Flakes

They hadn't seen each other since the end of the show, and she was struggling to find the balance between asking to hang out and not looking like she was desperate to hang with him.  It had ended that night on a weird note, and she wasn't sure where to take it.  She hated putting herself out there to be rejected, so she was sensitive but still trying to make things work.  She'd send him something that she thought was funny or comment on his Facebook posts.  She noticed that he'd posted about seeing Batman vs Superman for the third time and sent him a message.

"I was gonna ask if you wanted to see BvS tonight but you've already seen it three times :-("

"Sorry"

"It's cool, I'll catch it someday.  You wanna do something else or are you busy?"

"I may be busy"

For some reason this comment enraged her.  She hated that kind of half-assed response to keep people on the hook for plans.  Either he had plans or he didn't, but she wasn't willing to be his fall back plans.  She'd had enough of that with the flakes in her old city.  She lashed out.

"You *may* be *busy*.....okay got it."

"Jesus.  I have plans to hang with my girlfriend.  But if she gets a migraine, that shit falls through.  I'm sorry that the chronic problems she suffers make it so I can't commit to plans sometimes.  Fuck."

After talking through it with Sleuthy she saw where it had gone wrong.  He was trying to protect her from talking about his girlfriend, thinking she would get upset that he was spending time with her.  Men.

"That's all you have to say though, stop with all the elusive!  When you say "I may be busy" to me that says "I need some time to find a reason not to hang with you today."  It's like you think I'm not going to understand.  I get it, but you have to say it.  Otherwise I'll fill in the blanks and I'm usually not that positive."

"Fair enough."

"Sorry.  It's been a rough week for me, I'm like super hyper-sensitive." She never apologized to anyone, she was totally unsure why she kept apologizing to him.

"Understandably so.  Sorry."

"I do though, I get it.  It's a rough situation you are in too, and you can totally tell me.  We are friends, I'm not going to be mad at you for having plans with your girlfriend."

He didn't answer.  Later she texted him about the play, he had mentioned that his girlfriend wanted to be involved in more theatre.  That turned into a blow up about flaky people and being last minute about plans.  It was enough to make a sane person crazy.

Sometimes she wondered if they were both too thin-skinned to be friends with each other.