Rainy Days, As Always (part 2)

I'm stuck in the newsroom. It was, to use a cliche, raining cats and dogs outside I couldn't leave for home.

So here I am in this cybersanctuary.

Outside, I showed TP the sms. Was wondering why I didn't get a reply.

"How could you reply to a text like that?" she said after reading it.

Brought me to what a former (or ex) friend told me. But first a little context. She and I were friends, from college, although we met, through a mutual friend, after college. She was okay, a self-admitted neurotic (I didn't use it derisively here, just stating a fact). Until that one time when things didn't go well. Couldn't remember the circumstances anymore. One day, I got a compilation CD. There she said, that I could be cold. I have not been returning her text, and stopped communicating altogether. Why, she asked. I didn't answer.

Admittedly, that's quite true. They say, it's better not to burn bridges. I know that, it's just that I have done the opposite.

Maybe it's a defense mechanism, although I don't think it's applicable in the present context. I don't know why I do that, but it hurts me as equally as the person concerned.

The nearest explanation could be that it has something to do with pride. I choose my friends carefully, I told a barkada once. I'd rather have a small circle of trusted friends than to have a contingent of acquiantances. Friendships are relationships that need nurturing, investing. It's not something you get into just for the sake of getting into. It's a delicate process, becoming friends with someone, because in order for it to grow, you have to open up yourself, carefully, almost with calculation.

That's why it's hard to face a certain reality, that the process I adopted is not fool-proof. And the fault boomerangs directly to my face.