The One You Call Friend

I met up with one of my third year friends today Nick who came and chilled out at my place. Since we haven't been catching up for over a week, there was aplenty to talk about. I told him about the 'exciting' past events over the week and we chatted about nonsensical stuff. Along the way, we came to the topic of Organisational Behaviour (OB) which is one of the subjects I'll be taking next year. So after hearing on what I had to say, he said that getting a good group was one of the top priorities in OB because that group will be more or less be with you throughout the subject and there's more work and marks awarded compared to subjects like BPA or ATA.

Although nothing's been cast into stone yet, I've been thinking to myself of the possible groups that I could join and realise that there really isn't a lot of options to choose from and I'm not sure whether people will accept me as their group member even though I ask. So that's one area of concern that I'm thinking about right now. But that's not the subject of topic that I want to post today. Instead, I want to talk about the issue of friends.

Tell me, the one you call friend, how well do you trust him/her? I guess friends are an essential part in our lives whether we like it or not. No one can survive without friends unless that person is a hermit. Having made this statement, I do try to set out to practice what I've preached. But more often, I find the people or the friends I have sometimes are quite one sided. When I mean one-sided, I'm trying to say people who rely on you for a specific thing, for example say work. Yeah, I generally believe that the people around me are good people with a good conscience which is why I help them out and don't ask for anything in return. But anyway, I find that nowadays, every time my phone rings, it's always someone who's asking me how to balance my trial balance or like what internal controls are there in place for this type of business etc. Personally I don't mind it, but the problem comes when say for example, I ask them out for say a cup of coffee or out shopping or maybe even something simple like can I copy your lecture notes because I forgot to take down something in the lecture, they will always come out with some kind of excuse.

But the most 'fascinating' thing is that when person C comes along and asks the same question, they will go like 'yeah of course I'll lend you my notes,' or 'yeah I'm free this Saturday for shopping.' I mean as a bystander, sometimes I wonder what do they take me for? Am I a walking encyclopedia or someone whom you use as a last resort if you have any academic problems? Hello, I have a life too myself, I watch MTV, I know what's techically going on in hollywood, I know the lastest hits out in the music industry, things like that. But what amazes me is that people call me up just to ask me about work and nothing else. And someone made a comment which I find it to be rather offensive, it went: "I thought you only study at home?" The comment itself is okay on its own, but inferring from that comment made in that circumstance showed that the person thought she knew me, which clearly wasn't true at all. Personally, I feel insulted if you consider me as this type of friend.

Well, I'm still trying to find the person/group Siyue mentioned about. All I'm asking is I don't want to be that friend whom you use as a last resort. I want to be both your first and last resort, and of course don't call me up just for work please. I'm open to many of your other things that you want to share with me too.