On the limits of Covid forgiveness

I was sad that an old friend had cut me off. Then he suggested we get together - without apologizing or even acknowledging what he had done. I'm not sad anymore.

Of all the friendships Covid cost me, this one hurt the most.

In May 2021 — not coincidentally, the peak of mRNA vaccine hubris — an old and good friend of mine told me we couldn’t talk anymore.

My aggressive questioning of the shots and my appearances on Fox conflicted with his “values,” he emailed me. “This makes it very difficult for me to maintain an active relationship at present. I hope this is temporary.”

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(I lost a friend, gained the truth. Not the trade I wanted, but I’d do it again in a second.)

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I emailed back with a defense that’s held up better than I could have imagined:

My concerns about the vaccines are fact-based and grounded in data; they are not conspiracy theories about shedding or prions. I don’t believe the risk-benefit analysis for these vaccines makes sense outside people at the highest risk; I certainly don’t believe they make sense for children or young adults.

I have not been vaccinated, Jackie has not been vaccinated, and we agree that our kids will NEVER be vaccinated with the current group of vaccines. (They have all received their standard immunizations on the standard schedule.)

I am going to continue to raise the questions I have as loudly as possible until I see them answered. I know that I speak for millions of people (many more than my official Twitter following), and I believe history will vindicate me, possibly quite soon. If I am wrong, so be it. There will be no shortage of people to tell me so.

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Obviously, I felt his judgment deeply.

Still, in a short second email, I added a more personal note, trying to find some common ground or at least protect the relationship our families had:

I can respect if your feelings about me are so strong that you don’t think we can be close friends anymore - at least for the time being. I wish you felt differently, but I understand.

However, the implication [of your email] is that I am so toxic that you and [your wife] want nothing to do not just with me but with our family, even casually. I hope that I am misunderstanding…

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I wasn’t misunderstanding.

And his decision not to “maintain an active relationship” wasn’t temporary.

I didn’t hear from him after Twitter banned me. Nor after the Omicron wave filled hospitals and demonstrated that the mRNAs had failed. Nor after I sued Twitter and forced it to reinstate me.

Then, in January 2023, I turned 50, and for the first time in almost two years, I heard from my friend, a brief birthday greeting.

Great, I thought. Covid was finally behind us. If my friend didn’t fully agree with me, he could at least see that many of concerns were vindicated. And if I had been provocative and abrasive at times, I had done my best to get to the truth. He was opening the door, and I’d take the invitation.

I texted back immediately, asking after him and his family.

And heard nothing.

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(Please note timestamps.)

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Nothing in 2023.

Nothing in 2024.

Nothing in 2025. Not a phone call or a text or an email for almost three years. I was still too toxic to rate more than a perfunctory 50th birthday greeting, apparently.

Until Friday night. Turned out we’d both been invited to a mutual friend’s party. So “it might be nice” if we had a drink.

The charitable interpretation of this text is that my friend planned to apologize in person. (What happened next proved this interpretation largely wrong.)

But when I saw these words, my first thought was not, I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

No, my first thought was:

Too late. Sorry, buddy, the warranty on our friendship has expired, you don’t just get to bring it into the shop. You want to fix it? Start with an apology. And you should know that. And the fact you don’t…

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So I responded to him with what was a slightly ambiguous text — and then posted the exchange on X in a way that couldn’t be misunderstood (and sent him the post):

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I went to bed that night wondering if I’d done the right thing — and in the morning found a text that confirmed I had: pissy, sanctimonious, and unapologetic.

See for yourself:

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Observe what this does NOT say:

Hey, jerk, I was planning to tell you I was sorry over a drink, and you went public with it. Nice job. But I am sorry, and we should still get together.

No, he wants us to talk about our feelings — while still reserving the right to judge me: “there are many things you’ve done in your public role that I’ve found deeply upsetting.”

Oh, has my being 100 percent right about lockdowns, school closures, masks, mask mandates, and Covid vaccine mandates — as well as somewhere between mostly and almost entirely right about the mRNAs — upset you, buddy?

Here’s my iPhone. Call someone who cares.

What I wanted was not beta male let’s-talk-about-our-feelings-you’ve-hurt-me-and-I-hurt-you-so-let’s-hug-it-out therapy nonsense. What I wanted was for you to look me in the eyes and apologize.

By the way, whether I was right or wrong about Covid is almost irrelevant, though it isn’t. You cut me AND my family out of your life for my supposed sins.

If you really thought the mRNAs were God’s gift to medicine, you were wrong, and you can apologize for that; if you couldn’t take the pressure of being my friend, you were a coward, and you can apologize for that. If you thought I had a potty mouth, you can… well, I’m not going to say it on here, though I might on X.

And that’s what I told him:

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Welp.

That was that.

He has maintained a dignified (lol) silence. Guess I hurt his feelings and we won’t be “maintain(ing) an active relationship” for the foreseeable future.

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(I want to maintain an active relationship with you, though.)

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But it’s funny. Or not funny. For over four years I mourned this friendship.

Now, seeing his mealy-mouthed non-apology — and then for the first time going back to our emails from 2021 and realizing how hard I tried to preserve some relationship, how I told him I ACCEPTED his concerns about my public stance and simply hoped our families could remain in contact — nah, I’m not mourning anything anymore.

Adios, amigo.