What About Your Friends?!

I just got off the phone with Carlos (the SJA). He called to tell me that his friend Ivan is late for their departure for ATL (Carlos' home town). They're going there for New Year's and they were originally supposed to leave at 11 AM today. Carlos called to tell me, "See! It's not just me! Just like I said yesterday, he's late like a woman!" (Now who's the chauvanist...but anyway). A little background...

While we were having the Cheeky discussion yesterday, I said that I was only "Cheeky" with him as a way of protecting myself from being taken advantage of by him (an SJA). Carlos' argument was that my "cheekyness" is one of my idiosychrosies and friends have those (idiosychrosies) which is the nature of friendship...we tolerate our friends' idosynchrosies as a part of friendship. He used his friend Ivan's chronic slowness as an example:

"Ivan is slow with EVERYTHING! He eats slow, he gets ready slow...he's always late! If you tell Ivan we need to be at a party at 11, he doesn't even bother to start getting ready until 10 and we end up leaving at 11:30!" Carlos said that it's not just him (referring to my "cheekyness").

So just a while ago when Carlos called and ranted about Ivan being late, saying that "it's not just him", I said, "Why didn't you just tell him you were leaving last night so he would've been there this morning?" Carlos said, "I'm not in a rush, but this is what I mean...he's always like this!" I said, "Ivan's tardiness is likely just a way for him to be in control. My girlfriend Serena is the same way. You can tell Serena, 'I'll pick you up at 1', and when I arrive she's not even dressed. She knows she's like that (she's acknowledged it). It's her way of maintaining control. I may be cheeky with you, but it's just a way to protect myself...I'm actually a very generous person. YOU are selfish, and you know it. It's a very unattractive quality that you might want to work on."

I thought about that after we hung up the phone. Carlos tried to project his selfishness onto me, but my behavior with him is merely a reflection of his behavior in general. Ivan is slow (I've seen him in action...he does have the passive-aggressive tendancies with tardiness that Carlos referred to), but Carlos & Ivan have been friends for a really long time. This highlights an old saying I remember hearing growing up:

"If you want to know what a man is really like, look at his friends."

Ivan is passive-aggressive, but so is Carlos. Their passive-aggressiveness manifests in different ways. The only reason it aggravates Carlos so much is (in the immortal words of any 8 year old on the planet) "it takes one to know one". No, Carlos may not be late (he's actually pretty punctual), but he is passive-aggressive, which is his way of managing the anger he carries around inside (and anger comes from fear, and I would guess that in his [and Ivan's] case, it's a fear of lack of control). A special thank you here to my sister Nancy who's one semester away from her B.S. in Psychology...I've learned much of what I know about people's behavior from her...may she one day find the courage to go back to school and finish her degree.

The Moral of the Story: I believe that who our friends are says a lot about who we are. When I think back on Espen, his best friend Petter is an @$$hole. Even before I met Petter, I shared with my girlfriend in TX (Charlotte) that to me it sounded like Espen was a recovering SJA, which was why (I think) his wife left him in the first place. I think that Carlos has Ivan as a friend because he has the same passive-aggressive tendancies.

I have to say, I have a lot of really great friends, and I'm thankful for them. I just hope my best friend doesn't read this and come to her senses and dump me after 19 years of us knowing each other. I think she's pretty amazing, but I know I can be really self-centered when we talk sometimes (the center of our biggest fight ever back in '97). I love you girl! Thanks for putting up with me!