Content Warnings: Emotional abuse, racism, academic stress
Dear Stranger,
How’ve you been? I hope you’ve been well. If not, that’s okay too. This week has been up and down for me. Right now, my thoughts are just consuming me. I’m really close friends with this boy. He’s usually sweet, but for the past week, he’s been really moody, saying small comments that hurt behind closed doors, ones that I laugh off in the moment, but stay up thinking about until midnight.
I love my parents, but they have their flaws, like how they have very traditional values in some aspects, though it’s nothing harmful. This week, my friend told me that I’m ‘white washed’ because I don’t follow traditional Japanese culture in American society, yet he still argues that my parents are too ‘traditional’. He commented how ‘americanized’ I am, but I was born in America: I speak Japanese and know my culture a bit more than the average person, only because my parents lived there. Just because I like wearing certain types of clothes or have some friends who fit the ‘generic white girl’ stereotype, doesn’t mean I’m ‘white washed’; it just means that I grew up in America and talk to various people. I absolutely despise the fact that he casually insulted my family and my friends.
Whenever we do group work in class, he tries to one up me for some reason. He thinks I’m this ‘genius’, because I’m east Asian, but I’m actually absolutely terrible with memorization and numbers. My grades aren’t that impressive; I just try my best. Physics, along with math, are my worst subjects, and I’m horrible at testing. Whenever I try to ask him for help with something, he just brushes it off, dismissing my problems.
It’s just frustrating because now it feels like he’s just keeping me around because we’ve been friends for 3 years. I’d much rather him let me know that he wants to stop being friends instead of doing all this. Or maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but I just don’t understand, and it’s eating away at me.
Stay safe and love yourselves.
