How Well Do You Know Your Friends?

You know, sometimes people are disappointed by their friends for one reason or another. I've certainly been there, and I bet there are people here who have been there within the last week.

So, it begs the question as to whether you really know your friends or not, or of you're paying attention to their patterns. I have an example.

I met up with one of my long time friends today. He just popped into town, and didn't tell anyone he was coming; that's fairly common for him. When he called, I just assumed he was returning my call, not thinking he was in town. He asked me what I was doing later; I told him nothing, and he said maybe we could get together.

Now, I know him pretty well. I met him almost 25 years ago when he was this 14 year old kid taking guitar lessons where I was working. He's a good guy, but he's not the most reliable guy when it comes to time. However, I was going to give him a partial benefit of the doubt.

I told my wife that I was meeting up with him so she could go on to the gym to workout, as we had thought about going to the lake for a long walk. Then I got myself cleaned up later on, and already had a plan for what I was going to do if I didn't hear from him by a certain time.

When that time came, I went out to my car, started it up, and as I started driving called him from the cell. I told him he could reach me on the cell, since I hadn't heard from him, and whatever happened was on his head since he knew the kind of trouble I could get in on my own. What did I do? Don't tell IOAW, but I went to the mall to get a sundae from Cold Stone Cremery, which I'd been talking about for weeks now. See, the last time I met up with him, we ended up getting to Cold Stone just as they were closing. Talking to him reminded me of it, so that's where I was heading.

He called me just as they were handing me my sundae. I told him where I was and he laughed and said he didn't think he should take the blame for it; hah! I walked with my sundae to the car as we talked about things, and decided we would meet at this Japanese/Korean restaurant for dinner. I asked him how long it would take him, and he said 20 minutes.

For him, 20 minutes means 40 at least, so I ate my ice cream, then went to Barnes & Noble to browse through some books. At 35 minutes, I got back into the car and decided to go put gas in the car; let's hope we'd arrive at the same time at the restaurant.

I got to the restaurant and waited; he called about 10 minutes later, saying he got tied up, but was in the car halfway to the restaurant. Luckily, because I was expecting it, after walking in and not seeing him I went back to my car, reclined, and was expecting his call; it's always something.

And, of course, he finally arrives, about an hour and a half later than planned initially, 45 minutes later than when he said he'd be there, but it was all good. I got to relax some, listen to my book on tape, play some solitaire on the palm, and I was away from my computer for just a little while; rare for me. All that, plus a nice dinner and, for dessert, back to B&N for my Reeses peanut butter cup cookie; two desserts in one night!

And no, my wife doesn't know about either one, and I worked out, so there! Still, I know my friend's habits at this point; he can't let me down because I've paid attention to the patterns over the years. Some folks are just like that, but if we pay attention, we know how to get by.

And, just for the record, I've taught him that if I'm on hold for 10 seconds, I hang up and he has to call me back. You teach people how to treat you; that's one of my lessons.