Haha! I have bested you. After four long years of friendship, you have finally subscribed to my newsletter. Mission accomplished and relationship over. I can see you are confused. Let me explain. I was in this friendship for one thing and one thing alone: to get you to sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter.
I met you at a time of great need in my life. That need? More readers for my newsletter where I rank pizza shops based on taste, texture, and sauce ratio. You needed something, too: my companionship. That’s why when I saw you sitting at that party eating a dollar slice all by yourself, I knew we were the perfect match. Really, this was a win-win situation.
Pretending to like you and share your interests was a labor of love. Not love for you, obviously. But for my pursuit of telling everyone where to buy the perfect slice of thin-crust pizza. I thought I had been beaten out by Yelp and foodstagrammers with a far wider audience. I almost lost hope. But I knew in my heart that if I played my cards right, I could earn your loyalty, trust, and email address.
All the inside jokes, long talks, and unwavering support—it was all a ploy. Sure you chose me as maid of honor over your sister, but that was part of the plan as well. Everyone at your wedding? They get my newsletter and eat it up, much like I recommend eating up the grandma slice at DeMarco’s.
I know you feel betrayed and I totally get that. I felt the same way when people wouldn’t subscribe to my newsletter in the past. I was so sad, that I developed the intricate plan to befriend someone for the sole purpose of getting them to click that link. Everything I’ve told you about my life has all been one giant fabrication. I’m wearing a wig and I hired actors to play my other friends and family. The real ones would have never fallen for this grand scheme. Do you now understand my pain?
Of course, I didn’t mention my newsletter until four years into the friendship. Bringing it up too soon would have ruined the plan by making me seem desperate. So I waited through birthdays, New Year’s Eves, and your grandmother’s passing. I bided my time, much like I have to do whenever I stand in line for pizza at Angelo’s. It’s this brick oven place that– You know what? You’ll hear enough about it in my newsletter.
I bet you’re now planning to unsubscribe from my newsletter. Clever, indeed, but I ask you how you plan on going about that. I have made it so annoyingly, soul-crushingly hard to do. You have to email me directly with an essay, solve a riddle, and fix the crushing divide pineapple on pizza has caused in society as a whole.
Trust me, you’ll be getting my input on deep-dish ‘til the day that you die. And of course you could change email addresses, but how do you know your next best friend won’t just be me after some plastic surgery, pining for your new Gmail?
It wasn’t fun pretending to be your friend, but it was rewarding. Now I must go and find a new subscriber. I’m going to pretend to be a student at Barnard this time. The pizza in New York is AMAZING.