Meet Mr. Masry: Why I Have No Friends

I realize this will look like serial-blogging, because they are all going up at once, but I’ve been typing these in a Word document since my blogsite was not available, earlier (so these aren’t like PSs to each other).

I am really quite alone in Cairo. Assigning blame for that is tricky, since I’d say that it would be easy for me to be surrounded by smiling people all the time and have a different party or event or something to go to every night if I chose, so one could say it’s my fault for being alone, but I really feel that there was no other choice.

It’s weird to think that there are cities all over the world where there are people I feel comfortable calling any moment of the day or night if I am in severe distress (however unlikely it would be for me to actually do that), but the city where I live is unfortunately not one of those places.

There are people on the fringe, who with trust and cultivation and shared experience could go either way, but I’d say Shakira (who is not back in Cairo after vacation) is really the only person who I feel I can count on, here, and in a city of like 20 million people, that’s not a very high percentage!

Some of this is very clearly my own doing. In Cairo I have not just failed to make friends; I’ve made enemies. I used to always wonder, even as recently as my last year in New York, when I’d watch a movie or something with a criminal investigation and the question would be asked: “Well did he have any enemies?” how someone would ever answer “yes” to that. Sure, there were people who maybe didn’t think I was super fun, or interesting, or even respectable, but I never really had people who really thought I was a nasty person. Now I think there are a non-insignificant number of people who do think that. What I understand, though, and I don’t think I’m being too easy on myself, here, is that *before*, I was never in an environment where I had to deal with people who were, given my own personal values and social norms, such total a**holes, and being one who speaks his mind and doesn’t smile and roll with the punches (unless it’s a professional setting, and no I’m not willing to treat life like a job in which I’m constantly seeking good reviews and a promotion), I have told people exactly how I feel. A normal scenario would go something like this:

Chunk meets Mr. Masry (not to be confused with Slim Masry of former postings, who has never exhibited the behavioural pattern I’m criticizing, here). Chunk and Masry engage in a brief but not wholly unsuccessful exploration of amicable possibilities (ranging from having coffee, to seeing a movie, to something more romantic/datelike). Masry is interested, present, and mature/engaging to some minimally-passable degree until the point where he realizes that Chunk is either not going to be the ideal casual sex partner or is not going to be the ideal rush-into love (that means saying “love” but not doing anything about it since everyone is scared and closeted) – I’ve found meeting a Mr. Masry is like flipping a coin, and you’re equally likely to get someone for whom anything other than casual sex is as desirable as castration, as you are to find someone who will tell you he’s in love with you after a single dinner (and don’t think that you being clear about your OWN Chunky goals and limitations and offerings has any significant effect on what he will do/want from you). Once Masry is frustrated in his goal of getting EITHER a f*ckbuddy or a “habibi,” he will PRETEND (the movies are awful but the real-life population knows how to act) like he’s ok with the terms of your friendship (being straightforward or articulating one’s emotions in a straightforward manner would be far too sensible and ethical), only to persistently flake out, string you along, equivocate, confuse you and himself and then you again, and never, for one moment, engage in a healthy moment of self-criticism or productive reflection. At that point, when I see that we are at the “waste of my time and insult to the emotional energy I’ve put into this friendship” stage, I will normally confront Mr. Masry about his a**hole-ishnss, which *very interestingly* results in automatic and rote apologies and NEVER results in a logical explanation of one’s behaviour.

THIS IS WHAT KILLS ME: not UNDERSTANDING how and why things are the way they are (and I mean in general, not just socially…it’s like I cannot have MY logical rules satisfied, here, and I find it extremely mentally stressful).

I don’t *care* if someone apologizes to me or not. I don’t even understand what forgiveness means, because I’m not usually harbouring a grudge, but rather confusion. Forgiveness for me means understanding, and that I never seem to attain.

If you say to someone, for example: “Well why did you tell me that I should not make plans tonight because you wanted to go out, but then when I waited all evening for you to tell me where to meet you, you never called or replied to my text messages asking where you were or if we were still getting together?” Then you are really likely to get back an: “I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry. Please forgive me.”

That doesn’t interest me.

What I want is: “I was really tired and felt reclusive and didn’t want to go out.” OR “You are nice so I didn’t know how to break it to you that I’ve decided I’d rather hang out with my other friends more,” OR “I met a REALLY hot guy on the way to meet you and forgot to call you to cancel,” or just ANYTHING that remotely resembles an explanation.

If I then say (and one should NEVER use *diction* that can come off as insulting, even if you mean it as a dispassionate statement of fact): “Well it was rude for you to not call or text so I could make other plans. I didn’t even call you to make plans in the first place, but when you called me to go out, I said ok,” then the reply will (oddly, in my opinion, and it’s not a language barrier thing) be: “Thanks. Thanks man. Now I’m RUDE? You’re rude to say I’m rude.”

?? Huh? Not calling someone when you say you will is rude. 1000 meters is a kilometer. I am chunky. These are statements of fact that are not made as insults or compliments or anything in between.

Saying that, though, means that whatever level of discussiveness you had with Mr. Masry (which was already pitifully low) will instantly vanish, and an enemy will be made.

“I thought you were a nice guy.”
“I am a nice guy, but that was rude of you. That’s all I’m saying. I still think YOU are a nice guy, too, but last night you were rude.”
“So you just want to keep calling me names!”
“I’m not calling you names! You’re crazy – this is just me telling you the truth. You said you’d call. You didn’t. It’s not THAT big a deal, but it was rude.”
“Ok I’m rude and crazy. Thanks. Thanks.”

You can see it’s a downward spiral. Normally it ends with me TRYING to give a polite “sorry for the misunderstanding but I think it’s best that we end this discussion” goodbye, but it’s definitely how enemies are made, here. There are people who think that I am rude and mean, and I really can’t do anything about that (or rather: I don’t care to).

I think, then, about my “real” life in New York, and the AMAZING friends I have outside New York as well, the exes I’m still friends with, the people who KNOW that I *never* hit below the belt, sling insults, or engage in unproductive name-calling, and who KNOW that I’m a great friend and person, and I think: “How is this my life?”

That’s kind of where I am, today. I’m very frank and very undiplomatic (and why shouldn’t I be?), but I’m never unfair or abusive in the way I deal with people (except one or two times in my WHOLE life that were themselves just very unhealthy and much deeper than the interactions I’m describing, here), and it is NOT, when you’re not privileged enough to be dealing with a set of really cosmopolitan individuals who, one might say, tend to speak in emotional/socioeconomic/political urban unison (the only people I’d really been dealing with, before), a way to “win friends and influence” people as the saying goes.

VC