Helpless... Upset...

I seriously think I’m going to lose a fren very soon…

Someone with whom I was once very comfortable, not bothering to hide my innermost thoughts, my mood, etc – simply because I thought we have reached that stage of mutual understanding, empathy, what have you…

But I guess I was wrong. I was naïve enough to assume that people do not keep brownie points so long if you treat each other as true friends, or 所谓的生死之交。

It did not help the situation further when a series of misunderstandings (to me) just happened one after another.

1) This fren lashed at me one fine day – in sharing that she felt that I do not value her friendship as much as she values mine. She felt that I was treating her more as a substitute fren instead of a close one.

One of the examples she quoted was that each time she asked me to go on trips with her, I would tell her I’m financially tight – but a few months down the road, she would hear from me that I’m preparing for trips to KL, BKK, HK and Taipei… So she drew her own conclusion that I’m not at all interested to go on trips with her.

Even after trying hard to explain that it’s really the time factor -- plus the fact that the few frens, with whom I went abroad, always give me advance serious notice for to me chalk up enough $$ -- she just brushed it off with a “OK, whatever…”. I knew from her tone that she was thinking that this was just my excuse, and so I tried to “analyse” the whole thing to her again… But it became a case of 越描越黑 and I decided to stop.

2) She recommended me to buy a black hook belt and the first day I wore it (it was a Monday), I realised that the belt was not able to sit well on my hips and worse, it would somehow auto-loosen itself, dropping to my butt and all the way down…

So I sent a sms to her letting her know my situation. Her sms reply caught me by surprise. She claimed that I should not send such a sms to her on an early blue Monday morning… She does not own the shop which sold the belt and she does not know what to do. It must be a case of which I did not wrap the belt around my hips properly…

I swore from the bottom of my heart it was an innocent sms from my side. In fact, I was not even expecting a reply from her… I did not have any intention or agenda to blame her for the purchase but simply just wanted to tell her that the belt would not stay. Besides, sometimes, she would also sms me to tell me such things too! So until today, I still do not understand why my sms had triggered such a violent reaction from her…

3) She’s usually late each time we arrange for coffee, dinner, tea, shopping, etc, to a point that I would automatically just arrive a few minutes later than the agreed time. On a couple of occasions when I was later than her, I could sense that she was kind of displeased… But I brushed it aside thinking that it was just me being over-sensitive, stupidly assuming “Why would she be unhappy since she always lets me wait most of the time and I was late just for a few occasions?”

We recently arranged to meet. The 45-min wait for her made me super drowsy… It might be because I only had a couple of hours of sleep the night before, plus the super hot weather… Even after gulping down two cups of iced coffee during the wait did no wonders… And so, after shopping for 1-2 hours, I became rather tired and I guessed it showed on my face.

She asked why my face was black, and I told her no, it’s more of a “sian” and tired face… She smiled, nodded, and I assumed she understood…

We walked from Far East to Robinsons (the places she wanted to go), and then back-tracked from Robinsons to Taka, because she wanted to check out some watches … On our stroll to Taka, I just innocently commented, “So silly of us… We walked down to Robinsons from Far East.. and now we are walking back to Taka… Should have gone to Taka just now first, hor?…” She smiled, nodded and I assumed she agreed…

Then she wanted to buy some make up remover, which she said that she could get it from any pharmacy or Watsons… But after she viewed the products at Watsons in Wisma, she decided not to buy and said she would go back to Robinsons to get it, since it’s so much cheaper there… I knew she meant to get it another day, but I just commented that she could have gotten it just now when we were at Robinsons… and I added something which, in retrospect, I should not have said, “Why didn’t you try to plan a bit your shopping route next time, so that you can get all your stuff and not having to make a few trips?”, to which I reckoned she was offended and retorted “Why should I plan my shopping route? Shopping’s supposed to be a leisurely activity…”

Before we parted, I asked her when she was planning to take leave so that I can coincide my leave with her, since she suggested taking one-day leave to go shopping for CNY clothes. Her response caught me totally off guard again.

“No need to lar… You seem to be always tired whenever I meet you for shopping. Then you show your black face, in your words, your “sian” and tired face, which does not make it conducive for shopping at all! And this is not the first time… You are always like that!”

She concluded with what I thought a tinge of sarcasm, “Let’s just wait till the day when you will not feel tired, then we arrange, ya?”

Things were made worse when my colleagues called to ask me to join them for a singing session. I told them I was tired and would give it a miss – but their continuous “yakking” made me give in and I agreed to go but would just stay for a while…

I knew what she would be thinking… that my tiredness was a lie, because if I was tired, I wouldn’t meet my colleagues at all… Truth was I thought it would not hurt to just show my face for a while before heading home… Plus for those who know me well, you would know that I’m the kind of person when if you start “yakking”/nagging at me non-stop, I would relent 99 per cent of the time…

Sigh…It did not used to be like that… She used to be one of my best shopping kakis and close frens.

I seriously do not have a single clue what went wrong during the course of our friendship. Maybe I was too direct with my words, maybe I should appear perky each time I meet her, maybe I am too self-centred and I have to learn to be more sensitive, maybe… …