Hard to swallow as a bone crosswise in the old craw, no doubt, but in the end not that hard to understand how people can believe an inflammatory lie about you if it is confided with passion and great sorrow.

picture the story that destroys your good name among a group of old mutual friends:

“You know how much we all love him, and how long we’ve been close, like family, but something happened to him, something we can’t understand. We’ve told him over and over how sorry we are that he seemed to have been hurt but nothing we say is ever enough to reassure him of our love. He seems determined to fight, to never forgive something that happened TWO YEARS AGO. He remains stuck in his abusive childhood, he’s never been able to trust anybody, or make himself vulnerable enough to accept love. We can’t tell you how many times we tried to make him understand how much we love him. but it’s like talking to a wall. It’s so painful and frustrating, nothing we say or do can get through to him. He insists we’re not listening to him and he’s already told us all this dozens of times. Not once, not twice, believe us if we say many, many times. But it’s never enough, because his father abused him and he can’t recover from that. We even offered to hire a mediator to help him realize how much we love him, but after pretending to be on board, he fought us on this, and you know how he loves to argue, and in the end told us to fuck off. It is one of the most painful things we have ever gone through, to have a friend we’ve loved so long, unfairly treat us like we are dead.”