SEATTLE—Acknowledging that his addition was more from obligation than excitement, a group of friends admitted Monday that their less popular acquaintance Gordy Johnson was only included in their suicide pact out of pity. “To be honest, we hadn’t even considered inviting Gordy to bite down on a cyanide pill, but then the thought of the hangdog expression he’d have on his face when he found out we killed ourselves without telling him was just too much to bear,” said Lee Hastings, 29, confirming that Johnson had sounded so excited when he got the invitation that it was a little pathetic. “It’s not like any other groups are going to be asking him to commit suicide with them, so we may as well just suck it up—but I promise you when we get to the afterlife, I’m not hanging out with him.” At press time, Hastings and his friends were reportedly frustrated that Johnson had ruined their evening by locking himself in a closet and refusing to ingest poison.