Vacation Day?

I am taking a moment to air my most fervent of grievances....the double standard!

Now, I am never on time. On the record and off...never EVER am I on time. That said, I would never go off on a tanget on any friend of mine who failed to arrive on/at a timely manner to our preset appointment. Clearly, after the half hour mark I would quit waiting if there wasn't a text or phone call to deter me, but other than that I would grin and bear it. Because despite my many many flaws, I am no hypocrite.

So a few weeks ago, for this very reason I had a MAJOR tiff with Taurean. Who, for the record, is essentially a bully and many an ex-gf/fiancee will attest that he pushes his will onto anyone who will tolerate it. In our ten years of friendship he has not pulled this shit on me up until a few weeks ago. Whence I arrived too early for a meetup and instead of lamenting his tardy nature or in this case my truly premature arrival, I just popped into a local starbucks to grab a quick coffee. Of course, I sent him a series of texts updating him on my whereabouts but since he did not respond I continued on my merry way.

He made his way to the Starbucks, which I had left to walk the two/three blocks to our previously agreed upon meetup, when he called to chastise me. And, reader, when I tell you he yelled at me...I mean he screamed into the phone at me in a manner that befits a new owner training a pup. I don't doubt the intention but I do object very strongly to the affect. I am not one of his girlfriends to tolerate his ridiculous tirades. I promptly hung up and popped myself back on the subway to head uptown. I wasn't going to be treated like a truculent child. It was both rude and utterly obnoxious. Especially given the reality that our entire friendship is founded on him ranting endlessly about the current woman in his life. Be it Summer or Lynn, an unending series of wrong-doings on the part of these females and his undying self-improvement attempts to alleviate their neuroses. Gag. I'm so over it.

Perhaps if it hadn't been such a one-sided friendship I would have a real reason to tolerate his outburst in my general direction. But the truth is, in our 10 years of friendship, I've just played unpaid therapist to his airing of grievances and general venting on the female sector. Over and out. This circus has packed it's big tent and moved to the next town.

So the item that brings this rant into being is that Jo just sent me a message regarding a last-minute shindig down the jersey shore which I cannot attend due to work. Her laissez-faire solution was that I just take a vacation day in order to attend this event....now, coming from almost anyone else, I would have tolerated such a brazen attempt at tell-me-what-to-do-ness but Jo who flips out everytime she has to string together more than 20 sentences for a magazine she claims not to give a rat's ass about is the ultimate hypocrite in suggesting such a measure.

Mind you, I've NEVER...I mean EVER...suggested she so much as NOT flip out at the basic task of DOING her job (a job she has done for 6 years running, btw) when confronted by her weeping, wailing e-mails/phone calls and general break downs. NEVER. And she has the audacity to suggest to me that I take a vacation day so I can hobble down to the Jersey shore to participate in some series of less than spectacular events that involve the Lone Wanderer and his Nana? Seriously?

Other than the blatant hypocrisy of this passing suggestion, I feel the need to bring up the ultimate double standard inherent in such an e-mail. My job is less important than hers. My attitude towards work, while hardly as neurotic and life-consuming as hers, means I approach the task of my livelihood with far less determination and committment than she does. It is truly the latter of which I accuse her. My outrage is more than palpable, it is absolutely bubbling into ire. I cannot believe that someone who elevates her job to the be all and end all of her very existence would DEIGN to suggest that I put my work on the backset to join her on some low-grade caper on the beach. As IF?!

All of tihs sounds more vociferous than is my intention but the truth is I'm just a little saddended that the people I've thus far extended my frienship to without judgement or consequence are such hypoctrical folk who only perceive the world within the narrow dimensions of their personal spheres. Their indecency in not extending me the basic courtesies which I have never begrudged them challenge me to re-evalute the value and general openness with which I approach my dealings with them (these so-called friends).

I'm starting to think that a certain D'Souza wasn't entirely off base when she suggested that friends were merely a distraction that the truly driven didn't waste their time tending to in the quest for significance and glory.