Personal Angel or Gullible Fool?
Hello all, this is Corry (the Scottish one) again.
I am in a position where should I ever need a poster to advertise myself I have some pretty good quotes for it. The latest being from Mark’s blog ‘Challenge! (For While I’m Gone)’ where he calls me his ‘personal angel or gullible fool’. The last quote that Mark gave me was in his ‘Crap At The Environment’ book where he called me a ‘superb producer’ and also a ‘stupid masochist’. He will tend to give with one hand and take away with the other.
These quotes and personal circumstances over the last few months have led me to question the nature of friendships and how we balance what we all do for the people we are close to. We all have someone in our lives that we can call at 3am, drunk and crying and know that they will soothe us with words of wisdom and support… these are the same people that not only remember your birthday but find you the perfect present that you never even knew you wanted. And we all have people in our lives that are constantly late, forget to call, cancel plans at the last minute and yet we still call them friends and are happy to put up with their many flaws because we know that when they do turn up an hour after they said they would they will tell you an amazing story or introduce you to a strange new vegetable wine from deepest, darkest Tibet.
Most of us strike the balance when it comes to friendship. I am terrible at calling friends back when they leave me a voicemail but I’m damn good in a crisis and know where to find wine and ice cream in the middle of the night and at short notice. I have been known to cancel plans last minute, but I throw a pretty good dinner party , I reckon I even out as an OK mate.
The only time I feel like I’m slipping into the terrible friend category is when I am around my ‘perfect friends’ most of whom are called Kate (or a derivitive of it). At the present moment in time I am living at my friend Katy’s house after a recent relationship split. She is one of those people who will give you her last penny (or her flat for a month). The wonder of Katy is her unbelievable energy and positivity, not only making time to be a perfect friend on the wine, ice cream and accommodation front but also finding time to write books, lecture (she is a Dr. Katy), still making enough time for Spinning Classes and to listen to me whine. My attempt to repay her kindnesses with Thorntons chocolates seem rather lame. Hopefully a mention in the blog will go someway to express my gratitude to her.
The friends that I feel at my most comfortable around are the ones that are like me. Normally great at doing the friend thing but sometimes a bit accidentally rubbish. This is probably why I get on so well with Mark, and most likely why he can not pay me a compliment without the added (hopefully tongue in cheek) negative aside. We are pretty much as bad and as good as each other. We have the balance just about right and neither of us can feel shame, guilt or smugness round the other as we have both supported each other and asked too much of each other at times in equal measure. Plus we both have the same opinion that wine is very much the best way to say please, sorry or hello.
Being the ‘perfect friend’ may seem unachievable at times, especially if you are surrounded by saints, but I reckon that perfection in a pal may just as easily come from someone being as scatty as yourself but letting you know you are appreciated and hoping, just hoping that a mention in a blog or a book may make up for all the things they have done for you. And do you know what… I think it does.
Lets just hope Katy agrees.
Posted by Kathryn on July 23, 2010
I’m glad I took the time to catch up on the blog, this one was lovely.
Friends are complicated. I have one friend who I’m really close with but who drives me up the wall in being completely unaware of me being annoyed at her. Such as not apologising when she turned up fifty minutes late to meet me to go to a concert. But when we do meet up we spend the entire time making references to all our inside jokes. And I never let her know exactly how pissed off I am.
Posted by Rachael on July 20, 2010
Interesting blog, i’m glad i’m not the only one with friends like this. If Katy is anything like me then a blog mention goes a long way, lets hope so.
Posted by Paul on July 20, 2010
Absolutely spot on.
I guess the very best bits of any friendship will always represent a utopia that would be both impractical and probably-not-very-sensible to try and achieve on a permanent basis. It is essentially irritating that I can’t always devote the time I’d like to my friends, and hopefully they feel the same in reverse.
Safe in the knowledge that I’m pretty sure I’ll do anything to try and help anyone, I’m also pretty sure I can be a bit overbearing in that attitude sometimes, so when I forget that it’s hardly surprising that I start to feel as though people aren’t seeming as grateful as I think they perhaps should.
For me, it’s more often than not the little things that touch me most. A friend frequented a fantastic little cafe (excellent cakes, particularly), but it sadly had to close. The owner kindly donated to him a selection of about a dozen loose leaf teas to pass on to me, and he e-mailed me a list of said teas. Best bit of the e-mail?
“I’m just sorry they’re not in alphabetical order.”
It didn’t matter that they weren’t listed alphabetically; of course it didn’t. But just the fact that, knowing the sense of order I try (and usually fail) to achieve in life, he thought I might prefer them so put a smile on my face for the rest of the afternoon.
Posted by Katy on July 19, 2010
Lovely blog Corry.
I like to think I’m a pretty good friend, always on hand in a crisis, always on time etc. I also have some pretty awesome friends myself.
They all have their flaws but I think sometimes I’m too quick to pick up on those and not see the good things that they do. Anyone on the forum will have seen my mini-rant about my best mate last week and his lack of gratitude for the things I do. But to give him his credit he does a lot for me and I dont think I thank him enough. Yes he takes me for granted sometimes, and yes hes ALWAYS late to things, but hes the only person that sits and listens to be for hours on end even when he knows im just being stupid. Hes helped me exams, hes helped me with money when I nearly had to move back home and he generally cares a lot about me. And its the caring that I appreciate the most.
Im rambling. I shall stop.
Posted by Kirsty on July 19, 2010
Still no blog? I am confused and scared!!!
Posted by Madeleine on July 19, 2010
I guess the run had to end sometime… Though apparently you have been seeing yeasayer and Grizzly Bear so we can’t begrudge you too much. I will be as well in less than two weeks!
Nice blog by the way Corry! Don’t have very much too say, but a great job again!
Posted by Kirsty on July 19, 2010
I do not like the fact that my watch says the date is now the 19th and the latest blog is dated the 17th. Do not like.
But I shouldn’t be internetting drunk anyway.
Anyway, I’m gonna share a friend story. I have a friend who is not a great timekeeper and is terrible at replying to texts. She’s not unreliable, more absent-minded and often busy.
But she really came through for me on Friday. I was having an awful, awful day at work and texted her to tell her as much. She didn’t text back, but when I left work, she was there for me and she’d brought me a stress ball and took me to a bar and bought me a beer and let me rant… and then later, when I got home I found she’d put thornton’s chocolate in my bag when I wasn’t looking. All that meant the world to me.
I like to think I’m that kind of friend, and if I’m not, well, I aim to be. I’m terrible at keeping in regular daily contact with people, but I want to be the kind of person who will drop everything to help out someone when they REALLY need me. That’s a better friend than someone who texts every day just for the sake of it and comments on every facebook photo even if they have nothing to say but “lol”.
Posted by Lydia on July 18, 2010
Interesting post. I only actually made my first “close friend” recently, so most of the above is still kind of alien to me. Because of this I think I’m a pretty crappy friend, but for now, the fact that I am trying seems to be good enough.
Posted by Phill on July 17, 2010
It’s getting a bit late for deep thoughts, but… one thing I have thought about being a friend recently is, being a friend is being there when it counts.
A month or so ago a couple of good friends of mine (they are flatmates) had to move house. It was actually a very stressful experience for them for reasons which I won’t go into here. However, I turned up, helped them clean the house, and helped them move their stuff.
I’m the worst person in the world when it comes to knowing the right thing to say, I just can never find the words. sometimes, though, the important thing is turning up and getting stuck in to whatever needs to be done.
It’s not exactly deep or wise or an epiphany, but knowing the right thing to say is something which always make me feel inadequate – but perhaps that’s not so important.
Posted by LisaBrunders on July 17, 2010
Lovely blog. You did it again Corry, I look forward to you guesting
Posted by Anji on July 17, 2010
Oh dear. I’m the friend that is rubbish at answering the phone, calling back and actually making that ‘coffee soon’ happen.
Having said that I do still have friends, most go back years and know I have some good points as well as utterly useless ones. Some I don’t see or talk to for ages but when we do eventually catch up it’s like the gaps have never been there. I always try to be there when needed and help in what ever way I can, in fact I sometimes in the past, have risked an awful lot and put others first at times when perhaps it wasn’t best for me.
My friends are totally important to me, and although I may be rubbish at times, I trust they know I love them, but just like they might be rubbish at cooking, or picking the right men, we still manage and sort of like the dysfunction our friendship has been built on.
Tomorrow could now be resulting in a lot of phone calls and texts – maybe I should try and make it a TYSIC to improve keeping in touch with people!
Posted by Heather on July 17, 2010
Very nice post! And I completely agree; the friends I’m happiest with are the ones whose strengths and faults are on par with my own. One of my best friends has a chronic problem with lateness and is incredibly difficult to schedule anything with, and yet we stayed overnight at the beach with some friends on the weekend and she said “I’m really glad I got to spend some time with you”. It’s such a simple sentence, but a week later it still makes me feel warm inside.
Posted by Linsey on July 17, 2010
Lovely blog! It’s an interesting subject to ponder. I recognise that I’m shit in some areas, but most of my friends recognise it too, and so will cut me some slack when I forget birthdays or forget to mention how nice their new haircut is, because I’ll bring a bottle of wine and will always be on the end of the phone if they need me. I also have an internal strengths and weaknesses catalogue for each of them, and so none of us are ever left stranded.
All this talk of wine has made me really need a glass… So easily swayed!
Posted by Katie on July 17, 2010
I, like Misha and the rest of us, would like to think I’m a good friend, but really, I know I’m not that great. I forget birthdays, holidays, most important information and relevant details about everything and anything. But then I also like to think that I’m quite good at cheering my friends up, and that I’m normally the one being woken at 3am because someone’s drunk and wants to have a bit of a cry. I like that, though. And I like to think I try quite hard at being good at those last two things.
Out of all my friends, I can pick out the people who don’t answer texts or are a bit unreliable, but they’re my friends. They’re good enough to put up with me, so their faults don’t really matter.
Posted by Aislinn on July 17, 2010
P.S. I didn’t say this was a nice blog. It is a nice blog. I really enjoyed it.
Posted by Aislinn on July 17, 2010
I’m in two minds about this.
I definitely don’t think it matters if friends are late sometimes, or don’t reply to texts, or other things. Hell, I do all of those things on occasion.
At the same time, though, I don’t think the fact that somebody gets on really well with you provides an excuse for that someone to be really unreliable – I have one friend who I love to bits, but literally never get to see because she keeps cancelling on me last minute. At one point it happened three times in slightly over a week, and one of those times meant having to miss out on going to see a band I really loved.
Then again, the times I do see her, although sparse, are very enjoyable.
Swings and roundabouts, really.
Posted by Mike on July 17, 2010
A lovely blog entry – and well done to Katy for being such a brilliant friend and person.
Cheers for brightening up my Saturday.
Posted by Misha on July 17, 2010
Brilliant, I was hoping this blog would go up before I leave for my holidays, and it did. Even more brilliant, it’s a really lovely one.
I’d like to think i’m ok at being a friend. I’m the one to rind in a crisis, although not always the best to make plans with. Partly because I never have the money, party because i’ve usually got my little brother in tow, and occasionally because i’m just plain useless. But I’d like to imagine I make up for this in other ways.
I think it’s more important just being yourself. I mean, if you’ve kept friends then clearly they don’t mind if you’re late sometimes or don’t always answer a text message straight away.