Sketch Factor High

Holy Moly! There is one thing in this world I will never fathom: the consistent sketchy behaviour of some people. And they are consistent, in their sketchiness. Now with sketchy, I'm not talking about the drug induced sketch of today, I'm talking the old school definition: adj. one who is routinely late, and usually coupled with being unreliable. Yes. Well, much of my friendbase consists of these such people.

There's Damian. Damian's wicked. I love Damian. What Damian does is promise you the world, but in the end he backs out, or changes plans without consulting you and you're left potentially with packed bags anticipating a cottage weekend, mentally preparing yourself for bug bites aplenty, but the phone doesn't ring. You try to call him and the phone doesn't answer. Damian is so sketchy that you can't even leave a message on his phone because his mailbox is constantly full of people in exactly the same situation I am. He makes up for it, though. He's always very, very sorry. But mostly he's disarmingly charming and eventually I did end up going to said cottage and having a wonderful time with him and other friends.

Then there's Jeremy. Jesus Christ. He has this affliction, not unlike Leonard Shelby's, from the movie Momento. He has little to no short term memory. It's fascinating and it's irritating both at the same time. For example we'd made tentative, unconfirmed plans to see a baseball game. Things were fine. We'd been chatting throughout the week via email. Nice, nice, nice. Then at one point I'd asked him how his Friday was looking. He said he had these tickets to go see a baseball game. No mention of going with me, just that he had these tickets.... Yeah. It's impossible to make plans with him mostly because there's no real way of knowing if he's going to remember he'd just made plans with you. It's wild, really. He's really bright, but there are moments that I think, "Jesus, he can't be that stupid." So, I'm now the stupid one because *again* I've made plans with him and he's completely sketched out again. He called today around lunchtime. Chat, chat, chat. Fine. We make loose plans for tonight. He called firming them up. Said I'd receive a call by 5:00. It's now almost 8:00. Yeah.

Okay, well he just called and he's not a totally unsensitive jerk-wad. He was out with a female friend/ co-worker and she had just told him the most heinous, horrific tale of her marital predicament. It turned out that he'd also received a package from his lawyer outlining his divorce proceedings. So he and his friend had much to comiserate. He had just lost track of the time. It happens. Not to me, but it happens. When he did call he sounded totally shaken up, mostly from the tale told to him by this young woman. I'll never know this story, which is just fine. I'm glad that he was a friend to her, in this world of not-too-friendly people sometimes. And this is why I can still be friends with Jeremy and forgive him his own very unique brand of sketchy behaviour. If we can't understand and then forgive our friends their foibles and inconsistencies then what kind of friend would we be? Not so good.