All The Small Things

So last night I cracked it bigtime with the silly tick tock person.

We had plans to go out last night, silly plans to go skating. And he pulled out on me in the morning.

Understand that this is the morning after the night before, where I had had an argument with Mr. D. I had a shite load of work on, we had a new lad starting in the office, 14 years old and in need of constant assistance and supervision. I'm trying so hard to keep my poor little sassy head from exploding, and then I get this text message saying that he needs to postpone our outing, because he has contractors coming out to the farm in the morning, and he needs to unload some stuff for them, next week would be good though.

Straw. Camel. Back.

So I sent him a message, Don't Bother.

Unfortunately, that was about ten minutes before all the phone lines crashed, the internet shat itself and everything became rather difficult. So I'm not even sure that he got my message.

Later that evening, after I'd been sitting home thinking about how cranky I was for a while, I rang him.

(Understand that this is paraphrasing of a conversation that lasted for a really quite long time, and obviousy I don't have a tape recorder in my brain, but this was the gist.)

So I rang him, and told him that I can't be friends with him anymore. Because he's too much work and I've got too much else going on, and I don't understand him, and he shits me to tears, and I never pull out of plans with people and its an awful thing to do and I've had enough and I can't do it anymore.

"I'm not talking about this with you now. You're obviously upset. I'll talk to you on Monday."

Red. Rag. Bull.

"No. You won't talk to me on Monday. I'm not talking to you anymore."

"Yes, I WILL talk to you on Monday."

"NO you WON'T"

Second of silence.

"Man you're hard work. Are you having a breakdown or something?"

Unfortunately, that made me laugh. But also a bit crankier.

"I'm not bloody hard work. YOU are hard work. I'm the one who makes all the effort in this friendship. Are we friends or not?? I have so much going on in my life right now, and I don't have the energy to be your friend anymore. Its too much work."

So he then started talking to me. The stuff that was going on with me, did I want to talk about it? NO. Not with him anyway. I have wonderful friends, who bother to come and visit me, and who like to spend time with me, and who don't pull out on plans with me, and I talk to them. Besides which, did he even care? That's good that you've got them, he said, but if I wanted to talk to him he'd listen.

He also said that he'd given me lots of notice about not being able to go out, that he was terribly sorry that he'd had to pull out, but that he couldn't help it if he had work to do, that that was going to happen sometimes, and that he was happy to go out next week if I wanted to. And besides, why didn't I ask if he wanted to go to the pub or something when he'd finished what he'd had to do. We could have done that.

I said that I understood that he had other work to do, but that contractors just don't *arrive* you have to bloody organise them. IN ADVANCE. Hence, you would know that they were coming, and then you would not make plans that you couldn't keep. And cancelling by text is awful and horrible, and all cancellations should be made in person, or at least over the phone. And had it occurred to HIM to ask ME to the pub? After all, is it fair to expect me to come back with an alternative plan after being fobbed off?

Startled. No. It hadn't occurred to him. He should have done that.

And he had completely forgotten that the contractors were coming, he hadn't organised them, his folks had.

He sounded genuine. He apologised. He was very nice about it.

Perhaps I'm just a pathetic person. I don't know. I sincerely hope that he now fully understands that I'm not interested in being treated poorly. I want my friends to treat me with respect, not as a convenience. He sounded like he understood.

And I must say that if someone rang me and said that they didn't want to be my friend anymore, I doubt I would have handled it as well as he did... he cheered me up and made me feel better.

"See, I'm good for you. I make you laugh."

"Yeah. You do do that. I'm sorry I got so angry with you."

"What?? Did you just apologise to me?? Didn't think I'd hear that tonight!"

"Don't get used to it"

I told him that he confused the hell out of me, that I didn't understand him, and that when I had finished talking to him, it felt like... It felt like...

"Like you just got off one of those round-about things that they used to have in playgrounds."

"Just like that. All, confused and mixed up and unsettled."

 

So again, although the conversation itself was bizzare, and although I said lots of things I've needed to say for a while, and although we talked for ages, and I think it was a really amazing conversation from a getting real point of view, I still walked away feeling that way.

And he knew what that feeling was. I wonder what the hell that means.

I asked him how he would feel when he hung up the phone.

"Thirsty?" He laughed.

Dick. Head. ;-)

How can one person tie you up in knots inside like that? I've never met anyone like it. It's rediculous. AND I STILL HAVEN'T GOT A BLOODY CLUE.