Yes, I'll Be The "Available" Friend

I Want This Shirt 

Someone has to be there. Everyone can't always be busy. Someone has to be that friend you can always run to. Someone has to be that friend you need to go for a drink with. Someone has to be the one you can spill your problems to face to face. So I guess I'll be that "available" friend.

It was my day off. At midnight, the moment I got off from work, I contemplated how I would spend it. It's been a while since anyone has regularly called me to hang out for girl time. It's been a while since I've dealt with man problems. I used to call up people to hang out with when I got lonely. I started hearing "I'm busy" so much that I became afraid to ask.

Seriously, I'm afraid to ask for company out now. I instead wait for someone else to ask. Who knows how long that will take? For one friend it took months to realize she had not talked to me in a while. This was mainly because she was playing house with her boyfriend.

Last Saturday she called me up actually. I didn't have her number in my phone anyway. I accidentally deleted all the contacts from my phone during upgrading, was able to save them to the computer, but it took too much effort to add every last number back into the phone. This happened back in May and now it's July.

Anyway, she wanted to go for drinks and I told her after work. Someone has to be the available friend, right? I brushed off the fact that it had been months since we hadn't heard from each other. The hard part was trying to get her caught up in my life. Upon her asking, I went the route of pretending nothing's happened. I was tired, but I was shocked. Someone in the city of Houston wanted to hang with me for a little. WOW!

The gist of her conversation involved talking about how great things were going, how her boyfriend had just started making more money, and how life was changing for the better. Fast forward to a couple days later.

I had laundry to do. I woke up around 1pm and two hours later was finally realizing I needed to go eat something. Hunger started kicking my ass. It was my day off. Even though I don't ask people to hang with me anymore, or after the first request is thrown out, I still force myself to go out and have some fun. Hah!

Instead of fun, I ended up trying to nurse my friend's feelings. The minute I pulled in the parking lot to eat, she called me crying. She gave me no option but to turn around and head home. She said she was about to drive to my house. She had called into work sick. Why you ask? Her boyfriend broke up with her.

Now I'm horrible with emotions. I can be extremely happy, extremely sad, mad, kick, and scream all over the place. However, you will rarely ever see me shed a tear. In fact, in my 20's I've only cried in front of someone once and I was ashamed then. So what the Hell was I going to do for her feelings?

Tell her that her now ex-boyfriend she shares an apartment with is an asshole? Tell her we need to drink this situation away? Look for something fun to do to distract us from this disastrous occurrence? Cry with her?

I didn't know what to do. I didn't really know what to say. I said all I could say when she first hooked up with him and started splitting rent with him before she even lived in the apartment. I saw it all coming. Thankfully, she had another friend who said all the comforting words.

So I was able to just be the available friend. I hope no one starts taking advantage of my availableness.