For the last week, I’ve been a bit more optimistic than usual, after making the decision to take a vacation in Europe. I’ve been poring over websites & travel information, met with a travel agent, and asked my friend X to give me advice.
The thing is, he never gets around to doing some things I ask him to do — there’s a few things I asked him to do over a year ago, and they’re still not done. This is OK, because it’s not like I’m paying him or anything, and he’s got other things to accomplish than dealing with my website trouble or looking up hotel information. He’s got priorities.
Earlier today I made some decisions based on cost to slim down the vacation and save Paris for another time. As a result, I felt like I needed to concentrate on the hotel options, and asked him to call me to advise me on some hotel terms. But he didn’t call; I assumed he was busy. Then, my travel agent got back to me and explained the hotel terms. I made some decisions and sent her off to get a new price. When she called back, she had finally gotten what I wanted: a flight on Virgin Atlantic, extra time in London in lieu of Paris, and a great room in a 4-star hotel in Mayfair, with all the amenities including broadband (so I can blog, of course), in one of those classy townhouses on a crescent… all for less than I had originally budgeted. All in all, I shaved $1500 off the cost of the vacation! More money to spend at Marks & Spencers, you know.
I was particularly happy about it and told her to go ahead and make the reservations and get the paperwork rolling. Then I made the mistake of telling X that I had made travel plans.
What I got in return, via iChat, was a terse comment: “silly me thinking you would wait like you said you would l8r” and then a disconnect. (And as it turns out, this exchange happened just minutes after UPS delivered his Valentine’s present from me. Some thanks, eh?)
Nothing new there. Now I have to endure another passive aggressive episode, carefully avoiding saying anything because he’ll counter with threats to turn off my websites or, as has been the case many times before, a threat to never speak to me again. He’s once again turned the situation around and made it all about him. It’s okay. I’ll deal with it. I just wish he hadn’t done this when I was so happy… for such a fleeting moment.
And I wish that I wasn’t so easily threatened and could just once yell back, “oh, yeah? Go ahead. See if I care.”
