The birthday party

Imagine this. Three weeks ago your friends say they want to have a pizza party at your place. The date is decided. You're quite busy and don't have much free time, so the day before the party you decide to cancel some lessons (we're imagining you have a job as a private tutor) to go home early and clean the apartment and get things ready... and in this case, taking off from work means you don't get paid.

At 11pm, you're just about to leave for the store to buy a few more things before it closes when you get a text message saying that the plan for tomorrow is to meet in downtown Oita at 1:30pm, go to the batting cages, then head over to someone else's place for dinner. What? You're confused, right?

So you send back a message asking if plans for the pizza party have been cancelled. The reply is that you always seem really busy, and with you in mind they decided to change locations, and sorry if you've already gotten stuff ready. What do you do?

You try not to get angry and casually mention that actually you had taken off work to clean the apartment and get everything ready. A half hour later the reply is, "My cell phone battery died so I'm writing from my computer account. Thanks for going so far as taking off from work to clean and stuff. I know we've been talking about having pizza at your place the whole time, but then we realized that you're pretty busy so decided to change plans. We should have let you know sooner. Sorry!" At this point, what would you be thinking?

Personally, I was pissed off. They had me in mind, so they tell me the plans have changed after I'd already gotten stuff ready? You mean to tell me that I took off of work and spent the evening rushing to get stuff ready for nothing? I was incensed. I considered not even showing up to the damn party. But I went anyway because I didn't want my anger to get the better of me.

Thankfully there was another foreigner there who I could talk to and get my mind off of how I felt. I spent my entire time talking with him because simply looking at anyone else put me in a bad mood. I really didn't want to ruin a birthday party. I shouldn't have gone in the first place.

After going to the batting cages we stopped off at a grocery store to pick up stuff to cook at our friend's house. I was standing next to one friend, and when I looked in the basket, there was a bottle of salsa sitting in it. I let it slip how I had actually bought that same bottle of salsa thinking that people were coming over. Then the words just came out... that I was pretty pissed that I'd found out the plans were cancelled after I had taken off work and had already gotten stuff ready. I could feel my blood pressure rising so I walked away.

A minute later I felt someone hug me from behind. It was a different friend. She said, "Sorry, we thought you were too busy so we changed plans." I guess word had spread that I was in a bad mood. But you know what? I don't care what the reason is that the plans were changed, I just find it extremely inconsiderate that no one bothered to tell me until the last minute. And did they really think that telling me at 11pm the night before the party would be appropriate? Any normal person would realize that this would be too late.

Everyone apologized. Sorry. We didn't know you'd already gotten stuff ready. We thought you were too busy so we decided to have the party at someone else's house.

Whatever. I put on my best happy face and said it was okay, that everything was alright. I suppressed my true feelings as best I could because I really didn't want to ruin everyone's day. But I did think about a few things. This situation came about not because of indifference towards me, but because of simple ignorance and a lack of common sense... a combination that leads to inconsiderate behavior and harsh feelings, whether or not it be unintentional. Do I really want to spend time around people who are this clueless? It's sad to say, but I really don't feel the same about this group of friends anymore. I don't feel as eager to hang out with them as I used to.

This just happened today and the irritation is still coursing through my veins. I wonder how long it will take for these bitter feelings to fade.