A Promise Broken (a rant, of sorts)

I am very irritated at the moment. In fact I have been so all day, I can't seem to shake the feeling, no matter what. I suppose I have a very legitimate reason to be annoyed, a friend has broken her promise, yet again.

I am angry at myself for repeatedly trusting her word. I am angry at her for the choice she made and the fact that I was probably not even taken into consideration when this choice was made. It was just expected that I would roll over and say ok. Well it was not ok, not ok one little bit. I'm sitting here waiting for a phone call, I know she is putting off making. She knows I am mad and doesn't want to own up to the fact that she has done me wrong. She also doesn't want to hear me say so. This much I know. What I can't discern is, why would someone make an offer they never intended to keep. When the offer was made it was made in good faith, the intention was right, but like always it is the follow through that bites me on the ass. EVERY TIME!! I really think if she wanted to do it, it would have happened once in the two months since the offer was made. I don't know. I suppose it is the fact that when I say I am going to do something, I intend to do that something. If I don't want to do something, I say no. Two little letters N O.

Why can't people be more honest. Honesty is the best policy, right? Who am I kidding most people can't even be honest with themselves, so how can I expect them to be honest with me. I speak from my heart. Sometimes I say things that people do not like to hear. Actually that is the case most of the time. I guess most people hate to hear the truth. I think people do a grave disservice when they tell each other lies. This means there is a lack of mutual respect. When you can't look a person in the eye and say the truth, who are you sparing really.

A memory from long ago just resurfaced. At 17, my best friend from the age of 8, quit calling me out of the blue. She avoided my phone calls like I had an infectious disease. I couldn't get a hold of her for weeks. When she finally returned my calls, she acted as if nothing was amiss, like it hadn't been over a month and a half since we last spoke. In fact, we had rarely gone longer than 24 hours without some form of contact. We made plans to meet at another friends house, we hung out there frequently. As my 12:30 am curfew drew closer and closer, I finally managed to get the truth of our long silence out of her.

Shortly before the drop off in communication, we had gone to a homecoming dance at her high school. Everyone had dates. She set me up on a blind date with an incredibly cute boy, I'll call him Joe. The evening was fun and easy going. We all spent the night at Joe's house. We ate Hawaiian pizza and watched Pink Floyd's The Wall. Nothing romantic happened between anyone. Joe and I had went on one other date. We had Turkish coffees. It was awkward and forced. We briefly talked on the phone, then our contact ceased. I was not terribly broken up by this fact. He was a cute boy but we really had little in common.

All of these events were far from my mind when her tears started to fall. She confessed that she had a crush on Joe, when she set up our date. They became a couple after our second date. She had been afraid to tell me because she was "protecting me" from a possible hurt. I laughed out loud, not concerned about her tears. I was flabbergasted. My best friend had been avoiding me because she didn't want to hurt me with the truth. The truth hurt very little. I was hurt by the fact that she didn't have the courage to take whatever I would give. I suppose she felt as if she had betrayed my trust, when in fact that was so far from the truth. I had been worrying all those weeks that I had done something terribly wrong to my best friend. In fact I lost sleep over the whole thing. In fact I missed my curfew and was grounded when I got home.

The entire thing, much like the events of today, could have simply been avoided if the other person involved had just been honest from the start. Instead I am still waiting for that phone call, I wonder how long it will be this time before I hear from her. I guess she knows I'm going to bite.