The Maple Leaf Rag

I guess we all go through these times, times when nothing seems exciting and your daily life is boring. Right now, I'm in one of those times. It started last week when I realized that people who I think might be friends, probably aren't friends at all. Right now, I'm deleting all of the names on my friend list on QQ. China is in a huge boom now and I'm finding that the people who wanted help with English now want help with their businesses. I constantly get, "How do I do this? How do I do that?" questions which aren't about personal problems or school/university problems but about their businesses. Why would I help someone with their business? They will make money from my help, but I won't. Would you? 

Then, again last week, someone said hi to me after about seven months of silence. She didn't give her name, and her QQ display name was in Chinese, so I didn't know who it was. "Remember me?" she said. When I said no, I didn't remember her, she got very upset and disappeared. After seven months of no contact she expects me to remember her? At least she could have said, "Hi. It's Joyce (or whatever). I've been busy for a while. How are you?" But she didn't. I was expected to be a genius or an elephant with an incredible memory? 

This is my rant for today. A rant is where you blow off steam and tell everyone why you are upset or angry. Grrrrrr! I'll be better soon. 

P.S. if you were on  my QQ list and want to say hi, you still can. If I delete you you can still chat. Maybe I will add you back! 

I wrote last time about the friend who had gotten back in touch with me after months of silence. Here's an update on the situation. 

In her first email after the break, she mentioned a story that she had finally finished. Back when we were still friends, I had read the first few pages of the story but she hadn't finished it at that time. When she mentioned the story in the recent email, I had a little niggling feeling that  it was odd. Today, that niggling feeling was confirmed.

In my first email back to her, I said, "Send the story along. I'd like to read it." And she did send it as an attachment to her next email. Believe it or not, the 'story' was 93 pages long. Basically a novelette!

I started to read it again, sort of skimming through the part I had read before. It was a science fiction/romance thing, not unlike twilight but with a completely different story. After reading about 20 pages, I sent her a message back saying that is was good but there were some small errors in tense and wording, etc.

Guess what? Her next message was incredibly short, saying simply, "What are the errors?" At that point, my niggling feeling bloomed into wholesale mistrust when I realized that I was being used. The whole point of getting back to me after so many months was not as a friend, not because she felt a need to talk to me, nothing like that at all. She simply needed someone to edit her story.

I've been used before, as I have mentioned here, but nothing quite like this. In some ways it's a compliment but in others, it's an insult. It's depressing when someone uses friendship to get something from someone else. I guess we are all different but I do admire honesty in a person, more than anything. My advice? Be honest above all with everyone, especially your friends and yourself.  

I got an interesting email from someone, earlier in the week. Back several months, I guess it would be maybe five or six or more, I'd been writing back and forth with a member of Ebaby. She'd asked for help and, over time, we had been getting to know each other a bit better. 

As time went by, the messages became longer and more interesting and, I thought, we were becoming better friends. With friends that you've known for a long time and shared thoughts with, a person becomes more open and trusting. Maybe we say things in a different way or discuss topics that might only be discussed between good friends.

Well, my lesson learned is that you can't just open yourself up to people sometimes. In my last message, I said something that upset this friend. To me, it was an innocent statement but to her, I assume because of cultural or age differences, it was far from innocent. Instead of telling me what upset her, she just disappeared. No email, no contact at all.

Because we had been good friends and because she dropped out of sight completely, I became very worried that this person had been injured in an accident and was hospitalized. A couple of times I actually had a friend in the country in question search for details of an accident.

Then, out of the blue, I get an email that described the incident and the person's feeling about it. The situation isn't resolved but at least now I know what happened. Maybe we will continue to be in contact or maybe this will be the final messages between us. I hope we can continue to be friends but if not, well, c'est la vie!

The lesson here is mind what you say and take into account another person's cultural differences when you say something. I am darn sure that I will from now on!