Thank you- this is very helpful. I just have a few follow up questions I'm curious about...

4. What is the main reason students read your newspaper?

"Article idea - the IOC rejected Saudi Arabia's bid to hold the Olympics cuz they wanted to have the men compete in Saudi Arabia and the women in Bahrain."
"Wait seriously?"
"They can't handle women in sportswear. Saudi Arabia only sent like two women athletes to the last Olympics. So they're letting Bahrain handle the women in sportswear."

M: Nancy can I use your salt
N: Yeah go ahead

M: Can i use your pepper too lol
N: Yeah go nuts

M: Can i borrow your can opener
N: Yep

M: Your can opener is killing me

Her: My dad is registered to practice as a engineer in California, Hawaii, Ontario, Florida...
Me: Whoa. Don't those licences expire?
Her: Yeah, but he gets them renewed every time. He collects them!
Me: Most people collect stuff like stamps.
Her: So does he - engineering stamps!

So. it was my birthday, and so I thought it was an excellent occasion to visit Mandy, one of my favourite people, since I hadn't seen her in a while, and it was cool, and she fed me tea and chicken nuggets. Later I realized it was a great time to have that talk with Julie too, since I definitely haven't seen her in a while either. Y'know, the talk where I ask "why fool with my boy" and she would likely go "why not". Or the one where I ask "Any remorse?" and she goes "loads of remorse." (hint: the last one didn't happen, but I hoped it, because then it makes something else would be right in the world. Hope the best of people, eh?)

Alas, it was not meant to be.

Perhaps it was my tone? It was definitely the shirty, "say-the-thing-that-I-know-you'd-say-but-I-want-to-hear-you-say-it-anyways" tone. Didn't even swear. It was obviously difficult for me to maintain a veneer of cordiality and I slipped into the condescending "awww" a few times. That, I should not have done.

Julie was as cool and controlled as the dames that you only read about in hardboiled mystery novels, other than the bit at the beginning where she avoided talking to me despite repeated invitations to "yo, sit down, let's talk, haven't seen you in a while" because a) I wasn't worth it, or b) she just did not want to talk to me. Nearly happened in November too, where she definitely would have prefered that I not visit Mandy at all at their house. I dunno, she knew this was coming. Still, one admires her composure, and I should be grateful that she deigned to speak with me at all.

This is someone who once wrote "Felt kinda bad (again) that [yours truly] didn't find anything, since it's like we went there only for my sake when it's Charles' birthday after all", and once walked me home when I was fall-over drunk, and told me everything was going to be OK. Shit, she even brought me little festively scented shower gels for Christmas once.

Main points -

"Did I do something to you?"

"No"

"Why"

"Didn't want to stop"

"I suppose one can't ask an apology from one who isn't remorseful"

"Nope"

"Do you have something against me?"

"I definitely don't wish you ill."

Maybe the third one has a lawyerspeak in it: maybe, "oh sure I was remorseful but in response to your rhetorical question, nope!" but that takes a certain degree of ignorance that she doesn't have. Or, purposely lawyering it around, but what would that achieve? But it pretty unambiguously translated to "not sorry".

There are other things - yknow, that she might have stepped aside at the end of 2014 because she thought Charles and I could work it through - which ironically makes two whole people in the universe who thought Charles and I had more than a snowball's chance in hell - but that's not how things worked out.

And one understands how blind love is and how it changes one's sense of priorities. I've done immoral things in the pursuit of "love". So in a twisted sense, one empathizes.

Regardless of tone, dang, was it not wrong and maybe should not have been done? "Sorry for banging your boy when you weren't cool with it, it was uncool" too far for her to stoop for me? In Canada, one apologizes for getting one's foot stepped on.

Am I actually the villain of this story? The one intrudes where one isn't welcome and proceeds to look sad and irritably pry into the affairs of others? The one who airs one's dirty laundry on a public post?

It doesn't matter - and I'm sure Julie has her own perspective and rebuttal post on the topic - or perhaps for her it was merely Thursday, and I am but a fly to be swatted away - after that conversation I'd be surprised if I got a mention at all, since I obviously care a lot more about the lack of remorse than she does - and really, she's far more indifferent about me than I am about her - but this is what happened, and it was important for me to ask the questions, and important for me to hear the answers that I mostly already knew, more important than looking bad on the internet - and I'll swear by this account.

All in all, things went exactly as I expected. Unexpectedly, I feel a lot better. Not as good as I would if I had a real, honest-to-god apology - god, it all still hurts so bad, so much - which definitely is not coming now, or ever, and seriously, could I believe one now? (Nope.) But I know more now. Knowledge is good.

[1] Hey there
[1] What's up..

[2] Hi. Why have you answered that the Earth is bigger than the sun?

[1] LOL
[1] Bcz still I didn't go to sun
[1] R u in Scarbrough

[1] hmm
[1] in high school, were you one of those "I'm going to be foreveralone" types
[1] because if so then this is actually quite amusing
[2] yeah, i'm compensating.