Reliable Friends / Unreliable Friends
I woke up this morning with a severe sore throat that seemed to stretch all the way to my nose. I only had a mild sore throat last night and this morning's severity took me by surprise. Although I was awake, I simply couldn't get up and finally rolled out of bed at nearly 10am. A perfect ending to a night without electricity (my area was hit by a blackout. Bleargh!).
I SMSed my friend, Bronya, an aerobics instructor + nutritionist, who advised me on what to take... lots of water, fresh fruit juices, and plug myself with 3000mg of Vit C. Unfortunately I personally had only multivites so I dug into my mom's stores and among the many bottles came up with a full bottle of Vit C.... which expired exactly a year ago! I'm surprised it hadn't sprouted legs and run off when I opened it....
To cut a long story short, during lunch hour Bronya passed me some effervescent Vit C which my 'second mother' Helen had bought for me the moment she found out I needed some.
I've almost never had such reliable friends. I probably have only one or two others whom I could count on to help me like this, with or without me asking. I've always been independent all my life and I'm so used to doing things for myself that it seems quite unusual to me that people are actually willing to go out of their way to help me. Well, these two are of course among my best friends so of course that's a contributing factor. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to do the same for them too, and for my other best friends.
On another note, I received an SMS from another friend telling me to meet up on Saturday. When I asked the time/place, he simply replied by asking if I'm free on Saturday evening. I was already annoyed that he was telling me to meet up on Saturday, and I shot back by saying that I cannot reserve my entire evening hanging around waiting for a meeting and that I need to know the time/place to see if I'm free. Of course he got sarcastic with me in his next reply and gave a vague suggestion, to which I simply said that I will let him know later if I could make it.
I hate it when people simply assume that I'm free to meet up and that I'm dying to meet up with them! It's as if I have nothing better to do than to hang around on a Saturday night hoping to find some activity to relieve my social vacuum. It's as if they have no respect for my time.
People forget that I've filled up my time with all kinds of activities - although it's mostly with dance practice now, previously I had language classes, dance classes, gym; my friends make fun of me by saying they need to make appointments with me just to meet up with me. I've already tried to cut down and I generally keep my weekends to rest now. I used to fill up my weekends too but my schedule was slowly wearing me down, and I was advised by a well-meaning friend to reduce or I will get burnt out.
I suppose I was a bit short unnecessarily with my friend. But no, I don't regret it. I hate it when they make vague plans! It always happens with this bunch. They'll say, "Let's meet up this Saturday", and they get wishy-washy with where to go, and when they do finally agree, everyone else arrives 1-2 hours late. There was once where I was told that everyone was meeting up at A&W at 8pm, and so I went there only to wait... and wait.... and wait. Well, at least one other friend had also arrived early and was there to keep me company but by 9.30pm I had to leave and the others still hadn't arrived.
It's all very well to arrive fashionably late, but you know, I could do better things with my time than to hang around in an increasingly irritable mood. The least they could do was call.
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