Pride Can Choke a Friendship

There was this time in the 2nd grade where my best friend, Tom, kept telling me lies, or at least I thought they were lies. He was telling me all these things that would be really cool, but for some reason I thought that it was impossible and so I thought he was making it all up. He insisted that he was telling the truth, but I stubbornly resfused to believe him and I let him know that if he couldn't tell the truth, then I wanted nothing more to do with him.

The next day at recess, I couldn't find my friend anywhere so I walked around until another boy came looking for me. He said that Tom was up at the top of the playground crying and that I should go talk to him. I was taken aback that my friend who had seemed so cool and tough would cry, especially at school. I just nodded at the other boy and started climbing the hill to the top of the playground.

I found Tom sitting on a low cement wall looking down at the ground, eyes still red from crying. Cooly, I walked over to my friend and sat next to him, sayingnothing. After a bit, Tom looked up at me and said, "I'm sorry that I made you mad Erik." It sounded so sincere that I was again taken aback. Why was he apologizing? Maybe he hadn't lied to me at all and I was just being a jerk. I said, "Tom, I was a jerk, I'm sorry for not believing you. That was a dumb reason for me to get mad at you for. Let's be friends again, k?" And that was it; best buds were reunited and I was careful never to let my pride ruin another friendship.