The Fabulous One (TFO)

This probably won’t be as long and as detailed as it would have once been. All the negative energy I held toward her is, for the most part, gone.

The two of us met just a few months before we met TPL. We just clicked right away. She’s about 6 years my junior but we are both Sagittarians.

Yeah. I do put a bit of stock in those star signs. Not enough to try and predict my future or anything like that. It’s just that there are certain characteristics that I have found that people born under some signs do seem to share. I always click with other Sags without a problem no matter what color they happen to be. All except MOS. Again…she is another long azz post. Maybe several posts. *eye roll*

We both are ambitious. She taught me some things about job hunting and just opened my mind to a lot of things that had never occurred to me. She is in the category of people who helped me grow becuz they wanted to. She introduced me to black literature. Yes, I had to be introduced to it. Besides what I had read in school, which was the old stuff, I had never sought any out and no one I knew was reading black writers. Ain’t that sad? Especially, since ALL my friends and acquaintences read for pleasure. Since the majority of them are black that’s pretty sad that I had to introduce black literature to our group.

Now, we all read black writers regularly.

Anyway, then we met TPL. We met him one day over lunch. As we left the lunch room our eyes met and we burst out laughing cuz TPL was totally off the chain. He MADE lunch time fun time.

Man we had some great times back then. We worked hard and fast so we could have plenty of time to cut up at lunch. That’s where our great 3some started. Please remove your head from the gutter. It was totally a platonic 3some.

TFO and I use to get together for dinner out once a month. She had one kid and a live in boyfriend back then so once/month was all she could manage. Really that was all I could manage too. I had an apartment, no roommate and was saving for a car. So my pennies were spoken for too but it was great to have someone to hang out with who loved to laugh as much as me.

Funny how my crybaby harpy (as TDP would say) friends are still here but the good time buddies are in the wind. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing it’s just interesting. Cuz when our 3some ended they were all too happy to welcome me back with no reproach. Yeah, it’s really interesting.

My harpies couldn’t stand TPL and TFO cuz soon TPL was joining us for dinner and that was a wrap for the harpies for awhile. I was no longer at their beck and call. I had friends that I could make plans with and hang out and have a GOOD time with. I didn’t have to hear their same old complaints time and time again causing me indigestion cuz the heffas had no intention of changing their situation. They just wanted to dump that negative energy on someone else.

NOTE TO ALL HARPIES: If you want to convince your single friends that they should couple up with anyone they can find and have a baby no matter what the situation then your azz should call them when you are happy some damn time. Yeah, heffas, I’m saying.

We had a couple years of fun.

You know, in retrospect, I should have paid a lot more attention when TPL said this:

I don’t keep friends long becuz someone is always lying and then I end up having to tell them about themselves.

Or something to that effect. Yeah…he never said he wouldn’t be one of the people lying.

Chile, a lot of lying and disrespecting went on that took our friendship to its inevitable end. I think what tore it was this last incident.

TFO had suddenly gotten into the habit of telling me and TPL that she would meet us somewhere for dinner and then not show up. She wouldn’t call nor would she answer our calls. When we finally got a hold of her there would be no explanation and no apology.

This went on for many months till one day she called me sounding really depressed about a situation going on in her life. I asked if she wanted to get together and talk. She said yes. She picked the place and the time.

Ok, it was at this restaurant in this really dangerous area of town known for its heavy drug traffic. But a friend was in need so I went.

I get there. It’s winter time so its pitch black over there at the time she picked. I park in the small parking lot and wait becuz I didn’t see her car. I decide to give her half an hour and then I was going home. I felt pretty safe sitting in my car cuz every few minutes or so a police car would drive by.

But this little voice in the back of my mind kept saying: get out of the car. Over and over again and I kept getting more and more anxious for no apparent reason. So finally after about 12 minutes I got out of the car and headed into the restaurant. The police car went by again as I went inside. In that 12 minute period I had seen what I thought were 4-5 different cop cars. When I got inside I called her cell and home. No answer as usual.

I went back to my car and went home. I was livid! This place is clear on the other side of town from me mind you! This happened on a Friday night. You know that heffa didn’t call me the whole weekend. I did call TPL and told him about it and we decided that was it. We just wouldn’t invite her out with us anymore if that was how she was going to treat us. And neither of us were going anywhere with her alone again. No telling if she would show or not. And we didn’t know why. She refused to even discuss what was up with her.

So Monday morning I get to work and sign into my computer. Back then my messenger was set up to sign in as soon as I turned on my computer. An IM from her pops up. I ignore it and switch my presence to invisible. So she calls my work number. She is fine. No explanations. Doesn’t even bring up the fact that she left me in a drug infested area at night alone without the benefit of a call.

So I ask: Where the hell were you? I came clear the fuk across town for you and you were nowhere to be found and you didn’t answer your damn phone!

You know what her response was: Why didn’t you call before you left your house?

So I guess, if I had called before I left home and not gotten an answer I was to take from that that she was not going to show up. Bytch! WTF?

But you know what. I dropped it. It wasn’t worth it and evidently she didn’t think our friendship was worth it and I was done.

So my supervisor noticed and asked me what was going on after I hung up the phone. I told her what happened Friday and the incredulous look on her face said it all for me. I wasn’t crazy and I had a right to feel the way I felt. Then she schooled me.

She said that a person like that doesn’t care about you. They don’t care about your personal safety. That is a person who would have no problem hurting you for any reason.

That thought kind of scared me cuz that had never crossed my mind.

Then she said that I should be glad I listened to that little worrying voice. She knew the area too and she said that was probably the same cop driving back and forth. He probably had put a timer on how long he was going to let me sit before he came and investigated my presence there.

I said so, I didn’t have any drugs on me. She asked did I have any cash on me. Well, Friday had been payday and I had withdrawn quite a bit of cash to hang out and do stuff over the weekend. She said then he would have assumed that I was there to buy drugs. And since TFO wasn’t answering her phone so that she could corroborate my story he could have pulled me in for questioning. Then with it being a weekend they could have held me over till Monday at which time I would probably end up jobless when I called from jail to say I couldn’t make it to work and why.

Yeah you read that right. I had no guile back in my 20s. I would have called my supervisor and told her everything that had happened.

I looked at her in shock and before I could ask the question she answered it. I would have been jobless becuz our employer does not employ people under suspicion by the police of illegal activities. If nothing else they could have charged me with and convicted me of loitering. After all no girlfriend showed up and there was no one answering the number I would have given the police.

So yeah…I was done with TFO that day. I told that to TPL. He thought I was kidding. It took years for him to realize it. I think he thought as the years went on that I would soften. I’m not hard. I’m just done. I told him he was welcome to be friends with her but I was done.

His lying azz of course tells me he doesn’t talk to her anymore. *smh* But see, even though I don’t talk to TFO anymore she finds a way to communicate with me. See every time I tell TPL something juicy that is going on in my life TFO will send me a joke or inspirational email. I never respond but I got the message. TPL just passed along whatever bit of juice I gave him to her. *chuckle* I don’t care really cuz I never give him anything that I don’t want him to have. Nothing truly private just funny stuff that happens in my life. Like meeting HKS on North Avenue. Oh and by the way, that restaurant that I was to meet TFO at that night is located on a side street directly off of North Avenue. *chuckle*

He has tried a few times to get us back together. One day he cajoled and cajoled me until I told him I would think about it. But I told him that I had no intention of going through that foolishness of her standing us up anymore. I had shyt to do in my own life.

So he emailed her, cc’ing me, asking her about that. I forget how he worded it but he kind of jokingly alluded to her standing us up and asking had she changed. You know that heffa didn’t answer his question. She had been answering his emails up to that point though. After about 20 mins of her not answering he sent an email about something else. She responded to that email immediately but never answered his question about standing us up.

And I remained done. I called him on the phone and told him to have fun at dinner. He stopped trying after that.

So that is the short (hah) story of my friendship with TFO. There are a lot of bad stories I could tell but there are also some really funny stories I could tell. I let go of the bad so that I could hold on to the good stuff. I don’t know what was going on in her life and I guess she didn’t feel she could trust me with it. That’s a shame cuz she lost a good friend.

*Tips Welch’s Mango Passion Fruit juice at the monitor*