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Jeez, I don't even know where to start. I was talking to Alice last week about, shall we say, less than genuine people? Sort of in the vein of "friends that you don't hear from unless they need something" except these people may not even be your friend/have made it to "friend" status. It's something I experience more than I'd like to. I'm a nice person (though people often think I'm stuck up when they first meet me, likely because I can be shy) and I prefer to be nice to other people until they give me a reason not to be. And it's those reasons that usually cut the deepest. It happens every so often with Paul; there will be a friend or acquaintance of his that is all sweetness and light when I'm around or about me when he's around but otherwise they don't know me from Adam. It's my theory that they think they have to act as though they like me so they can still hang out with him or get him to do things for them. He'll say "Oh, so-and-so says to go check out the whatever they posted on LJ/MySpace/Facebook/etc." and I say we're not on each other's list and he's like "go friend them!' and I'm like "if they want me to see something so badly, why don't they friend me?" There's another person that will gush and gush about me to him and say they want to hang out with me or do songs with me or whatever and he says "you should totally get a hold of them!" Yes, perhaps I should get a hold of them and express my sympathies that they have phones and computers that can only receive messages, the poor dears. How rough it must be on them to not be able to reach out to people. This person has also not voluntarily spoken more than 3 sentences to me since I've known them. People who want to be invited in on whatever thing we plan: trips, parties, game nights, gatherings at restaurants yet somehow can't manage to plan these things on their own? I like being invited to things too, folks. It strikes me that these people don't really want to be my friend but for some reason want me to be theirs, like saying mel is their friend somehow makes them cool? A friend of mine down in Oregon texted me once to say that an ex of hers was going to be playing a show up here and he wanted her to "ask mel if she'll go, because she knows all the cool people and maybe she can bring them so the cool people will be at my show!" We both laughed about this but it kind of stung: ask mel, she's low enough on the totem pole? I know the cool people but I'm not one of them, I'm their mascot? I just don't get it.
But the kicker is this: Bobby, our mechanic? The one who I've given 97 chances to pay us back, who I've been so patient and lenient and understanding with, the one who I listened to for 3 hours in the middle of the night while he bemoaned his wife cheating on him? Now we have to sue him. He said two weeks ago that he had at least enough to pay the tow company fee we have already paid, (he's had our car for a year, mind you and it was towed in DECEMBER after someone at his shop messed up) and yet he cannot manage to get it to us. He had to go out of town, it was his kid's birthday, he was super-busy, one of his kids was sick and his wife had to work so he was stuck at home, etc. I tell him Paul was free Thursday and Saturday last weekend and the three of us needed to sit down and agree on how much he owed us and how/when it would be paid back to us. Thursday we don't hear from him. Friday he tells me he's at the hospital with his wife "getting the date-rape thing checked out" Ten days after the fact, for one. For two, is it really date rape when she admitted to you it was consensual and told you she didn't care if you caught her? But OK, whatever dude. Saturday, I tell him I'd talked to my dad the day before (for a separate reason, he just happened to ask about the Bobby situation), he thinks I'm nuts for being as forgiving as I am with Bobby and that I'm beginning to agree with him. He needs to get a payment to us today or I turn it over to my lawyer Dad who will not be nice about it and who will charge a Hell of a lot more than we were asking for. He tells me they are on his way to see his family and let them know what happened to his wife. Right, because that if I were sexually assaulted my first thought would be to go tell my in-laws. I tell him our house is on the way, he can drop it in our mailbox. That I don't care how much it is, but that it's a good-faith effort to show us he's serious. He tells me he has to focus on his family right now, that he doesn't want to do anything to stress his wife out, she doesn't want to be away from him. I ask him what would be more stressful, stopping at the ATM or a lawsuit? I even offered to meet him AT the ATM. He tells me they are already way out of town. Huh, cause four texts ago you told me you were getting ready to leave. I told him it hurt my feelings that I have given him so many opportunities to make this right and that he ignored every one. There was always some reason, some excuse and that I wanted an absolute YES or NO that he would come by that day with a payment because I wanted to know in my heart of hearts that I exhausted every option with him, so that my conscience would be clean when I told my dad to get all legal on his butt. Then he has the nerve to tell me that he never thought I'd say something like that to him. YOU DO NOT GET TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD ABOUT *YOU* SCREWING UP! I have been so upset and stressed so of course my Rupus is running rampant and I feel like sh*t physically in addition to mentally.
So this is what I get for being nice. People always assume I'm such a bitch because I'm blunt, but I'm only blunt when you give me no other option (or when you ask me for my honest opinion. I do not play). No one sees me crying on my husband's shoulder after being kicked in the mud, wondering why people can never be as nice or courteous or understanding to me as I am to them. I do my best to never say anything behind someone's back that I wouldn't say to their face. Even on LJ I don't name names because I don't want to color anyone's impression of people they might know. I don't hit the goal of 100% on that because I'm human but I TRY. And this is where it gets me.
But the kicker is this: Bobby, our mechanic? The one who I've given 97 chances to pay us back, who I've been so patient and lenient and understanding with, the one who I listened to for 3 hours in the middle of the night while he bemoaned his wife cheating on him? Now we have to sue him. He said two weeks ago that he had at least enough to pay the tow company fee we have already paid, (he's had our car for a year, mind you and it was towed in DECEMBER after someone at his shop messed up) and yet he cannot manage to get it to us. He had to go out of town, it was his kid's birthday, he was super-busy, one of his kids was sick and his wife had to work so he was stuck at home, etc. I tell him Paul was free Thursday and Saturday last weekend and the three of us needed to sit down and agree on how much he owed us and how/when it would be paid back to us. Thursday we don't hear from him. Friday he tells me he's at the hospital with his wife "getting the date-rape thing checked out" Ten days after the fact, for one. For two, is it really date rape when she admitted to you it was consensual and told you she didn't care if you caught her? But OK, whatever dude. Saturday, I tell him I'd talked to my dad the day before (for a separate reason, he just happened to ask about the Bobby situation), he thinks I'm nuts for being as forgiving as I am with Bobby and that I'm beginning to agree with him. He needs to get a payment to us today or I turn it over to my lawyer Dad who will not be nice about it and who will charge a Hell of a lot more than we were asking for. He tells me they are on his way to see his family and let them know what happened to his wife. Right, because that if I were sexually assaulted my first thought would be to go tell my in-laws. I tell him our house is on the way, he can drop it in our mailbox. That I don't care how much it is, but that it's a good-faith effort to show us he's serious. He tells me he has to focus on his family right now, that he doesn't want to do anything to stress his wife out, she doesn't want to be away from him. I ask him what would be more stressful, stopping at the ATM or a lawsuit? I even offered to meet him AT the ATM. He tells me they are already way out of town. Huh, cause four texts ago you told me you were getting ready to leave. I told him it hurt my feelings that I have given him so many opportunities to make this right and that he ignored every one. There was always some reason, some excuse and that I wanted an absolute YES or NO that he would come by that day with a payment because I wanted to know in my heart of hearts that I exhausted every option with him, so that my conscience would be clean when I told my dad to get all legal on his butt. Then he has the nerve to tell me that he never thought I'd say something like that to him. YOU DO NOT GET TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD ABOUT *YOU* SCREWING UP! I have been so upset and stressed so of course my Rupus is running rampant and I feel like sh*t physically in addition to mentally.
So this is what I get for being nice. People always assume I'm such a bitch because I'm blunt, but I'm only blunt when you give me no other option (or when you ask me for my honest opinion. I do not play). No one sees me crying on my husband's shoulder after being kicked in the mud, wondering why people can never be as nice or courteous or understanding to me as I am to them. I do my best to never say anything behind someone's back that I wouldn't say to their face. Even on LJ I don't name names because I don't want to color anyone's impression of people they might know. I don't hit the goal of 100% on that because I'm human but I TRY. And this is where it gets me.
