She and I were very close platonic friends in high school, it was actually kind of unique because the person I had a big crush on started dating the person she had a big crush on, and well misery loves company and things got kinda toxic and emo for a few months there while the dust settled on our disintegrating group of friends.

Anyway I then got addicted to opioids, dropped out of college, and fell off the face of the Earth for several years, losing contact with all of my close friends. All of them reached out to me at some point only for me to rebuff them at every turn because I was too ashamed and insecure about my condition to let them see me like that.

She actually came to me at one of my lowest points in person trying to help just after I dropped out of college. What did I do? I told her I’m a ticking time bomb, I told her that she should not continue to have emotional investment in our friendship nor my well being because I’m just going to be dead soon anyway, and that she’d be smart to stay away from me because I’m not worth mourning.

Those were the last words I spoke to her for seven years.

But I got clean from full agonist opioids eventually, and slowly my emotions have returned one by one. I’ve worked through my insecurities, and finally feel I’ve matured into adulthood. So I finally decided to get around to the apologizing-to-people-I’ve-wronged-while-high part of getting sober, and she’s absolutely one of them. Can’t say I wasn’t partially inspired to do this by Blitz’s apology tour in Helluva Boss.

So I reached out to her over email with my apology for all that dark shit I said to her that day. Updated her on my situation, letting her know I’m still alive and doing so much better these days, and I asked if she’d like to catch up.

Well, she accepted my apology, and enthusiastically agreed to catch up, offering to do so in person. So I invited over to my place to do so over some hot tea, and she said that sounds great! Unfortunately she now lives about 35 minutes away, but says it’s no big deal because she drives here often to see her family and some of her friends.

But after I apologized, we really hit it off, and we started texting up a storm, and we’ve caught up a whole bunch already. Turns out she has lots of free time because she’s unemployed too right now after having just as shitty a string of job luck as I did last year. But unlike my totally uncredentialed ass, she actually has a college degree and good work experience in her field, and not even she’s getting any bites from porky right now.

We’ve basically been talking again as if we picked up where our friendship left off before I derailed it, and that was years and years ago. She says she’s coming to see me sometime in the next week. After how well we hit it off I’m actually now considering asking her on a non-platonic date if all goes well on this platonic one we’re about to have.

Is that a bad idea? Is it weird? I feel like maybe that’s too sudden, but I finally feel mature and mentally healthy enough to seriously pursue relationships for the first time in my life, and that I should make those intentions clear as soon as possible if I decide to ask her out after seeing her again. I also really relate to her a lot, we’re both unapologetically neurodivergent! Oh and she also thinks the UHC CEO had it coming! Mostly I ask because I’ve actually never asked anyone out before and have no idea what I’m doing.