The Forgettable

It looks like you have already met most of the important and significant people in my group of friends. There are still a few more but I’m glad that I get to write after The Always-Late. Actually, I was really taken back when I saw the text from The Leader telling me that it was my turn to write a post. Having people reaching out to me doesn’t happen very often. Why, you ask?

Because I’m The Forgettable.

For some strange reasons, my friends always forget about me. The Planner almost always forgets to send me an invitation or a reminder whenever the group plans to hang out. One time in summer, I went to a pool party and, apparently, there was a BBQ the day before. A few people, including The Planner, asked me why I was not there. When I told them that I never got the invitation, The Planner acted confused as if some mysterious force had stopped the invitation from getting to me. And it was not the first time that kind of situation happened to me.

Another time, a group of us went out to eat at a restaurant. After we finished eating and while everyone else was trying to figure out the check, I went to the restroom. When I came back, our table was empty! Nothing! Nobody! Gone! Yup, you guessed it. My friends left the restaurant without me. They didn’t mean it. It wasn’t a prank. They really forgot about me. I didn’t understand why it happened. Even when The Always-Late is late, people remember to wait for her. You might think that I’m very unfortunate. I just think that I’m a very forgettable person.

Before you tell me that I need new friends or that my friends hate me, let me explain. I am a hundred percent sure that my friends do not hate me. Beside the fact that almost nobody remembers to reach out to me first or invite me to events, my friends actually love me and care for me. When I reach out to them and ask them to hang out or help me, they always happily agree to it. They never try to make excuses and avoid me. And whenever we gather together, we have a lot of fun. I’m an international student with no acquaintance in America. My friends have been helping and taking care of me ever since I moved here. I know they care.

I know I’m in the weirdest situation here. My friends don’t hate me but they always forget about me. I have no idea how to explain that. Any suggestions? Something to make myself more noticeable and significant? And, please, don’t tell me to get new friends!

The Always-Late

We are going to the movie later but I’m sure I have enough time to finish this post. I can manage. Don't worry! I'm not gonna be late.

Hi, I’m that person in the group that is always late. Seriously, I’m 15 to 30 minutes late to everything: parties, appointments, picking up friends, schools, meet-ups. You name it! I’m quite amazed at myself that I haven’t actually missed any flight yet. My friends all say that what I do best is being late and that I’m quite talented. Once, as a resistance to my constant lateness, they came up with an idea that they would tell me the to meet up 30 minutes earlier than the actual time. Everyone knew the real time except me. And my friends were so sure that I would arrive on time. Surprise, surprise! I was late.

I forget where I read this but a study proved that late people are optimistic and hopeful (I'm not kidding. You can google it. I'm sure it's there somewhere!). It explained that late people always think that they have more time than they actually do and that they have capability to finish more tasks in certain time frame than other people. It makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m not going to lie. I was actually pretty proud there. Maybe being late isn't so bad at all.

Alright, alright! The truth is I feel awful and terrible to say “Sorry, I’m late” all the time. I’m sure my friends are fed up with my lateness and so am I.

My friends know that my “I’ll be there at 6” means “I’ll leave my house at six”. They know that my 5-minute is different than the clock-time's 5-minute. And that “I’m almost there” means that they will see me 15 or 30 minutes later. I actually try to be on time but things happen. Like when I thought I had enough time to get ready and come to the meet up place on time, suddenly, Katy Perry came on Spotify and I got carried away doing my own little concert. Who could resist Katy? Not me!

Setting the alarm doesn’t make any different because> You know, because the snooze button exists. Or sometimes, I just want to be a little late to avoid awkwardness. Though we all know my “little late” isn’t little at all.

The hardest part is trying to explain to my friends that I’m late not because I don’t value their time as much as I value mine. I do value everybody’s time and effort to be on time. I just get distracted so easily and can’t keep up with time. I’m scared that one day I will be late to something extremely important, and it will ruin my life forever. Maybe it’s time to change my awful habit. Maybe Wikihow knows how to deal with chronic lateness. Hold up. Let me google...

Wait, what time is it?

Oh no! I'm late again.

The (Chronic) Complainer

This is seriously not a good time to be writing a blog. The weather isn’t sunny enough to go out so I had decided to stay in and catch up on Young & Hungry. But when would life go as planned? The Leader sent me a "friendly reminder" text message that it's my turn to post something on here. Her timing is completely off.

Writing a blog isn’t a good idea. It is so time-consuming. And why would people want to read what we write? None of us is a writer. The Leader came up with this idea because she said we needed a place to keep all of the group's memories and a place to look back when we're old. As for me, my life is so boring that I doubt you would find anything interesting to read (I'll be surprised if you actually read up to this point). Plus, writing is too difficult. It hurts my brain and fingers (and my back, too!). I still remember those lengthy research papers I had to write in college. It was not fun then. It is still not fun now. Such a pain!

The Complainer. That's what people call me. I don't think I complain that much. And, hey, be honest! Don’t we all complain? About the heat, the weather, the food, the girl who wears hot pink head-to-toe or that professor who lectures in monotone. Seriously, I can’t be the only one. We say things like “the weather is too hot”, “the food is cold”, “that shirt looks ugly”, “it’s too difficult” all the time. The people who are too optimistic are so unreal. C’mon. How is it possible to live without complaining? Life isn’t perfect.

I don’t mean to complain. Well, sometimes. But I really just want to express my feelings. Like when we visited Death Valley, the heat was so overwhelming that it melted my ice water. I only say the truth and the obvious that everyone avoids saying. This one time, the group went to an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ restaurant. According to The Planner, it was a highly rated restaurant which had 4 stars on Yelp (lesson learned: don’t trust Yelp!). Even our picky leader approved it. Turned out, and I’m not complaining here, it was disastrous. The space was so small for a Korean BBQ restaurant that it became a complete smoke house; I smelled like a walking BBQ restaurant days after. They sat us down and let us know that we only had 2 hours to eat. Fine! But we had to wait 30 minutes every time we ordered food. It was all-you-can-eat. That didn’t make any sense to me but nobody said anything. So I did, only to get bullet stares from all of my friends. What did I do wrong? I couldn't even complain about that? Life is so harsh on me!

The Planner

Did The Leader tell you that she is the most important person in the group? I bet she did. But don't listen to her! The most important person in the group is actually me. Without me making all these plans and arrangements, she would have nothing to decide on.

Hi, I’m the Planner.

Speaking of The Leader, we really don’t get along. Well, I tried. But she always has to crush what I would call “the perfect plan” because she dislikes it. She is so picky. I always have to come up with something else on the spot.

I don’t own a diploma in Event Planning! The only reason why I do these things is because someone in the group has to do it. The purpose of having a group of friends is to hang out and do things together. While the rest of the group is too lazy to arrange something, I need to do it if I want to go out.

My responsibilities are to come up with plans and activities for the group. I’m not sure how well I've been doing it but people tend to assume that I have a million brilliant ideas in my head. They think I know all the cool places to hang out and all the fun activities. They expect me to come up with the most epic party or the unforgettable road trip. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to please everyone in the group. They have a billion of opinions and then some.

Planning is a skill. You can’t imagine how much research I have to do to find all of these fun activities and places for the group. I read tons of magazines and subscribe to different travel websites. And I’m constantly on the hunt for the cheapest hotels or airplane tickets.

I’m also the one who has to figure where and when to meet up. This is another annoying thing that I deal with all the time: we all have different schedules. Picking a right time to meet that accommodates everybody’s schedule is like solving a calculus problem. And, of course, whatever I come up with has to go through The Leader.

You know, they say that the best part of going on the trip is the planning and preparation. But if you have to do it over and over and over again, it is exhausting. When we go on a vacation, I am the one who will book the hotel, plan out carpool situation (another thing that I hate so much) and collect the money. And the most important thing is making sure people get there on time. Why do I have to stress out so much when I’m supposed to relax and enjoy? While I volunteer to do it, it can get very frustrating.

P.S: Dear friends, can I be the one who get invited once in a while? I want to have the luxury of not having to worry about x, y and z whenever we hang out. Yeah?!

The Leader

Seriously, nobody will ever write anything on here until I start. So here I am, as you can already tell, The Leader. In the group, I play many roles: decision maker, mediator, problem solver, and of course, the person to blame when things don’t go as planned. I’m not trying to brag, but my role is so important that the group might not even exist without me.

Why? Well, because without the person who decides when to hang out, where to meet up and what to do, everyone just stays in. That person happens to be me! I know my friends are either too lazy to use their brains or too timid to take the blame when plans go wacky. I sacrifice myself, I guess.

I do, sometimes, wonder why me!
I’m not the oldest in the group. I’m not the smartest, either.  And I have as much experience as anyone else in the group does. However, strangely enough, the group seems to be very confident of whatever I decide. I never force them to follow me but they do it naturally. They voluntarily give me the authority. If I say it’s not fun then it’s not fun. If I say we should do it, everybody will do it. At first, I didn’t know that my “Yes” and “No” are that powerful. I was just simply telling people what I liked to do and what I didn’t, but, eventually, I became the decision maker, the leader, as you can see. The truth is, whether I like that bar or not, if the rest of the group want to go, I will go with them anyway. I still need someone to hang out with.

Behind my back, I know people complain that they don’t get to do what they want because of me. Especially, I feel very sorry for The Planner (you will meet him in the next post). He comes up with plan for the group but if I say “No” , he has to come up with something else. Well, not my fault! I didn’t run for this position. And I don’t remember getting voted to be one.

The pressure is real! I can't deny that I enjoy being the Very Important Person but I’m always worried whether or not I pick the right restaurant or the right bar. “Will it be fun?”, I always second-guess myself.

And that’s not even the hardest part of being The Leader. Wait until there is a fight in the group; This person is mad at that person. Again, I’m not majoring in Counseling; I don’t go to Laws school; I don’t have a clue about mediation. However, when there is a conflict, I, somehow, get caught in the middle trying to figure out who is right, who is wrong and to make everybody happy. Let just say that it often doesn’t go very well.

Ugh!