Suzanne Portnoy

My friend Ms. Robinson remarked the other day that she thinks I give men far too much rope. She says I’m overly nice, give them far more credit then they deserve. More than once after I’ve told her a story about a man who turned out to be not entirely straight up with me, she’ll say, ‘I don’t know why you bothered. He just sounds like a pillock.’

My take on people is pretty simple. I believe that fundamentally most of us are flawed in one way or another. I don’t except perfection, therefore I’m rarely disappointed. All the same, I believe in manners. For instance, if I send a friend an email or a text or ring them up just to enquire as to their well-being and to say ‘hello,’ I think it’s only fair for them to respond, if only to say they’re ok but busy. I’m not the type of woman that expects an instant reply but I think if a real friend hasn’t sent back at least a cursory response within a week, then that’s just plain rude, unless they really don’t like me. In that case, it’s totally ok to completely ignore me. I can take a hint.

I know we live in a world where we expect everything to be instant, but I’m not a person who expects instant responses. I understand that everyone leads busy lives.I do expect a response.

This week I got a text from a guy who was in town for a day wanting to know if I was free. This is a friend who doesn’t return texts or emails or phone calls to the point where I just assumed we were no longer friends. I suspected I wasn’t being deliberately ignored due to his nature but I’d started to get pissed off that he couldn’t take the time to at least say ‘hi’ back, even once. I made a mental list of all the times I’d contacted him to say ‘hello’ and all the times he had replied and the list was looking very one-sided in my favour. Then I made another mental list of all the times he had contacted me to say he was in town and was I free to meet for a drink and again the list was so one sided, I don’t even think it was worth giving him his own column. I felt like a mug.

I’d finally had enough. I liked him. He was funny and charming and handsome and I know that funny, charming and handsome can take you a long way. Looking back, I’m embarrassed when I think about how much I’ve put up with just in the name of charming. A lot of women make allowances for guys with those qualities that they probably wouldn’t make with their best girlfriend. I’d bent my basic rules on what constititutes a friendship to the point where I felt like a contortionist and it was no longer comfortable. I felt it was time to say ‘good-bye.’ I sent him a text that told him how I felt, deleted him from my phone and from my email address list. I don’t expect to hear from him any time soon. That’s fine with me.

You see, what Ms. Robinson doesn’t know (because she has never seen her) is that underneath my warm, generous exterior lies one cold hearted bitch that takes no prisoners. Thankfully, most of the time she’s asleep, only waking occasionally to take a bite from a Green & Black almond chocolate bar. But this week she was stirred, grumpily came out, did what she needed to do and has now going back to sleep again only to wake up for another bite of chocolate. I hope not to see her for a while. Equilibrium has been restored.