a little east of reality

Thursday, May 25, 2006

thirteen reasons why I won't be staying at my friends' apartment on my next trip to Sydney









This is my first Thursday Thirteen. I haven't got all the proper code and stuff for the Thursday Thirteen but I'll fix that next week.

1. She told me that it was no problem at all to use their computer, so I did, three times.
2. He on the other hand was visably tense when I asked to check my email one night before he shut the computer down. He actually stayed in the room until I'd finished, clearly not wanting anyone using the computer, and apparently having no idea that I'd been given permission to use it.
3. She was happy for me to stay five days. He asked how long I was staying when I arrived, because apparently he didn't know.
4. She was irate the day I arrived because a female friend of her fiance was also staying two nights that weekend. After telling me their plans, she then instructed me not to mention any of it, because he wasn't aware she knew this information.
5. Which she gleaned by secretly reading his email.
6. Did I mention they are getting married in three weeks?
7. I felt pressured to validate her loathing of this woman, who I also know, and have no particular problem with.
8. They both have quirky OCD behaviours. Neither will acknowledge it, and exude a false easy-going attitude whenever you actually ask if something is a problem.
9. Preferring instead to make their guests feel like they are constantly putting things in the wrong place, or moving something that must never be moved, or getting in the way.
10. When I am alone with my friend, she is friendly and attentive. When we go out with other people, she ignores me, walks with the other person a few paces ahead of me, forgets to introduce me, etc, and generally makes me feel like a younger cousin who has been foisted upon her and her friends for the day.
11. Which made me so uncomfortable that I wondered why she'd been so eager when I asked if I could stay.
12. I had lunch with another friend while I was there and it was so uncomplicated and calm and pleasant that it made me realise just how tense everything was where I was staying.
13. All of which has made me realise that probably one of the reasons this woman and I are still friends after so many years is because I have never before stayed at her place for five days straight, and that this is why I should probably not do it again.