How Do I Salvage a Relationship When I’ve Been a Bad Friend?

Let me start by stating the obvious: relationships are complicated things. Every single one of them is different, and what works in one might not work in the other.

You did not go into detail about exactly what you did to upset your friend, so it’s hard to know how you might be able to resolve the situation. For instance, if you made a solitary insulting comment, the relationship might survive. Whereas if you hijacked her Pogo account, reset all her stats, changed her password, sent obnoxious e-mails to all her friends, likely nothing can be done.

The first thing you must do in any event is accept the fact that your behavior may have put a permanent end to the relationship. As much as you may want to fight that idea, it is the reality.

Once you’ve come to terms with that, you can calmly send an apology. Just make sure it’s sincere. There’s an old saying: “Don’t ruin an apology with an excuse”, and that applies in most cases. You’ve acknowledged that your behavior was poor, so now the best thing you can do is apologize for it.

If you were close enough with this person that you shared phone numbers, you may want to give her a call and quickly get to the point. Something like “I recognize my behavior was horrible, and that I upset you. I value our friendship and I am very sorry and regret my behavior” is straight to the point, and so long as it’s truly the way that you feel, should suffice.

If she is upset and begins to berate you, be big and take it. As much as you want to defend yourself, arguing back will only hurt the relationship further. You are the one who wronged her. If she needs to vent – even if some of what she says is unfair – then you need to just listen. All you can do is hope that after she calms down, she will be forgiving.

If the phone is not an option, then a polite email or message with the same sentiment will do. And if she responds angrily, try to be aware that this is just what she may need to do to get past this. If she says truly horrible things, of course, you may decide that the friendship is not worth keeping.

And if there is no response whatsoever? Then she is sending you the message that she is not ready to be friends again, and you’ll need to accept that. The ball will be firmly in her court, and you will need to let her make the next move.

I do wish you luck and hope that the relationship can be repaired.

It’s definitely not fun to be in a situation where someone who should not be able to find you still can. The situation that you’ve described leads me to think that you may actually have this person on your friends list – only under a different name. It sounds like someone who is currently on your friends list is following you with another account.

First, let’s double check your Friends List settings. Go to your Blocked Players List. Here, you should double check to make sure that this person’s screen name is definitely listed as “blocked”, and that you have “Show my current location to players on my Friends List only” checked.

If that all checks out, then you may want to take inventory of your friends list. Do you trust everyone on there? Is there anyone who you don’t know that well? Start by removing anyone you’re not that friendly with from your friends list.

If you get to a point where you’ve eliminated everyone you think might be the culprit, and the person is still finding you, then you’ve got a real conundrum. You might consider copying the screen names of those people you absolutely want to keep on your Friends List to a text file, and then remove everyone from your list and then adding them back one by one in order of who you trust the most.

If all else fails, then you’ll want to contact our Customer Support Department and discuss the next options. If worst comes to worst, you may decide to work with them to have your screen name changed.

That’s a tough one. What are the etiquette rules when you receive an unexpected gift that you didn’t want from someone you don’t know? In the real world, a “thank you” is always the polite thing to do, even if the gift is unexpected, from a stranger, and something you didn’t necessarily want or need.

However, in the online world where most people are strangers, and the gift is completely out of the blue, I’m going to err against the conventional wisdom on this and say you’re better off not responding.

Granted, the gift may have been given sincerely and as a gesture of friendship, but let’s face it: anyone in your position would likely find this situation a little odd. You said you don’t chat much except for the polite “thank yous” and “you’re welcomes”. If you were to send a “thanks”, you would be opening up a line of communication that you might later regret if this person turns out to have less-than-honorable intentions.

Furthermore, the guest pass was free, and part of his or her Club Pogo membership, which will be replenished over time. It’s likely the person is not expecting any form of thanks, anyway.

So, even though it goes against what’s written in the etiquette books, in this one case, I’m going to go ahead and say no thank you is required.