Real-life friends.

I don't have too many, and the few I have I do like. And yet, they often annoy me. I'm afraid I will say a few bad things about them now but I would like to re-emphasize that I do like my friends.

There's one friend, K-1, who's a former colleague. We got along very well from the beginning, and even now that we don't work together anymore, we make an effort to meet at least once a week for lunch.

K-1 blabbers all day long. Not senseless stuff, just things that are going on in her mind (mostly family- or work-related). When we worked at the same office, it could be a bit annoying during times when I had to really concentrate (e.g. for translations), but most of the time it didn't bother me too much, I had learnt to do what men do, phase out but utter an occasional "uh-huh" or nod my head, etc. :)

But what annoys me about K-1 is that she uses me as a listener (= dump for her problems), yet she never even considers that I might have something to share with her too. Recently I picked her up for lunch, her mouth was working from the moment she saw me, and when I managed to grab a moment to tell her about something that's been going on in my life, she started with a completely different and unrelated subject before I had even finished telling her. And no, it wasn't an endlessly long story I was recounting, it was a straight-to-the-point thing. But she didn't seem to care one iota about what I had to say. A good listener she ain't!

My other two close friends are also my oldest friends, R and her sister K-2. We grew up together and hence know each other's characters very well (amazing how little a character changes from childhood). I guess "we're very familiar with each other" describes it best.

The problem I have with them: we hardly see each other and can only do things together if and when they want. But whenever I take the initiative and suggest a date/time/location, they come up with all kinds of fake excuses, especially R. And K-2 doesn't want to exclude her sister, so it's either both of them or none.

I call them fake excuses because it's nothing really serious. I could understand in the past that she, R, a mother of two, wanted to coordinate our meetings with her husband's work schedule so that one of the parents would be at home. No problem. But nowadays her daughter is 18 (or 19?), and her son 16 (or thereabouts), she can't use them as an excuse anymore. So she brings up all kinds of other things, but always stays very vague ("no, not a good day for me"). My argument "I'm sure you could postpone your duties / tasks / whatever-it-is to tomorrow / an other day" is being ignored.

R talks a lot about us doing things together, taking trips, going to discos, but those plans never materialize. And like I said, my initiatives are being ignored. And trust me, I've tried. I went so far as to even threaten them with "splitting up" (what do I need friends for if we never do anything together?). But that only left them completely baffled, although I really tried to explain my reasons a couple of times. They didn't understand.

It could have been my bad explaining but I don't think so, I had used very open and frank words. They still didn't understand.

Sometimes this situation leaves me so frustrated. They're friends, alright, and they're nice and upright folks, but I don't feel they really care about me. And I don't think I'm expecting too much - I might be wrong, though.

Of course I've only described my side of the story now. I'm sure that if they had their input, you'd hear a whole different version. Only, they don't tell me. I don't comprehend why we see so little of each other. Except for one issue they have with me: "well, we can never reach you because your phone's always unplugged".

True, it is. But even if it's not unplugged and I tell them, they never call me, it's always I who's supposed to call them. I don't, not anymore.

Plus, the phone can't be the only issue because they can still reach me via email, they have my work address and we do communicate via it when we finally manage to arrange a meeting. On their initiative, of course.

Ok, that was enough whining, the post is way too long again :D