Hard as Nails

Most of my friends from middle school and high school stuck around the area for college. Not me. I went really far away. Consequently, I did not see my friends very often. The summer before my junior year, I spent at school, so by the time Christmas break rolled around, I had not seen my best friend from childhood for 8 months. We were both very eager for me to come home and had made plans to do several things. One of those things was to go to a New Year's Eve party together, as well as spend the day before the party together.

Fred showed up at my house the day after Christmas on very short notice and insisted that I come up to New York with him. I explained that I absolutely had to be back by Dec 30 because I had plans for early in the morning on the 31st. He acknowledged that I had made this request, so I assumed that he was OK with this arrangement and I went to see his parents. On the morning of Dec 30, he suddenly remembered that his family was going to have a dinner that night (they did this every night, so it really was no occasion) and he insisted that I stay. I reminded him of our original agreement and reminded him that I had made these plans with my friend several weeks ago, so it would be inappropriate to cancel on her now. Furthermore, I would see Fred at school, but I would not see my friend again until summer vacation.

He flipped out at me for "refusing to spend time with his family." Then he demanded to know what my plans even consisted of. Ok, so look, when I hang out with my friends, we aren't exactly saving children from burning buildings, or finding a cure for cancer. My plans in this particular case involved brunch, nail appointments and shopping. Yes, I will admit that none of these are really important on their own, but it was the fact that it was a day that both me and my friend had off and were willing to set aside for each other that made this important to me. I honestly don't care about brunch or nails or shopping very much, but I do care about spending time with my friends.

Fred seemed to miss the point in a lot of the things I did or said. Fred failed to see the whole bit about wanting to see my friend. And instead flipped the fuck out that I was "so superficial" and it was going to be so embarrassing for him to have to tell his family that I couldn't come over because I was "getting my nails done."

He really could have saved himself the embarrassment if he just told his family that I had made plans over three weeks ago, and this entire trip was sprung on me at the last minute and under the agreement that it would work around the plans I had already made, but Fred never did want to do things the unembarassing way.