good support system,
but I realized that that's about where it ended.
In terms of interest, how to spend time,
(28:53):
what to do, clothing style, ambition,
zest for life, zest for travel, fulfillment,
none of those other things were there.
That fourth day, that conversation slash confrontation
in Arthur's bedroom went on for about two hours,
and I really felt sorry for his dad
having to hear all of this from the other room,
(29:13):
thinking that I must be some crazy whack job girl,
and it was basically just me bitching at
and criticizing him, and unsurprisingly,
the rest of the trip was really awkward after that.
We went to Leavenworth, the German-style village,
and it was a bust.
It was really bad.
I would have been much better going there on my own.
(29:36):
Arthur was just this constant cloud of darkness,
negativity, like this cloud of depressiveness
that constantly held me down like chains around my neck
everywhere I walked around in this beautiful village.
I was just thinking, I can't have fun here.
You're so mopey, so black, so, ah, I hate it.
(29:58):
We walked around the town of Leavenworth,
and I drove us into there with my rental car that I got.
We went around and barely said anything to each other.
We walked into whatever bar was open,
and because he didn't drink,
he couldn't drink anything with me.
So I ordered myself something,
and he just sat next to me
with this mopey, depressive expression
(30:19):
looking down at the ground the entire time.
We had to stay in this beautiful place that I booked
because I couldn't get a refund at that point,
and he had to join me since that was the plan all along.
So having to share another room with Arthur
was just so uncomfortable every second,
and it was just worse and worse with every passing minute.
(30:42):
Then by the fifth day,
the awkwardness and unhappiness got even worse.
Arthur and I left Leavenworth.
We got in the car.
I drove us to see Snoqualmie Falls,
which is the biggest waterfall in Washington state,
and therefore is very popular to see.
I was just really pissed, and I'm thinking, what the hell?
(31:03):
I rented a car, I'm driving us around.
To be honest, this should be you driving.
This should be you recommending places.
This should be you taking more initiative and interest.
You came so fucking unprepared as a host.
You did other things right, and I appreciate those things,
but this one, you failed at,
(31:23):
and this was the more important thing, at least to me.
Arthur attempted to break the ice and awkwardness in the car
by asking would-you-rather questions,
and I was just not having it.
So I just answered in the most bland way I could
and turned up the volume of my music,
and I just did not care.
(31:44):
Even at the falls, it was so awkward
because we were literally not speaking to each other.
We were literally standing on two sides of the falls alone,
looking at this beautiful waterfall,
but feeling the tension and awkwardness in the air,
and that sucked.
We went into a random Starbucks after seeing the falls,
sat down, and I didn't hold back and said,
(32:06):
I am so pissed at you.
I wanna end this friendship.
I am getting a hotel tonight in Seattle, and I'm leaving.
I never wanna see you again.
And yes, I really said this to his face.
I didn't know and still don't know
that Mary Grace can be mean either until this trip happened,
and that is exactly what I did.
(32:27):
I booked a random hotel in Seattle on short notice
for my last night there since I couldn't rebook
an earlier flight back home to Georgia
with the change fee being $300
and just not being worth it, frankly.
When Arthur and I got back to Bothell,
we returned the rental car,
and I tried to be friendly with Arthur
(32:48):
in front of the rental car reps
to not publicize these negative feelings
and make it seem like something was wrong.
But once we got back to the apartment,
we had one other long conversation.
Basically, the same one again saying what he did wrong,
what he should improve on, why I will never like him,
and that I'm extremely sorry
(33:09):
for being this rude-ass mean bitch
for saying all that I'm saying, but that I need to say it.
I told him that I understood truly what it was like
to be on the receiving end of this,
to feel so bad for not living up
to someone else's expectations
and being rejected by a crush for not being better.
If you're listening to this
and you've heard the dating episode,
(33:30):
I'm referring here to Mr. Bright and Handsome.
Arthur pretty much took all of my anger and honesty
and said that this was just what he needed to hear,
that he needed this sort of reality check
and pushback from someone who wasn't family.
And the fact that I would go back to Georgia
and we wouldn't cross paths again
(33:51):
made this a stepping stone for him
to get his life more together
and to start striving for something in baby steps.
I got all of my shit,
packed up my suitcases after that last conversation,
and I left.
I took a 40-minute, $75 Uber to my hotel in Seattle,
which was ridiculous, but gosh, I had to do it.
(34:14):
I got to this mediocre hotel, which was super random
and kinda even run down a little bit, but I didn't care.
I felt so happy and so free again.
I just spent the rest of my day
watching episodes of The Office,
filmed a couple of videos,
and went to a 7-Eleven down the street for food and coffee,
(34:34):
and that was that.
I left Seattle on that sixth and very next day.
The moral of this story is that I ended
this eight-year virtual friendship.
Arthur and I deleted each other's numbers
and social media access.
I let Arthur know that I got to the Seattle hotel safely
since he asked me to do that, and I did.
(34:56):
That was the end of us ever speaking,
and I wasn't sad in the sense
that I knew what I did was right
in recognizing how this person didn't serve me anymore
like he did when we were teenagers talking on the internet,
but I did admittedly feel that pinch of sadness
in that things had to end so bitterly and awkwardly
(35:18):
because to this day, I don't and never did think
that he is a bad person.
Everyone has their seasons of weakness, of being low,
myself included.
I was unbelievably harsh with him.
I did tell him out of anger and frustration at the time
that although I wished him the best,
no matter how he changed,
(35:39):
no matter if he became successful, richer, more generous,
more attractive, more whatever,
that I still wouldn't change my opinion about him.
I think that on my part,
I was definitely much too hateful and consumed
in my own ego when I said that.
Wherever Arthur is now,
I do hope that he did use my words wisely
(36:01):
and started looking for employment opportunities
and started creating goals
to be a better version of himself
and maybe even found someone better suited for him than me.
I wish that I would have been more transparent with Arthur
about what I expect in a friend and friendship back then.
I should have reminded him
(36:21):
that we were only friends, nothing more.
Because in those eight years
that we knew and spoke to each other,
there was another time or two years ago
when he crushed on me
and when I told him that I don't like you,
but he had had the hope that things would change
after a certain amount of time passed.
(36:42):
I should have read deeper into that possibility
and that previous history.
You can never truly know someone
until you see them in person and even FaceTime,
which Arthur and I had many FaceTime calls,
never could help us truly see or realize
who we really were as people in reality off the internet.
(37:03):
The end of 2022, looking back,
was the right time to call things off
on this friendship with Arthur anyway,
because not too long afterwards into 2023, I met Marco.
Even if I had continued to remain friends with Arthur,
that whole dynamic of having Marco more permanently
in the picture would have eventually exacerbated
(37:25):
a neutral friendship with Arthur anyway.
All worked out for the best.
I hope that you enjoyed today's episode
of the Seattle and Washington friendship breakup story
and that you feel more encouraged to revisit
and evaluate your own friendships, situationships,
or whatever in your life that don't serve you
or that you feel you could thrive better without
(37:47):
and make an effort to resolve
during these last few weeks of 2024.
If you'd like to share your thoughts or comments
about your own friendship breakup experiences with me,
please send me a message on Instagram
at either Mary Grace Crawford
or on the podcast account at onceuponatrip.pc.
(38:08):
And of course, please share this episode
with any friends or family who you think
could use a little more travel story entertainment
in their busy days leading up to this holiday season.
Thank you really so much for tuning in
and for sticking all the way through if you're still here.
I look forward to being back here with you next Tuesday
for another fun, adventurous trip of an episode.
(38:32):
설기감사 하세영
Welcome to the Once Upon a Trip podcast,
(00:02):
where we dive deep into sharing everything
crazy travel stories, dating adventures,
culture fusions, and plenty of takeaways
to entertain and feed your inner curiosity and travel bug.
I'm your host, Mary Grace Crawford,
travel enthusiast, content creator,
ex-digital nomad, avid storyteller,
(00:23):
and lover of all things Europe,
based now in Atlanta, Georgia.
Today's episode is a kickoff to the December holiday season,
and what better way to do this kickoff of this new month
than to dive deep into a friendship breakup story of mine
(00:45):
that happened on my December trip
to Seattle and Washington state nearly two years ago now,
to the day, with someone I was virtual friends with
for eight years.
I actually filmed a video on this very story
that I never ended up publishing anywhere.
So today's episode is going to be more or less
(01:08):
a refined, updated audio version
that I believe you will get a kick out of
and perhaps even be able to relate to.
Friendships and friendship breakups,
like relationships and relationship breakups,
are all part of our lives, and we all go through
at least one somewhat substantial friendship breakup
(01:29):
at some point.
This Seattle story that we're going to be diving deeper into
today is mine and is one of the rare moments
that an aggressive, assertive, confrontational Mary Grace
came out, which, if you know me,
you know that I am none of these things normally,
if like ever.
(01:51):
I went to Seattle, Washington with someone
I presumptuously thought was a good friend,
and six days later, at the end of that trip,
I came back to Georgia without that friend
because I ended this friendship.
I will go ahead and say that I definitely made
my own fair share of wrongful assumptions and mistakes
(02:14):
that put myself in a number of these awkward situations
that you're going to be hearing with this friend
who I'm going to be referring to as Arthur.
Name changed.
I look back now a couple of years later
on this entire Seattle story and series of events
that could have been prevented had I not been so naive,
(02:35):
and I do feel sorry that things happen the way that they did,
but these sorts of valuable lessons
are what make our lives that much more wise and meaningful.
I hope that you take some lessons away
from today's episode and story,
and that you don't repeat some of these mistakes
that I made with any online friends that you may have,
(02:55):
or even a friend who you've kept in touch with virtually
for a long time and haven't actually seen in person
for a good minute.
Let's go ahead and jump into this Seattle story
with all sorts of mistakes, awkward moments,
and ultimately dive deeper into why leaving behind
(03:16):
and moving on from this specific friendship
turned out being the right course of action to take.
In December of 2022, I took a six-day trip
to Washington State to finally see Seattle,
gorgeous nature in Washington State
during the start of the Christmas season,
(03:36):
and to visit my friend Arthur,
who lived with his parents in the nearby suburb of Bothell,
right outside of Seattle.
The first day that I arrived, Arthur,
or I should say Arthur's mom,
picked me up by car from the Seattle airport,
and Arthur just rode along in the car
because at the time he didn't have a driver's license
(03:59):
and couldn't drive,
therefore couldn't pick me up by himself at the airport.
This is one of the many annoying little things
that will come up again as we go through this episode,
and you'll later understand why.
When we got to Arthur's family home,
we stayed in their apartment,
and he and his family were kind and generous
(04:22):
to go and pick up lunch takeout
from a local Asian place that was really delicious.
We ate our lunch together at home,
and afterwards, Arthur and I spent the entire first day
indoors, and we did some fun
and festive Christmas activities together,
since this was right at the beginning of December.
(04:43):
We built a couple of small gingerbread houses,
like I had mentioned I wanted to do beforehand,
and it was really nice of Arthur and his parents
to go ahead and put up their Christmas tree,
as well as make sure that we had at least two boxes
of gingerbread house parts for us to be able to build houses.
Arthur also prepared a few little candy gifts
(05:06):
and some little touches that really meant
a great deal to me, since I am such a holiday girly.
We also watched a couple of Christmas movies
and just chilled at home.
It was a really lovely and normal first day.
Little side note here, one thing I discovered
and remember about Seattle and the metro area
around Seattle is how much higher and more expensive
(05:29):
the cost of living there is compared to Georgia
and the Southeast and many other US states in general.
In Europe, I have always known and expected
to see many families living in smaller homes
and apartments, because that's the lifestyle and culture.
Going out West and seeing American families
(05:51):
live in similar style apartments at the time
seemed more unusual to me, since I had always grown up
in Georgia with everyone I knew
living in a standalone house of their own.
I'm not sure about now, probably even more so,
to be honest, but at the time, I had learned
that to live in a three bed, two bath house
(06:14):
in the Seattle area easily cost a minimum of $1 million.
Wow.
That same amount of money in Georgia
can get you a three story house.
Welcome to the West Coast.
But anyway, I digress.
Continuing on now, that first evening
(06:35):
of the first night in Bothell, I learned
that I was going to be sharing and sleeping
in the same room and even the same bed,
dare I say, as Arthur.
I actually wasn't really bothered by that,
since I thought and shouldn't have assumed,
as you'll see later, that we were really just friends
(06:56):
and nothing more.
Let me go ahead and tell you that this is where
the beginning of many misunderstandings took place.
That I was not the slightest bit attracted to Arthur,
that I never for a second had even seen
or imagined any sort of realistic future with him.
That I had just seen him as a good friend
(07:17):
who I had met on a pen pal website eight years prior
and I kept in touch with on and off for that span of time.
That first night, and basically for the couple
of next nights after that, I was a bit jet lagged.
Seattle is on Pacific time and was three hours
behind my usual Atlanta time.
(07:38):
And although that's not a huge difference to many people,
it was enough of a difference for my body at the time
to wake up wide awake at 2 a.m., which was 5 a.m.
in Georgia when I normally always got up.
Yes, I am a huge early bird.
I mention this because this is where some weirdness
(07:59):
and invasion of personal space begins with Arthur.
When I wake up wide awake at 2 a.m.,
I thought I'd just go and have some peace
in the living room and grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen.
The second I got up, he sensed it somehow
and he also got up, turned on the lights
(08:20):
and stayed up with me and just stared at me.
Like, hey?
Good morning?
I was just thinking to myself, okay, this is weird.
But okay, and then I asked Arthur,
why are you not going back to sleep?
(08:41):
Are you not sleepy?
And he responded to that with, oh,
well, I thought we were gonna hang out.
We need time to hang out.
And of course I'm looking at him and I'm like,
it is two in the morning.
Two in the fucking morning.
You think now is a good time to hang out?
(09:01):
I don't understand your logic.
I said I was going to the kitchen for coffee
and what does Arthur do?
He gets up with me and follows me step by step
to the kitchen behind me and stares at me making coffee.
And again, I'm thinking, you know,
(09:22):
you don't need to follow me to every single place I go.
This isn't necessary.
I think eventually I did get a little more shut eye
after that quick little weird and awkward moment
of Arthur following and staring me down in the room
while I got coffee, but I was still weirded out.
(09:43):
And that was just the beginning of it.
On the second day, what I loved about the morning
was that it started snowing in Bothell.
And if you know me, you know that I'm a sucker
for any snow day since in Georgia,
we rarely get these beautiful snow days with our climate.
I enjoyed a peaceful morning with some snow,
(10:04):
snow pictures, and coffee.
Before Arthur and I took off later in the morning
to see Arthur's old childhood hometown place
called Mercer Island, which is a middle point place
between Seattle and Bothell.
We went to Mercer Island and walked around for a bit
to no specific place.
And even though it was a childhood home to Arthur,
(10:26):
he apparently didn't know anything that was there
or didn't research again to remember what was there.
Arthur just told me, oh yeah, my dad and I
used to just take a walk around here or a hike,
but that's about it.
And I'm thinking, okay, was there not a specific favorite
(10:48):
spot that you used to love or cherish?
This is when I started to realize very quickly
that Arthur didn't know a lot of things
about a lot of things, at least in terms of anything
outside of his immediate close quarter home.
This was the very beginning sign of me realizing
that he was extremely touchy and clingy to me.
(11:12):
He would just randomly grab my hands out of the blue.
And whenever we were sitting down anywhere,
Arthur would touch my hip and start caressing it.
And I was just thinking again to myself, what the fuck?
Why is he touching me?
Like, why are you doing this?
Ew, get away from me, ew!
(11:32):
I didn't say that out loud in the moment,
but I definitely should have.
I was just going with the flow, rolling with the punches,
trying to keep the harmony intact.
I eventually did start backing away from him
every time he tried to touch or caress me,
and I think he realized it.
(11:53):
I believe that it was also the evening of the second day
that Arthur and his parents were so kind
and took us out to a beautiful, delicious,
kind of fancy dinner place with a cozy fireplace vibe
where we all got dressed up in really nice clothes.
Or so, at least that was the expectation.
(12:15):
When it comes to friendship, a true friendship
isn't about the superficial things,
like the way someone dresses,
because friendship, when it comes down to it,
goes so much deeper.
But you have to admit that you do expect your friends
to also care about how they carry themselves in public
(12:36):
and how they dress on certain occasions,
at least to some degree.
And Arthur's version of fancy for a nice dinner
made me internally and literally raise my eyebrows.
It was definitely not my personal taste or personal thing,
but that was his style.
(12:57):
I can't even remember now exactly what he was wearing,
but I do remember that I was wearing
a blue sequin maxi dress with long black boot heels
and black stockings.
And he must have been wearing something like black jeans
with an ugly dress shirt that didn't match well
(13:17):
or go together with his shoes and coat.
I remember when we were sitting at this fancy restaurant,
Arthur tried to grab my hand again under the table,
and I evidently also backed away then.
More awkwardness, why?
I think when we got back,
and in a couple of days after this,
(13:38):
Arthur's mom would joke around
about how we were total lovebirds
and how we were so cute together.
And I was just thinking,
oh my God, we are not together, woman.
No, no, no, no, hell no, uh-uh.
When we got back to Arthur's family home that evening,
he continued to follow me everywhere
(13:58):
in the apartment that I went.
And it got to a point where I felt suffocated
and really felt like I didn't have personal space at all.
Every time I walked into a room, Arthur followed me there.
The third day rolls around,
and of course, I wanted to see Seattle.
You don't come to Seattle and stay near it
(14:20):
and not see it anyway, right?
People of course go to Washington State
for the outrageously stunning nature,
but they also go to experience city life
and more in Seattle, me included.
And although Arthur lived less than half an hour
away from Seattle, like his childhood town of Mercer Island,
(14:44):
he didn't know anything either about Seattle
and hadn't researched anything.
To add insult to injury, he was super, super scared
of crowds and had a crowd phobia,
anachlophobia, I think is what it's called.
Arthur told me that he didn't remember the last time
that he had actually been in Seattle himself.
(15:05):
He didn't know anything about the space needle.
I asked him questions and he couldn't tell me answers.
He didn't know anything about any place anywhere in Seattle.
He didn't know the best kind of fish
at the Pike Place Market where people buy fish
and all sorts of yummy other goodies.
He maybe knew that Starbucks
(15:26):
and the first ever Starbucks coffee shop
was from and is in Seattle,
but he wasn't a coffee drinker either
and probably didn't know much else about Starbucks.
When we went into Pike Place Market,
Arthur had to ask his dad what the best kind of fish was,
especially salmon-wise, which I learned
(15:48):
was king salmon, by the way.
We had to use my phone navigation
to get around Seattle, not his.
I would have been fine going around Seattle
all by myself without him,
especially since Arthur's arm was constantly clinging
onto mine and rubbing up against me,
since, again, he was uber, uber, uber scared
(16:11):
of crowds wherever we went.
I didn't personally think Seattle was,
on that specific day, that crowded, but to each his own.
I got really annoyed with the clinginess,
so I purposely tried to speed up
and walk really, really fast down the streets of Seattle,
way ahead of him, so that he couldn't keep up with me.
(16:33):
Arthur was practically running to keep up
with my speed walking up hills and down the streets,
and he was practically sweating
and trying to catch his breath.
That's also when I realized that Arthur
wasn't as fit as me either.
At the time of this Seattle story,
I was really into a fitness phase,
(16:53):
and I would run about five miles most days of the week
and had reasonable endurance.
So I was really in better shape
than I am now at the end of 2024.
That's another thing.
Arthur and I worked out together earlier that morning
at his apartment complex gym
before we went into Seattle later in the day.
(17:16):
I just happened to have a really good day that day
and had the stamina to go six miles
with ongoing energy afterwards.
On the other hand, Arthur went barely three miles
and was walking most of it, if I remember correctly,
and he was just winded and done the rest of the entire day.
(17:39):
Granted, I do and did understand at the time
that he said he hadn't done cardio in a long time
and wasn't used to it.
And I again just had really gotten lucky
and had a really good day.
But again, Arthur didn't even run the three miles.
He walked most of it and was worn out.
(18:01):
Arthur did manage to bite the bullet
with his remaining energy for the day
and do what he could to get around Seattle.
So I do have to give him that.
There were so many unattractive turnoffs about Arthur
that were all slowly culminating and accumulating
as the time with him went on.
Arthur didn't seem to have done any research
(18:23):
on his home state or on Seattle
before I traveled a long way there from Georgia.
If I'm hosting someone in Atlanta or in Georgia,
I make sure to plan as much as I can
to have places readily available
to recommend doing or foods to try,
places not to miss, day trips, et cetera,
(18:44):
because I want my guests to have a truly wonderful time
and experience here.
Going back to this point that I mentioned
at the beginning of this story,
Arthur couldn't drive and didn't have a driver's license.
In many places in Europe or Canada or elsewhere,
especially in a bigger city,
it's actually okay for people to not necessarily have a car,
(19:06):
let alone drive.
Arthur's parents had a car,
but his dad had to use the car most of the time
to go to work, completely understandable.
What I didn't mention up to now
is that Arthur wasn't working and didn't have a job,
so he couldn't rent a car himself for us to use,
but I wanted a car,
so I went out and rented one myself for us to use.
(19:30):
I just started eventually making a list
of all the things that annoyed me.
He doesn't know anything, he's less fit than me,
he doesn't take an interest in any sort of outdoorsy
or going out kind of thing, he's truly a homebody,
he just likes to quote unquote chill at home.
Literally, every time I asked him at the apartment,
(19:50):
oh, what are you doing?
I would be watching the World Cup on my computer
or I'd be working on a gingerbread house
or I'd be actively doing something,
and Arthur's response to this question was always,
oh, I'm just chilling, no, I'm just chilling,
just chilling, I'm just chilling, oh my God,
(20:12):
you are so boring.
There was this one afternoon on another day
when he didn't quote unquote just chill
and did quote unquote work out at home,
carrying heavy jugs of water back and forth
from his room to the living room and back,
breathing in and out heavily.
I was just sitting in the living room
(20:33):
trying not to watch this.
By the fourth day, I was really over it
and I was really losing my shit.
I really couldn't take the clinginess, friendship
incompatibility, awkwardness, misconceptions,
and discomfort any longer.
But I didn't wanna spoil the rest of the trip
(20:54):
as much as I could because Arthur and I
were still going to be spending a couple of days together
in a German-style village in Washington called Leavenworth
that I really wanted to see for the Christmas season.
So I held in my bottled emotions
and I tried my best to hide them, which spoiler alert,
(21:14):
I totally failed at that on the morning of the fourth day.
I tried to suppress the annoyance that I had.
I remember Arthur had told me on the very first day
that he had taken his mom's bottle of red wine
from the kitchen somewhere and hid it in his closet
before I arrived in Washington,
which, okay, taking your mom's wine and not telling her
(21:39):
is smooth.
Since Arthur knew that I liked to drink wine,
but he didn't personally drink any alcohol
because of a family history of alcoholism,
so I couldn't drink with him.
It was 10 in the morning on this fourth day
and we had to prepare for this drive to Leavenworth.
With me driving, again, noted,
(22:00):
I tried to avoid making direct contact with Arthur
that morning as much as I could.
And I managed to sneak that bottle of red wine
out from the closet, took a glass from the kitchen,
went into the bathroom with the door closed
to start putting on makeup and start getting ready,
and I started drinking that wine just so I could calm down.
(22:23):
And after I had to open the door,
Arthur soon realized that something was up.
I had gotten two glasses of wine in my system by that point
that he had approached me and asked to talk to me.
We went into his bedroom and we talked.
I was pissed and the wine helped me just let everything out.
(22:43):
I exploded.
The very first thing I did was point my finger at him,
cornered him, and I said in the coldest, most serious,
pissiest tone that I ever had in a while,
Arthur, do not fucking touch me.
You get away from me now.
And that's a side of me
that I know most people have never witnessed
(23:04):
because it's very rare that someone pushes me to that limit,
but this occasion was one of those.
I was not playing and I was so done.
I really felt so mean.
I said so many things that I can't repeat
because I don't remember now,
but they were not nice things.
(23:24):
I criticized how boring Arthur was
and how he didn't know anything about anything,
all of the reasons I never liked him and why I never would,
that it was ridiculous how he didn't have
his driver's license and didn't have an interest
in getting it whatsoever,
and how there were so many misunderstandings between us.
Matters only became worse
(23:45):
and he didn't help his case at all whatsoever.
When I learned more about his living situation
with his parents early on, and I never tried to judge,
I really tried to understand,
but after I learned what I'm about to share,
I totally did judge.
I had known before coming to Washington
(24:08):
that Arthur didn't have a job.
I didn't know the reason.
I thought his parents have health problems, which they did,
and that he didn't work
because he served as their primary caretaker,
but actually, no, that's not the reason
why he didn't have a job.
Arthur told me, oh, I had a job before COVID,
(24:30):
and then I couldn't work after COVID because I got laid off,
and then I just got lazy and I didn't get another job.
Oh, yikes.
That was probably one of the most unattractive,
frustrating things of everything that he said
during that whole trip.
That infuriated me more than this podcast episode
(24:54):
can truly encompass.
This characteristic of laziness and lack of ambition
were not and are not what I needed from people in my life.
Again, no driver's license or desire to even learn
how to drive a car for any emergency,
especially in his parents' case
when he couldn't drive them to the ER.
(25:16):
He can't help them.
No passport.
You live very close to Canada,
and you can't even go to Vancouver
because you don't have a passport.
You aren't actively seeking out employment
because you got comfortable and you are lazy.
At the time that this story happened,
I also was living at home temporarily with my grandparents,
but the difference was that I was actively trying
(25:39):
to get out of there,
and I was working towards doing that purposefully
with the full intention to move out that following year.
And what is Arthur doing,
not aiming higher and just sitting on his ass?
It became even more apparent
that this was just not my kind of person friend-wise
or acquaintance-wise,
and partner-wise was already way out of the question.
(26:02):
I don't wanna surround myself with people like you
who don't want more in life,
who don't wanna constantly strive to be better,
and I told Arthur all of this.
Arthur had the wrong idea all along,
but in his defense, I am very much to blame.
I wasn't transparent or explicit enough
(26:22):
in making sure that he understood
that we were only just friends
and all we ever would be was friends.
It does sound unusual for a girl
to fly across the entire country
to visit a guy who is only a friend,
but the thing is, I saw the whole trip
as an opportunity to see Seattle anyway
(26:44):
since I had always wanted to go,
and I thought, well,
it's a good opportunity to see it now
if I also know someone who lives close to there
and who is a good friend who I can see it with,
or so I thought was a good friend.
I mean, in my past life,
I used to travel to other countries for the weekend alone,
(27:05):
so to me, it's not that unusual.
Arthur started a trend where we would message each other
and call each other lovey,
and I would call it back to him
since I didn't think much of it at the time,
and thought, oh, it's just a silly pet name, whatever,
but Arthur thought it was more than that.
I should have watched my words more carefully
(27:27):
and been more vividly clear that it means nothing
and that there is nothing between us.
He misinterpreted my other messages to him in the past
since at the time, I was in my dating season
and was seeing a number of guys who I would tell him about,
and whenever a guy didn't work out,
I would tell Arthur,
yeah, so-and-so didn't work out,
(27:49):
I can't wait for our time together,
but I meant as friends.
Arthur interpreted that statement as not friends.
If I like someone,
I make it damn obvious that I like that person.
I make it known that I really like you
and that I'm interested in you,
and I never once did that for a second with Arthur.
(28:10):
All of these are my bad, my mistakes,
my reasons for getting into this mess in the first place.
I was, of course, angry at Arthur,
but I was also especially angry at myself,
thinking, how could I allow myself
to have had and kept a friend like this?
I thought I knew who this person was.
(28:31):
I thought Arthur would have been as sweet
and supportive of a person as he was online.
In terms of his personality,
Arthur was perfect in terms of listening,
being emotionally available,
and being a good support system,
but I realized that that's about where it ended.
In terms of interest, how to spend time,
(28:53):
what to do, clothing style, ambition,
zest for life, zest for travel, fulfillment,
none of those other things were there.
That fourth day, that conversation slash confrontation
in Arthur's bedroom went on for about two hours,
and I really felt sorry for his dad
having to hear all of this from the other room,
(29:13):
thinking that I must be some crazy whack job girl,
and it was basically just me bitching at
and criticizing him, and unsurprisingly,
the rest of the trip was really awkward after that.
We went to Leavenworth, the German-style village,
and it was a bust.
It was really bad.
I would have been much better going there on my own.
(29:36):
Arthur was just this constant cloud of darkness,
negativity, like this cloud of depressiveness
that constantly held me down like chains around my neck
everywhere I walked around in this beautiful village.
I was just thinking, I can't have fun here.
You're so mopey, so black, so, ah, I hate it.
(29:58):
We walked around the town of Leavenworth,
and I drove us into there with my rental car that I got.
We went around and barely said anything to each other.
We walked into whatever bar was open,
and because he didn't drink,
he couldn't drink anything with me.
So I ordered myself something,
and he just sat next to me
with this mopey, depressive expression
(30:19):
looking down at the ground the entire time.
We had to stay in this beautiful place that I booked
because I couldn't get a refund at that point,
and he had to join me since that was the plan all along.
So having to share another room with Arthur
was just so uncomfortable every second,
and it was just worse and worse with every passing minute.
(30:42):
Then by the fifth day,
the awkwardness and unhappiness got even worse.
Arthur and I left Leavenworth.
We got in the car.
I drove us to see Snoqualmie Falls,
which is the biggest waterfall in Washington state,
and therefore is very popular to see.
I was just really pissed, and I'm thinking, what the hell?
(31:03):
I rented a car, I'm driving us around.
To be honest, this should be you driving.
This should be you recommending places.
This should be you taking more initiative and interest.
You came so fucking unprepared as a host.
You did other things right, and I appreciate those things,
but this one, you failed at,
(31:23):
and this was the more important thing, at least to me.
Arthur attempted to break the ice and awkwardness in the car
by asking would-you-rather questions,
and I was just not having it.
So I just answered in the most bland way I could
and turned up the volume of my music,
and I just did not care.
(31:44):
Even at the falls, it was so awkward
because we were literally not speaking to each other.
We were literally standing on two sides of the falls alone,
looking at this beautiful waterfall,
but feeling the tension and awkwardness in the air,
and that sucked.
We went into a random Starbucks after seeing the falls,
sat down, and I didn't hold back and said,
(32:06):
I am so pissed at you.
I wanna end this friendship.
I am getting a hotel tonight in Seattle, and I'm leaving.
I never wanna see you again.
And yes, I really said this to his face.
I didn't know and still don't know
that Mary Grace can be mean either until this trip happened,
and that is exactly what I did.
(32:27):
I booked a random hotel in Seattle on short notice
for my last night there since I couldn't rebook
an earlier flight back home to Georgia
with the change fee being $300
and just not being worth it, frankly.
When Arthur and I got back to Bothell,
we returned the rental car,
and I tried to be friendly with Arthur
(32:48):
in front of the rental car reps
to not publicize these negative feelings
and make it seem like something was wrong.
But once we got back to the apartment,
we had one other long conversation.
Basically, the same one again saying what he did wrong,
what he should improve on, why I will never like him,
and that I'm extremely sorry
(33:09):
for being this rude-ass mean bitch
for saying all that I'm saying, but that I need to say it.
I told him that I understood truly what it was like
to be on the receiving end of this,
to feel so bad for not living up
to someone else's expectations
and being rejected by a crush for not being better.
If you're listening to this
and you've heard the dating episode,
(33:30):
I'm referring here to Mr. Bright and Handsome.
Arthur pretty much took all of my anger and honesty
and said that this was just what he needed to hear,
that he needed this sort of reality check
and pushback from someone who wasn't family.
And the fact that I would go back to Georgia
and we wouldn't cross paths again
(33:51):
made this a stepping stone for him
to get his life more together
and to start striving for something in baby steps.
I got all of my shit,
packed up my suitcases after that last conversation,
and I left.
I took a 40-minute, $75 Uber to my hotel in Seattle,
which was ridiculous, but gosh, I had to do it.
(34:14):
I got to this mediocre hotel, which was super random
and kinda even run down a little bit, but I didn't care.
I felt so happy and so free again.
I just spent the rest of my day
watching episodes of The Office,
filmed a couple of videos,
and went to a 7-Eleven down the street for food and coffee,
(34:34):
and that was that.
I left Seattle on that sixth and very next day.
The moral of this story is that I ended
this eight-year virtual friendship.
Arthur and I deleted each other's numbers
and social media access.
I let Arthur know that I got to the Seattle hotel safely
since he asked me to do that, and I did.
(34:56):
That was the end of us ever speaking,
and I wasn't sad in the sense
that I knew what I did was right
in recognizing how this person didn't serve me anymore
like he did when we were teenagers talking on the internet,
but I did admittedly feel that pinch of sadness
in that things had to end so bitterly and awkwardly
(35:18):
because to this day, I don't and never did think
that he is a bad person.
Everyone has their seasons of weakness, of being low,
myself included.
I was unbelievably harsh with him.
I did tell him out of anger and frustration at the time
that although I wished him the best,
no matter how he changed,
(35:39):
no matter if he became successful, richer, more generous,
more attractive, more whatever,
that I still wouldn't change my opinion about him.
I think that on my part,
I was definitely much too hateful and consumed
in my own ego when I said that.
Wherever Arthur is now,
I do hope that he did use my words wisely
(36:01):
and started looking for employment opportunities
and started creating goals
to be a better version of himself
and maybe even found someone better suited for him than me.
I wish that I would have been more transparent with Arthur
about what I expect in a friend and friendship back then.
I should have reminded him
(36:21):
that we were only friends, nothing more.
Because in those eight years
that we knew and spoke to each other,
there was another time or two years ago
when he crushed on me
and when I told him that I don't like you,
but he had had the hope that things would change
after a certain amount of time passed.
(36:42):
I should have read deeper into that possibility
and that previous history.
You can never truly know someone
until you see them in person and even FaceTime,
which Arthur and I had many FaceTime calls,
never could help us truly see or realize
who we really were as people in reality off the internet.
(37:03):
The end of 2022, looking back,
was the right time to call things off
on this friendship with Arthur anyway,
because not too long afterwards into 2023, I met Marco.
Even if I had continued to remain friends with Arthur,
that whole dynamic of having Marco more permanently
in the picture would have eventually exacerbated
(37:25):
a neutral friendship with Arthur anyway.
All worked out for the best.
I hope that you enjoyed today's episode
of the Seattle and Washington friendship breakup story
and that you feel more encouraged to revisit
and evaluate your own friendships, situationships,
or whatever in your life that don't serve you
or that you feel you could thrive better without
(37:47):
and make an effort to resolve
during these last few weeks of 2024.
If you'd like to share your thoughts or comments
about your own friendship breakup experiences with me,
please send me a message on Instagram
at either Mary Grace Crawford
or on the podcast account at onceuponatrip.pc.
(38:08):
And of course, please share this episode
with any friends or family who you think
could use a little more travel story entertainment
in their busy days leading up to this holiday season.
Thank you really so much for tuning in
and for sticking all the way through if you're still here.
I look forward to being back here with you next Tuesday
for another fun, adventurous trip of an episode.
(38:32):
설기감사 하세영
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