Frienemies

Today I'd like to tell you a few little stories about some "friends" of mine. Now I don't use these quote fingers because we're sleeping together or I want to be this persons friend or anything remotely close to that. I use quote fingers because once upon a time I truly believed that we were friends. And then somewhere along the line something happened. Maybe these people were always like this and I chose not to see it, or maybe something really did happen, but whatever the case I have lived enough of my life to realize when it is time to move forward.

Story number one:
Let's call this girl Red for the sake of the story.
I'm assuming that you all know someone that you invite to do things and without fail this person, at the very last minute bails on you? Then they come up with some off the wall story that they think you are going to believe when really all you wanted to hear was that they weren't coming? Or sometimes they don't let you know that they aren't coming, they just don't show up. Well, this is Red. I used to be friends with Red in my pre-Winston Salem days. She's actually one of the people that was friends with the gigantic gay ass hole that I told you about. However, before I left, I had gotten so tired of dealing with her excuses, that I just stopped inviting her to things. In my opinion, it's just plain rude to never show up to things that your constantly invited too. I mean, it's one thing if you tell me no, but it's an entirely different situation if you say you're coming and don't. Well, upon moving back here, Red had sent Heather and I a note stating that she had changed her ways and that she really wanted to hang out with us again. I guess after four years she realized that neither of us were really interested in her story telling ability. She had claimed that she had changed her ways and really, really wanted to get together with us. So, after chatting a bit, Heather and I decided to give her another chance. Every person deserves that right. So, we let her know our plans for both next weekend and this upcoming weekend. We gave her down to the minute detail descriptions, even going so far as to send her the website link so that she would have an idea of what she was getting into. We sent her our cell phone numbers and told her to text or call us if there were any problems. The excuses started right in upon her response. Telling us she had a meeting for the breast cancer walk, but should be out of it in plenty of time to meet up with us. If she didn't, she would text us. Immediately I went ahead and bet Heather a million dollars that she wouldn't show up. Okay, so I said I was giving her a second chance, but really I knew better. Fool me once, and all. Well, the day of our girls night out arrived, which coincidentally was the day after our email exchange. We headed out to the bar and with no note from Red, assumed she was to show up. An hour into the evening and only two beers in, because that service was so awful, and no word. Not to worry, I thought, it is only 7 pm. It's kind of early to be worrying if someone is going to show up or not. Two hours into it and our dinner finally arrived as did our next round of beers. (Side note: I'm completely sympathetic towards the food and beverage industry as a whole, however, when your bar is not crowded and it takes you two hours to make a chicken sandwich, salad, and a quesadilla, and you actually forget the quesadilla, your service is terrible. You might want to find a new line of work.) Hmmm, 8 pm and still no Red. I look to Heather and I say, don't text her yet, she's got another hour to redeem herself. It was at 9 pm when I looked at Heather, shook my head and just went, well true to form she didn't show up. It was then that Heather had the genius idea to stop by Red's local watering hole to see if she not only decided to ditch us, but to then show up to another bar with her husband. We wouldn't actually put this past Red to do. So, after paying our bill in which the bartender forgot to take off the quesadilla we never actually ate, only tipping $4, we head out to the other bar. We are greeted by a wall of people who we claim are extremely young, but only later realize that we are the older ones in the room. As we do a lap before committing to our location, we realize that neither of them are here. It is now that I allow Heather the opportunity to call and text them letting them know we are close so that they have absolutely no reason why they can't come out. First phone call attempt, personal cell, straight to voicemail. Second phone call attempt, house phone, no voice mail. Third phone call attempt, work cell, no voicemail. Two texts sent, as of today, Wednesday March 9th, still no response. As we belly up to the bar, the remainder of our night is spent bashing Red and wondering why in the world we put ourselves through this again. It wasn't until Monday morning when I awoke and noticed an email from Red herself subject line, so.....i suck. What I wanted to say was, no argument from me. But instead I keep to the "if I don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" motto. Upon further reading of this email, it goes on to say that she didn't get home until 7:30, fell asleep at 8:30, had turned her ringer off during her meeting and it wasn't until Sunday night did she realize that she had a voicemail and two texts. On top of that, she proceeds to tell us that throughout the day there was this endless nagging on her of "something that she knew she had to do that day but couldn't, for the life of her remember what that something was". Let me explain how I know this is a lie. 1. On facebook, she decided to check in at the gym in the morning. The only way one can check in anywhere is through their phone. 2. Who doesn't have their phone on their person at all times and even though it doesn't make a sound or blink that annoying light in the corner, who doesn't check to make sure there isn't anything on their screen that they've missed? 3. What grown adult, who normally spends every Friday and Saturday night at the same bar goes to bed at 8:30 pm?!?!?!? She has no kids. 4. We emailed with her FRIDAY AFTERNOON for the Saturday night activity. You mean to tell me that you forgot something within 24 hour of it supposed to be happening? I might want to shift my emotion to concern if you can't remember something the very next day. That's almost troubling.
So, okay, yes, maybe I'm blowing this way out of proportion and some of you reading this that are friends of mine might be thinking to yourself, holy crap, very small window to screw up with this girl, but it's not true at all. I consider myself a very tolerant and caring person. However, when you continue to allow me to give you the opportunity to correct past behavior that you know is not okay and then you show me by doing the exact same thing that you've been doing the entire time, what else am I supposed to do? If a guy I were dating was displaying this type of behavior, what would you tell me to do with him? Hopefully kick his ass to the curb because he obviously don't have enough respect for me to treat me the way he would want to be treated or that I deserve to be treated. And I would want you to tell me this. So, as a friend, I hold you in the same regard. Obviously that really struck a nerve with me.

Story number two:
Okay this one, I probably will get in a little bit of trouble about, but I'd like to stop an epidemic which is sweeping our nation. I'm all on board the affordability that text messaging and emailing provides us. I get the fact that some people, instead of sending individual messages to people, prefer to send them out in mass style. And I might actually let you get away with it for a Happy Thanksgiving or Happy New Year or Merry Christmas. I'm not saying I like, it , but I'll let it slide in comparison. I am, however, going to draw the line if you're going to give such big news as a wedding announcement, birth of a child, or a pregnancy. I feel that if we're that good of friends maybe a little personalized note with it, or a phone call, or something other than reading it on facebook, blogosphere, mass email/text. I don't know, call me old fashion, but the reason that I went to TCU over going to UT was because I felt like I wanted to be a name, not just a number. And again, maybe I hold my friendships in too high a regard that I treat them way differently than some other people. And then again, maybe as I'm writing this I realize I should be taking some sort a of hint in that I'm not friends with these people the way I thought I was. Huh, well that one made me think a little bit.

So the moral of these stories, as usually I have them, if not for you all, then definitely for myself is that communication is a huge thing in this world and with all of the new ways to get stuff out there, sometimes getting back to the basics means more to someone than you might think.