The Old Gang...

Because me and my sister are just that cool.

The snow has been a particular factor in my 'become a hermit plan'. It's ok going out with my boyfriend as I can just catapult into his car before I'm too cold, but since I'm too poor to take one driving lesson, nevermind run a car, and the buses are evil, I've been contemplating cancelling plans this week. But as some of you know one of my plans was to go to a meal with some old school friends including two girls, Beth and Cary, who hadn't been out for ages so I begrudingly went.

It was actually a good evening, everybody looked great, the food was great, the talking was great etc.

The only problem is, and please tell me I'm not the only one - does anyone else have friends that talk about their boyfriends as if they have golden poos?

My friend Cary I'm quite sure heavy breathes when the topic of her boyfriend drops into converation. Which is all the time - she is constantly chucking him in there for us to appreciate. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some bitter old cat lady who perves on the neighbours for a good time, I have a great relationship with my guy. I really do love him but unlike Cary I don't suddenly form tourettes which makes me swear out boyfriend topics, and I don't show photos of him in the bath, in his new clothes, kissing me, when he's at college etc and truly believe everyone is finding the conversation rivating. Also, she compared him to the blonde one off Superbad and Juno who I have loved forever and she has now crushed it. Noooo!

I might sound cruel, but I make a point of not talking about boyfriends too much as it really is a bit boring as all you can say is 'Awww' and 'That's nice' otherwise you sound nasty and bitter or too keen - like "Mmmmm he's so dreamy, yeah Cary I know what you mean..... Mmmm" which I doubt would go down so well haha.

I try to look interested at first, but soon I'm distracted looking at her perfectly formed hair, or the man who's chatting up a woman on the other table and I know she's is getting pissy about it. "Oi, Emmmmmaaaaa" she says over dramatically (everything is over dramatic about Cary, which is actually part of her appeal...Most of the time). Hallelujah! A topic change! I jump in "You're hair looks lovely" in the hope she is distracted, and because her hair really is nice and I want to find about how she did it. But alas, poor Yorick - "Reallllly, well I just threw it up, my boyfriend helped me" and it begins again.

Ok, maybe I am a bit of a cat lady. Don't worry about the neighbours though, I don't want to scar myself with the image of them......ergh. I have already heard them too many times through the wall.

Letting Go Of The Old

I'm sure I'm not the only person who hates to lose people they were once so close to. We all have people who were once special to us, but for some reason or other we're lucky if we see them once a year. It happens gradually; you start to see eachother less, you bump into eachother and say you're going to make an effort, but it never happens.

My usual story is that I end up doing all the chasing. For example, I once had a best friend, Cary, a few years back who started to hang around with the 'popular' people. I didn't really mind at first, I was happy that she had extra friends as I had my own too, and I knew we were still tight. After time though she stopped making time for our group of friends and only wanted to hang around with them. I couldn't understand it, surely she could make the time for both of our groups, just as everybody else did? Of course she had the time, but sometimes you can't force something that somebody doesn't want anymore. It hurt to be rejected, I tried talking, trying to make an extra go. It annoyed me that she wouldn't bother for a month and then she'd ring me up as if we'd only talked a few hours ago and she'd ask if I wanted to go out. Cary considered herself too busy to arrange things like meals etc and getting everbody together and thought it was totally fine to expect me to always do it. At first I didn't mind, but as time went by and the texts always started 'I want to go out clubbing, could you invite everybody', it got to the stage where I thought why bother? Looking back I was so desperate for it to work and we had such a good time when she finally came out I just kept on making up for her lack of effort. It wasn't that I didn't have other friends, I had loads of really good caring ones, but just that we used to be so close was enough to make me do all the running. I still get the odd text.

This pattern follows on through a multitude of friendships. Most recently was Beth, a good friend for the past 8 years. She would always complain she was stuck in the house on her blog, and as I hadn't seen her for a while I thought I'd make the effort. We went on a walk and it was really fun, so we arranged to meet up in a few days to go shopping. I was woken up by my phone ringing and a stroppy Bex on the other side.
"Where are you?" She fumed.
I looked at the watch, it was 9am (!) but we weren't meeting until 1pm.
"Errr in bed... Why were are you?" A horrible panic began forming in my stomach.
"Standing outside where we're supposed to be meeting, thanks alot"
I'm sure that we arranged for 1pm, so I tried to make her believe me, and that I could meet her in 30mins and make it up to her. She was obviously very annoyed which I understood, but after alot of apologizing she refused to see me and went home. I tried messaging her online (where she had nicely posted messages to my close friends telling them of how I'd forgot about her and left her there on purpose) to apologize. I tried to invite her out and promised I would be on time and that it was a mistake. Somehow she was always busy with her new friends. After a while it finally dawned on me, there wasn't much more I could do about the situation, she was only a 10 minute walk from home anyway, I had apologised alot more than once, and all the time she was obviously not budging. It was nearly a year ago, and she still hasn't been free to see me, but she never invites me out to things when she does have the money. The only exception was her birthday in which I was given less than a days notice and had no money and I think she still holds it against me.

Today, my friend came into Town just to see me and have dinner with me, and she walked all the way to work with me after our lessons to hand in my uniform, then walked me to the bus stop (which took like 2 hours). I insisted she didn't as I felt pretty sly because so much walking was involved, but she said I was a friend and that she didn't mind because she'd know I'd do it for her. When I think of Beth though, I dont think this would ever happen, although maybe it would have (and did) once upon a time.

My new resolution from now on is that I'm not going to jump through hoops to stay good friends with people if they aren't making any effort back. It's hard to say, and I know I might sound a few sneaky texts just to see how she's doing as I do with all of my friends, but I'm going to stop making all the effort. Ha, I sound like such a loser. I swear I'm not a cat lady - I really do have friends that I see alot! But seriously, if you let people take advantage, sometimes even your closest friends will take the opportunity. Let me know what you think... Anyone else in a similar situation?