Signs Your Friends Are Planning an Intervention

Are you the target of an intervention? Will you soon be sitting with your friends facing you like a firing squad with attitude? That can not happen to me, you say? Read and learn, Skippy.
Your friend Kevin calls unexpectedly and asks how you are doing. Not what you are doing. How you are doing. Does that distinction nag at you? It should.
A few days later, Melissa suggests lunch. Then Jordan texts to see whether you are free this weekend. Then Kevin calls again.
The frequency alone feels sketchy. These people normally communicate through memes and forgotten birthday messages. Now they appear interested in your emotional well-being. No reasonable person would trust that.
The conversations begin to share a strange quality. Nobody argues with you. Everybody encourages you. They say things like, “That’s really interesting.” When was the last time your friends found anything you said interesting?
Another warning sign arrives when Melissa asks whether you have spoken with your sister lately. You have not mentioned your sister. You were discussing sandwiches.
Meanwhile, Jordan has become unusually attentive. He listens without checking his phone and occasionally notes something down. Jordan once forgot his own anniversary because a hawk landed near his driveway. He is not a note-taker.
Kevin, whose greatest achievement remains accidentally appearing in the background of a local weather report while carrying three rotisserie chickens, now asks open-ended questions.
“How long has that been going on?” “What do you think caused it?” “How do you feel afterward?” These are not Kevin questions.
The clues begin accumulating. Melissa casually mentions a coworker who “went through something interesting.” Jordan knows a cousin who “found balance.” Kevin has apparently read two books.
The final clue arrives when your friends suggest getting together.
Not individually.
Together. At the same time. At a neutral location.
Nobody can seem to explain exactly why.
There will be snacks, they assure you. Perhaps there will be, but as you enter the restaurant’s private room and notice several familiar faces already seated in a semicircle, each wearing the strained smile of someone about to discuss a delicate matter, a chilling realization settles over you.
This gathering is not about friendship or connections. This, bud, is for you–and whatever you have been doing, buying, collecting, posting, pursuing, explaining, optimizing, and insisting is perfectly normal.
At least that is what you will be saying for the next two hours.
You think this one was gnarly, try Ten Most Unusual AI Requests
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