Complaining About Nothing

(It’s winter break, and my group of friends is back from college. We’ve kind of fallen apart, but we still want to form a get-together with all of us. Although one friend has expressed interest, she’s incredibly busy and doesn’t have any free time at all. Eventually, winter break ends; the get-together never happens. After everyone has returned to college, I communicate over IM with this friend.)

Friend: “I was working seven days a week, but I have some time off now.”

Me: “Good! Your schedule was really gross. That wasn’t a vacation at ALL!”

Friend: “I could’ve requested time off earlier, but I didn’t because I was waiting for you or [Best Friend] to let me know when you wanted to hang out.”

Me: “Uh, what?”

Friend: “I have always instigated get-togethers, and I felt like we wouldn’t hang out if I wasn’t the one making plans. So, I guess I was right…”

Me: “Um, [Friend]… Look, you’re really sociable, but [Best Friend] and I aren’t good at social stuff at all. You KNOW that. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have left it all up to us.”

Friend: “I know, but I feel like if you guys actually wanted to get together, you would have mentioned something…”

Me: “But… I did. I was posting my schedule online, letting everyone know when I had free time, and asking if you guys wanted to come to my house. It really would’ve been more helpful if you picked a day that you wanted off. I think we would’ve worked around your schedule. I just didn’t get any input from you or [Friend #2].”

Friend: “Anyway, it’s not like I didn’t plan anything so that I could have a reason to be mad. Which I’m not mad! I just wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t say anything, even though I wanted us to all get together and hang out like we used to.”

Me: “Well, I wanted to, too, and I feel bad that we didn’t, but I’m not pointing fingers at anyone.”

Friend: “I’m not pointing fingers.”

Me: “But y’know, we all have a part in the planning… The summer before, we got together a lot thanks to you. But I was able to make plans, too, so long as everyone told me when they would be free and what they wanted to do.”

Friend: “I said I wasn’t pointing fingers. I was proving a point to myself.”

Me: “[Friend], it IS pointing fingers because you told me your thought process. You decided that it was up to me and [Best Friend] to plan everything, and then since nothing happened, you decided that it was because of us. But y’know what? I think something would’ve worked out if everyone actually put forward some effort. You hardly proved anything besides the fact that if you just wait and do nothing, nothing’s going to happen.”

(She suddenly dropped the point after that.)