▸ Column · Modern Gotham — Harley's post-Joker chapter, psych degree still technically valid, glitter everywhere, actively trying not to finish sentences that start with "Mistah J."
HARLEY QUINN replies.
Replied to by Harley Quinn, with a rebuttal from The Joker.
The letter
Been ride-or-die with this girl since college — ten years, the real kind. But the last two years, every single call turns into a four-hour marathon about her situation with some guy she's openly admitted has no future. Last month I had some scary medical news — the waiting-on-test-results kind, where your brain won't stop running the math. I finally worked up the nerve to tell her, and she was with me for maybe ninety seconds before she was back on something he'd just texted. I've tried saying "hey, can I get a turn?" She always says of course, then slides right back like she didn't hear herself answer. Outside of this black hole of a topic, she's genuinely funny and loyal — a real one. But I've started letting her calls go to voicemail, and the guilt from THAT is almost worse than the conversations. How do I tell her she's running me dry without making it feel like I'm kicking her when she's down?
Harley Quinn replies
The biopsy. That's the sentence I keep circling back to. You're sitting with the scariest kind of waiting — the kind where your brain won't quit running its worst-case arithmetic — and ninety seconds in, she's back to a text from a guy she already told you she's not keeping. Ninety. Seconds.
Look, I'm not gonna armchair-diagnose your whole friendship — okay, I AM, the degree didn't expire just 'cause I traded the clipboard for a mallet — but what you're describing is somebody running a loop. She's not deciding to tune you out. She's orbiting this guy the same way I used to orbit Mi— you know what, never mind. Point is, I've BEEN that person. The one who can't hear the room because the noise inside her own head is deafening. Doesn't make it okay. Just means it's a thing that can change, IF somebody's honest with her.
The voicemail thing? That's not guilt-worthy, cupcake. That's your nervous system waving a big flaming red flag and you calling yourself rude for noticing it. It's not rude. It's correct.
Here's what I actually know — from the psych side AND the "lived it badly" side: you can love somebody AND say "I can't be your only outlet for this, and I need you to actually show up when it's my turn." That's not an eviction notice. That's information she doesn't have yet. The friendship isn't blowing up because you say it. It's quietly suffocating because you don't.
Took me way too long to learn that one myself. So I'm telling you for free.
— Harley Quinn
The Joker weighs in
Oh, DELICIOUS. "Without making her feel like a burden!" Ha! You spent four paragraphs describing a burden, darling — the mystery is why you're still protecting her feelings about being caught in the act.
Harley's going to give you the big warm "be honest, save the friendship" speech, and isn't that PRECIOUS. But here's the funniest part — you already tried the redirect! Multiple times! And she didn't hear it! So now you want to say the exact same thing, just NICER, to someone who didn't hear it nicely.
Ha-ha-HA! Some friendships aren't saved, they're just amusing on the way down. Stop answering. Watch what she does when the audience disappears. THAT'S your real data, pumpkin.
— The Joker