The Worst

The title is referring to me. Yep! I received that title this afternoon. I am the lamest of all lame, the ultimate anti-social freak. We were on the mall and my boyfriend just awarded me that title with this phrase "Seriously, you are the worst." And I deserved it. Let me tell you why.
Me and my boyfriend decided to go to the mall to buy a last minute gift for his niece's birthday. It was already 2pm and we should be going at 4:30pm. Basically, we were in a hurry. To somehow contribute to our semi-hastening, I decided that we should split up and do our own things first before buying a gift together. He wanted to smoke. I wanted to go to the restroom. He agreed.

As we bought a some juice on the food court before he goes out (he can't smoke without drinking or eating something tasty), I heard my name being called. I looked around and saw my previous colleague. She was with her husband and kid. Her name was Ayee.

Ayee used to be more than an officemate to me. We used to exchange texts constantly. We rode the jeepney together everyday. Until I left that job. From then, I seldom heard from her. Her last text was about giving birth to a lovely little daughter. I did not bother to visit her. I said I was busy but the truth is, I was dodging an awkward semi-friend* meet up.

*Semi-friend - noun, someone who is not as dear as a real friend, yet behaved more than a colleague. Meeting up with them requires random interesting stuffs to talk about if ever the topic of the previous job is depleted.

Anyway, there I was, approaching the dreaded semi-friend. In my mind, I had summoned three topics that we can discuss. How is she, where does she work now and her child of course. And then boom, I had managed to squeeze in all those topics in one sentence! Damn, now what. She asked me several questions and I had answered them in one-liners. And then there was the awful and oppressive awkward silence. I bet I looked stupid at those very moment, blabbing aimlessly just to fill in the silence. Three minutes seemed so long before I managed to escape.

I decide to go outside and trash my split-up tactic. I waited for my boyfriend to finish his cigarette while he laughed how awful I was meeting up with other people. He said I needed a seminar on how to prolong random conversations and his mother should be the speaker. I wanted to agree except that I am also dodging some time alone with his mother. I am so weird. I know I can talk non-stop with people I share interests with or people I care about (Trust me, those people are just a handful) but when it comes to some people, I am just plain boring.

I totally forgot that I needed to go to the restroom. So there, after one cigarette, I asked my boyfriend that we use the other door, the one away from the food court. As we entered, I looked around and saw no familiar faces... I felt safe again.