I posted a few weeks or so ago about how, being extremely lonely, I googled an old schoolfriend of mine, James, and found him on youtube, we messaged each other and then I told him about my health issues, and how lonely I am trapped at home with no social life and how I’d love to see him again and he never responded after that. I was left feeling extremely embarrassed, I cringe every time I think about it. From my point of view I was reconnecting with an old friend but after this I realised that from his point of view someone he hadn’t heard from in 20 years suddenly messaged him out of the blue and then trauma dumped all their problems on him. Still, I thought it was unkind of him not to respond after I’d told him how depressing my life is and how I need a friend, especially after we’d been very close at school to the point of him even spending most weekends at my house.

Since then, every time I’ve thought of this incident I have internally cringed and burned with shame, and wished I could take it back. It has really played on my mind so I’ve been thinking about him a lot, and it has made me see him in a new light. I’d always remembered him fondly, but after his lack of response showed me he doesn’t care about me at all, I can’t help but remember all the unkind and selfish things he’d done before, things I either didn’t notice before or tried to ignore and I realise now he actually isn’t even a kind person and never cared about any of us (schoolfriends) at all.

I also realise now that he’s a wealthy person from a very privileged and well-connected family in a rich town, and came to our school to slum it with the proles. His home town is an hour’s drive away and I never really thought about why he came to do his A-Levels here in our town, becoming a lodger in a local family’s house during term time weekdays so he could attend. We knew his mum was the Mayor of S----- but I’d never been to S----- and knew nothing about it. The rest of us were so poor we couldn’t even afford to buy a bus ticket and had to walk over two miles to school no matter the weather, but as soon as James turned 17 he got driving lessons and his own car. I never really though about it at the time but his parents of course paid for all that. And now I realise he was always flaunting his wealth, his car, his expensive jewellery, fancy clothes, brand new electronic equipment, all the latest newest things that the rest of us didn’t have.

He would often brag about his mum being the Mayor of S-----. His family owned multiple businesses, had connections with important people, his father was some high up councillor etc. So why would he come to some poor deprived town an hour away to do his A-Levels? I realise now he wanted to experience slumming it with the proles. He was tired of his fancy privileged life and wanted to experience how the other half live, safe in the knowledge that it was temporary and he’d never actually end up living like us for real. Just like the girl in Common People by Pulp!

And I see now that he didn’t care about our struggles at all. My family fell apart, my father abandoned us and didn’t send any money, we lost our house and eventually managed to find a new home. My mother said I could invite some friends for a housewarming party. I invited my schoolfriends, including James. The house had this electric grill that was all shiny and new. When James saw it, he was determined that we use it for the party and grill some food. My mother was hesitant to allow it as she didn’t want it getting ruined but James promised he’d take care of it and clean it up afterwards. In fact, James trashed it. He even poured some fucking petrol on it “to make the flames higher.” At the time I just thought he was an idiot who didn’t understand not to put petrol on a grill, now I see that he just wanted the fun of trashing a house party and didn’t care how it affected us. The grill was totally ruined and he never apologised or tried to clean it. We actually needed that grill to cook our meals on and he left it unusable and didn’t care. I asked him to pay towards repairs and he refused.

At the time I had two groups of friends, my schoolfriends, and a group from another town who came to our local nightclub each week. I and a few others had befriended them and started visiting them in their hometown, but they were even poorer and lower down the social scale than us (like some of them living in social care rather than with their families, being homeless, couchsurfing, etc), and James would have nothing at all to do with them. Wouldn’t even say hello to them in the club and never wanted to come and visit them. James wanted to slum it with the proles but these people were just too lowly.

One day, one of these friends, Dave, committed suicide. His life was just too hard, too shit and he had no hope and there just wasn’t enough social care available to change things for him. To those of us who’d been his friends, it was a huge and devastating shock, but James actually tried to benefit from this. James wanted to go to a party but he had a lot of homework to do. He decided to forget the homework and go to the party, and said that if his teacher complained he hadn’t done it he was going to say that his friend had just died tragically and he was grieving so had been unable to do the homework. I asked him, “Had you ever even spoken to Dave?” And he said, “Uh, yeah, I think I said Hi to him once in the club.” He had never cared about Dave at all but now pretended they’d been great friends to benefit from his death.

So I realise now that James never cared about any of us. As soon as he’d had his experience of slumming it, he moved back on with his privileged life and never gave any of us a second thought again. In a way it makes me even more embarrassed that I wrote to him asking for his friendship. On the other hand I realise now I haven’t lost anything.

I guess that’s the privilege of money. You can go where you like, have the experiences that you want, safe in the knowledge that when things get too hard or too real you can go back to your rich parents and forget the shitty lives of the proles.