• I miss you!
• I hope you’re doing well.
• We need to catch up!
• I’ve been meaning to call you.

Civil niceties aside, don’t feed me that shit.

You do not miss me. I know when someone misses me because they say it sincerely. Obviously, there are some people who genuinely and legitimately miss me, and I always appreciate hearing it. But I know when it’s complete and utter bullshit. If you never say a single word to me except when you run into me at church or on the street, you don’t miss me. If you hit me up only when you need something, you don’t miss me. If you never bother to text me on my birthday, you damn well do not miss me. Obviously I appreciate hearing it, but only when you mean it. Saying it just because you think I want you to say it makes me feel trashy; I feel like I’m standing on the side of the freeway with a cardboard sign that says “I wish someone missed me” and you’re giving me a sympathy I miss you because you feel like you owe me something. You don’t owe me anything.

Saying you hope I’m doing well is the only sentence I want to hear from most people. You hope I’m doing well. This is the best because even if you don’t mean it, there’s a sense of honesty that comes with it. You hope. Because you sure as hell don’t know. Knowing would imply that you actually bother to care what’s going on in my life. Saying you hope I’m doing well, whether it’s sincere honesty or completely falsified bullshit, is the only thing you’re allowed to say to me. But don’t say it if it’s obvious that you couldn’t give a shit either way. You don’t owe me that. You don’t owe me anything.

I hate when people say we need to catch up after not saying a word to me for an entire school quarter, or longer. If we haven’t talked in two or three weeks, a month even, then yes, we need to catch up. If we actually have conversation and you bother to stay informed on the happenings in my life, then yes, we need to catch up. But if you’re saying five words to me for the first time in almost three months, they sure as shit better not be we need to catch up. We do not need to catch up. We do not need to catch anything. You don’t owe me anything.

I only believe that people say that they’ve been meaning to call you if they need to catch up with you, or tell you something urgently. In which case, they’ll proceed to tell me what they were calling for, or they’ll make plans to arrange when they can tell me what they were calling for. But don’t say you’ve been meaning to call me if you’ve never even shot me a text message since the last time you talked to me, which was most likely ages ago. But I will say that I prefer saying you meant to call me than lying and saying that you called and I didn’t answer. Because that would be some bullshit. If I see that I have a missed call, I’ll return it within twenty-four hours, unless I truly honestly did not see it. But I don’t delete calls, so I will literally whip out my phone and check for your missed call. So don’t try and be polite by saying you meant to call me if it’s blatanly obviously that you didn’t. You don’t owe me your friendship, I don’t require it from you. You don’t owe me anything.

You don’t.