1. Since it is useless to indirectly quote each other back and forth, I am now going to take everything you’ve said and analyze it, hopefully to draw some light on why I think that you, Chiban, are wrong. Let me first say that the emotional factor is no issue this time around. Although I was a little salty about the rudeness of the whole situation, I’ve decided to ignore it because I think this is a great debate and will be educational for the both of us - which is something I would have expected you to initiate correctly the first time around. Nevertheless… I am high as shit on painkiller medications from my dental surgery and since I can’t smoke or drink for a week, I figure I’ll take this time out to point out how I believe you are wrong as well as brush up on my writing skills for the upcoming school semester. <br />Let’s start back to when you contacted me in the first place. I was on the way home, about to blaze, when you called me, telling me that you had to talk to me about something. So I turned around and went to your house almost immediately. You began by saying first, “ This is hard for me to say… I don’t like you…” which I find very bizarre because usually we don’t ask people we don’t like to drive to our houses just so that we can declare our dislike for them (sounds like something a strange English child would do). A normal person will usually just continue to live his or her life, blissfully ignorant of the lives of those they don’t like. Also, I believe we have too much history of like for each other to have it all end on some unprovoked, out of the blue exchange of words between us. Therefore, instead of simply the feeling of “dislike”, I’d like you to instead consider different, possibly more appropriate feelings you could have replaced that word with, perhaps saying “I disagree with you” or “I think that your swag is not on point.” Anything along those lines would have furthered your point more effectively. Fair enough?<br />After that initial phrase, you continued, saying, “…you are highly insecure… you are also highly motivated…”. These statements by themselves I have no problem with, as any good man wouldn’t be insulted by either of those statements, which is why I responded by saying that I felt the same about you and also thanked you for being honest at the very least. <br />The juxtaposition of those two phrases, however, given the context that you were trying to express some sort of vague dislike for me is very strange, and I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it. Therefore, I will not try to derive any definitive meaning from this initial exchange of words, alluding to the fact that you explained later via text message that you regret not elaborating - which ALSO brings up the fact that everything you said then and there was unsupported and without evidence. There were no specific examples mentioned nor was there any attempt to even remotely explain your reasoning. This leads me to consider this incident as inconclusive regarding anything of actual substance that you said to me because of the bizarreness of your first phrase and the obviousness of your second phrase. <br />In this exchange I believe you are wrong because:<br />1. I don’t think you were entirely truthful in saying that you disliked me, the circumstances surrounding this incident were too indicative of a different emotion,<br />2. The fact that you brought up two characteristics, although unsupported, about me that no one should outright dislike anyone else for (insecurity, high motivation) contradicts your last statement. <br />Now let us move on to the textual part of the exchange.<br />After you apologizing and then offering to provide a better explanation for the incidents that happened the day before, I decided not to respond to you right away. I was deeply confused and insulted, and I decided to take a chill pill, hoping that I wouldn’t let my emotions get the best of me. You then said “Just some parting advice but I guess ull manage without it. Good luck. Goodbye.” I detect a hint of anger here, perhaps maybe at yourself for letting the situation get to this point and also perhaps maybe at the realization that everything you just did was slightly moronic. I could be wrong… Nevertheless, this statement, although rude, wasn’t wrong. However, I decided to entertain your condescending statement by saying, ‘Don’t condescend to me. Don’t judge me. I don’t need your advice because you think I do. Smh man…” I stand by everything I said here because that’s honestly how I felt and perceived your actions at that time. There’s really no other way I feel that I could have perceived everything you had said and did so I don’t think I’m in the wrong for responding that way. <br />Moving on to your response, “Im not consceding to u. An outside perspective is always helpful I hoped to gain one from u as well. If u don’t want to hear it I completely understand. I just thought an honest exchange of our opinions of each other wud benefit the both of us. If that’s not the case to u then don’t worry about it.”<br />Given the context of the situation, this statement is wrong because here you are implying that I am not open to outside perspectives. If you completely understand why I wouldn’t want you to provide your perspective on me then why did you force feed it to me in the first place? Here, I believe that you are attempting to dilute the idiocy of the previous day’s actions by playing the “thoughtful discussion” card. Me being a thoughtful person, I see nothing wrong with a thoughtful discussion. However, I find that a rude approach will definitely take away from the thoughtfulness of whatever is being done. Once again… I could be wrong….<br />Afterwards, I responded quite emotionally and frantically saying, “Try not to burn anymore bridges chibs. And remember that it really really sucks to lose a good friend. Trust me on that one.” To which you responded, “ I try not to burn bridges, but I mostly do what I feel is best and hope. Good relationships are mutually beneficial and I feel ours had become the opposite. My opinion, and I admit its based on guesswork and distant observation, but its that u need to develop ur sense of self, find all of u and become comfortable in ur skin. U were getting no nearer to that by hanging around me. U were beginning to treat a personal journey as a race and that helps no one. I cud be totally off, but that was my assessment.” Let me begin by remarking “WHOA where the hell was that statement when we were talking face to face?”. I’m also quite disappointed in your following statement, “I mostly do what I feel is best and hope.” You are not very unique in saying that and I hope you weren’t trying to prove your rightness in saying that. (your trying to say that I do the worst I can and mope??) you then talk about mutually beneficial relationships, as if we had some type of nice thing going. As far as I can recall, the relationship between me and you has always been tipped towards the scale of your favor. <br />I don’t know why, but I remember having no problem dropping everything I was doing on a cold winters day, just to pick u up when your car battery died. You’d rather call me for that than your mother I’m pretty sure. I also remember doing things like turning my car around just to pick u up when me and three other people had just pulled up into the neighborhood of a person’s house where we were all trying to chill at. I think I remember your reasoning for that was “it’s not a big deal” and ‘you’re my mans… c’mon”. I’m not saying I’m blown that I did these things for you, but rather, I did it out of respect for our long history of friendship. Think back to a few days before this incident happened, who was that guy that picked you up from your house, dropped ten bucks on a dime bag, and proceeded to smoke you up? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Henry. <br />I digress, the fact that you even had the audacity to bring up the term “mutually beneficial” in regards to our friendship is only supported by your assertion that our friendship wasn’t benefiting the both of us. If you ask me, it was mostly benefiting you. I’m not going to sit here and go through my memory for everything we’ve done for each other but if it was measured by points, I think I’d be in the lead… JUST SAYING. <br />This is besides the point, but I’m glad you brought it up. <br />You then continued by saying that I needed to find myself, and become more comfortable in my own skin, and develop my sense of self. All fair statements and good pieces of advice… I commend you for saying these things and only ask that you strive to do the same for yourself in the future. (isn’t this how the conversation was supposed to sound?)<br />However, you then said that I was treating this personal journey like a race. To be fair, I never remembered signing up for anything advertised as “a personal journey” and if I was to ever improve myself, who would I be racing? Myself? Not to get off the point, but didn’t a certain someone declare to the world that he was disowning his previous self and transforming into the entity known as ‘Boku”? Who am I addressing here? Boku? Or Chiban? Is Boku beating Chiban in this transformational race? It’s pretty confusing stuff man… and I hope one day you can explain to me how I am treating my life as a race and you aren’t. I’ve been pretty much doing the same thing for about 3 years now and I can rattle it off the top of my head in no particular order: weed, college, occasional blowjobs, lots of alcohol, lots of xbox, and supporting my family. And if you ask me… I’m perfectly cool with that, it keeps me from going off the deep end. Sure there are insecurities and doubts along the way… but that’s why it feels so good to succeed my friend! Moving on to my response, “You just might have something of value to say. But you really just went about it in the most tasteless way possible and came off as a colossal douche bag. Based on my observation of you, you are in no position to tell anyone else what they are. But you’ve went ahead and done it anyway. Hope you feel more secure. As far as insecurities go, I think this whole incident makes you look extremely insecure. You seem to hate a lot of things that you undoubtedly are. Smh…”<br />Here’s my frustration getting the best of me. I thought that these little jabs would mean something to you coming from me but I realize that by trying to attack you on a personal level, I am showing a weaker side of myself. Again, it was the frustration getting the best of me. I was wrong in saying that you are in no position to tell anyone else what they are because, I mean… c’mon dude… ur a freaking genius! Ok I apologize for the sarcasm there but I’m just being honest… would you let me tell you that your life is a miserable grain of dust and that there would need to be some changes in your life in order for you to succeed? Would you even buy any of that crap? I think not… so put yourself in my shoes. <br />I still stand by my last statements after that, mostly because I believe that insecure people do irrational social experiments in the hope that they can cement some kind of power based identity but that’s a different story. <br />Ok home stretch here, my high is wearing off, my teeth are aching like fuck and it’s 10:24 AM. I can do this…<br />Here’s your response to what I had just said, “Id rather be honest and sound like a douchbag than lie or baby u and sound nice. I do regret not elaborating bcuz now rather than hearing my reasoning for my words ur left to ur own devices and based on ur texts ur understanding of my motives are pretty inaccurate. Its interesting that u say based on ur observation of me im in no position to tell someone what they are. that’s essentially u telling me what I am, tho uve provided no detail or reason for the discredit. You don’t have to be in some position of moral authority to have an opinion about someone. I am very happy with the person I am. Im not the best everything but I have my strengths, and weaknesses as well. There r areas where u outshine me and I outshine u and that’s fine. that’s the case with virtually every human ive met and that’s how its supposed to be. And I don’t hate anything that I am. Id be curious to hear any example of that. This was simply recognizing negativity and deciding not to allow it in.”<br />Okay, take a deep breath here, because this statement right here brings you into a full circle of confusion. Starting with your first sentence about how you’d rather be honest and sound like a douchbag than lie or baby u and sound nice. I’m not saying you have to baby me, but you have to admit, there are definitely better ways of getting your point across than combining the one two punch of “douchbag” and “honest”. Why don’t you settle for “subjective” and honest? Or perhaps maybe even just “honest”, that works too. Not a wrong statement, but definitely unnecessary. You say that my understanding of your motives are inaccurate. Youre damn right! You’ve pretty much made about as much sense as a jack Kerouac novel here because your statements have been everywhere. You’re ignorant and short sighted one second, you appeal to the virtues of thoughtful debate the next second, you contradict yourself numerous times. What are you? The bible? Just saying man…<br />Moving on, you say that I am contradicting myself because by telling you that you are in no position to judge others, I am doing exactly that. You may be right, I may be wrong, the truth is however, that we are both guilty of that in this whole discussion, and as far a as my opinion is concerned, two wrongs don’t make a right. You also added that I’ve included no evidence to support this “discredit”. And to that I say you’ve included no evidence to your claims that I am insecure and highly motivated… although I agree. I like your word choice here but honestly, there’s nothing to “discredit“, you would have had to have done something significant in order to take the credit for it and there’s no credit in opinions sir. However, you then say that there are areas where we outclass each other. This is true, but I fail to see how this justifies you taking crude measures to deliver crushing opinion based ultimatums on my existence. If there are areas that we need to improve on then so be it!! Get better and move on! Nice try however…<br />You then ask for an example of how you’ve shown hate for yourself and I’ve got a few. <br />-drunken ramblings wherein you repeatedly call yourself an “idiot” and saying that “all hope is lost”. much to the chagrin of people like myself, raina, and others. (it happened..)<br />-the whole “I am boku” transformation. What happened to Chiban? He was aight… This shows hate for yourself by attempting not better yourself, but instead, create a whole new identity. <br />CONCLUSION<br />All in all, I have spent about 3 hours composing this letter because I liked our friendship, and would hate to see it dissolve so mysteriously. I firmly believe in my heart that you had something valuable and helpful to say, I just believe that it was masked by your negativity and bitterness. If you think that you have really, truly, affected someone for the better through words of wisdom and encouragement in this incident you are incorrect sir, for it was all negated by your poor attitude and demeaning tone. If you believe still, that you were correct in your approach and in the content of your words, then please, reply. <br />Show me that I’m wrong in trying to show you that YOURE wrong. Prove to me how correct you are. Until then, I have no choice but to say that I was fair to you by the best of my abilities in writing this. THAT… is the degree of conviction to which I write this letter. Because I am Alex… and you are Chiban. Neither of us is right. Neither of us is wrong. And that’s the damn truth. <br />I’ll do you one better. You admit that you’re wrong for initiating this debate incorrectly and I’ll personally buy you any bottle of alcohol of your choice, provided that we both drink it and forget about this terrible terrible incident. Till then… ur dead to me…<br />Sincerely, your oldest 2011 homie,<br />Alexander K. Hong<br />