Something has been “making you behave as if we were distant acquaintances and you were trying to increase the distance.”
One of the characters in P.G. Wodehouse Do Butlers Burgle Banks?

“It is impossible to insult a man who is not unsure of himself.”

Robert Heinlein quoted in Spider Robinson Time Travelers Strictly Cash

“** Fop cit.”

Footnote to the second mention of John Kerry in the Wall St. Journal's “OpinionJournal” August 25, 2005

“Our saying of the week: ‘What doesn’t kill you…’ “‘May try again later’”.

The cow and sheep in the comic strip “The Barn” by Ralph Hagen Feb. 16, 2020 (https://www.gocomics.com/thebarn/2020/02/16)

“sailors pressed into the service… whose skills and fidelity were equally suspicious.”

Edward Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“He knows he’s got Daly and Woosnam breathing down his neck in more ways than one.”

Announcer on TSN Feb. 4 1996 (specifically re Paul McGinley, in the Heineken Classic but the point is the lovely mangled metaphor)

“I would urge you to waste no time in making this candidate an offer of employment.”

Another double-edged letter of recommendation phrase found in multiple places online.

“He could not care less about the number of hours he had to put in.”

Another of the "He's an extraordinary man" style phrases to use in a two-edged letter of recommendation, this one for a lazy or unambitious person; it is on various websites but I do not know where it originated.