Well, that was easy.

I haven't heard from Sweet Cynic in about a week now, and I'm quite comfortable with that.  In fact, I may be happy.  Granted, he's gone two to three weeks before contacting me before, so I may be celebrating prematurely.  However, he usually only ignores me when he's seeing someone, and as far as I know (though I'm not going to do anything to really verify it), he's single at the moment.  He broke up with the last boyfriend (I knew about) almost two weeks ago.

It's like this, but with
other people's bullshit.

That's why he texted me last weekend, or at least I assume that's why.  He probably needed someone to vent to about his breakup drama, plus he probably wanted me to take him out to a bar (as he doesn't have a car of his own and decided to move clear out to an isolated location with even shittier public transit than they have in the city).  I just wasn't in the mood for it, so I took one last look at the shiny words "hey hey" on my smartphone and deleted them.  Then because I realized that if I stayed home that night (as I had originally planned) I was going to stew in frustration.  So drove to Home Bar and posted a checking announcing I was there "to get out and have fun before I snap," and went on to have a pleasant day.

I'm sure (Not So) Sweet Cynic saw the check-in, and I'm pretty sure why I haven't heard from him since.  He's probably upset and handling it in his usual passive-aggressive way.  Which is fine with me, as it might get me out of the huge drama that will result from me telling him I simply don't see any value (for me, at least) in continuing our friendship.  But I've also pretty much resolved myself to the choice that the next conversation I have with him will result in exactly that.  No more conflict avoidance on this one.

Granted, I'm starting to think I shouldn't expect any drama, at least not much.  Sweet Cynic doesn't often create scenes, at least not directly toward the person he's upset with.  He's more passive-aggressive than that.  He'll rant behind my back.  Or he'll make snarky comments, comments which I can ignore.  Of course, I can just ignore the drama, too.

The one thing I struggle ignoring, though, is comments against my character or my behavior, at least the ones that I think are unjustified or that act like my choices are in someway unjustified.  I immediately want to stand up for myself and not let things like that go unchallenged.  After all, I got tired of rolling over and taking people's abusive attempts to force a sense of guilt on me for actually trying to look out for myself.

However, I'm starting to learn that sometimes, standing up for yourself actually takes the form of walking away and not replying to the criticisms, attacks, and mischaracterizations.  Sometimes, walking away with an attitude of "I don't have to defend myself from your vitriol because you're just being an ass" is a matter of respecting myself, even if the other person doesn't interpret my actions that way.

But that's one I'm still working on fully internalizing.