Honesty. Brutal, brutal, honesty. *Rant Warning*

I shouldn't have picked up the phone.

There was a call flashing on my mobile- a private number- and even though I had misgivings, I figured it might be a friend or family member calling from a foreign phone.

So I picked it up.

Unfortunately, the voice on the other end was the one person I've been trying to avoid- and had been successfully avoiding, I might add, for about three months.

To put it simply...I am a bitch.

I could've probably said, a long time ago, that I didn't really want to be friends. I could have just stopped it then, but I have problems with saying 'no'. Instead, I took the 'bitch' route, where I just ignored every e-mail, call and SMS, thinking that maybe this would just cut this person off from my life. Person in question is...I'm not sure what to call him. A friend? An overzealous acquaintance? Whatever he is, I suspect him of wanting more than a friendship, although I'm so inexperienced in these matters that I really can't tell. I suppose repeatedly inviting me out for a drink is a symptom of that. But the last time this happened with someone, I kept ignoring it until I got a text suggesting a movie and dinner, and then I freaked out completely, snapped off a quick and apologetic "I-had-no-idea-you-wanted-a-date-', received the most lovely and courteous response, and never heard from him again.

And you know what? I felt like a bitch.

Saying 'no' to anyone is hard. I can't possibly imagine how hard it must be to ask someone out, so it tears out my guts to say 'no' to a guy (thankfully it is VERY rarely that I get asked so that's OK). But going back to this phone conversation, he did ask me whether or not I was avoiding him, given that I'd ignored every single attempt at communication for three months.

And you know what I did? I lied.

I couldn't face the thought of hurting anyone's feelings that much, even though I probably deserved to suffer that, so I lied. Lied lied lied. No, of course I wasn't avoiding you. Yes, I rarely use my phone, and don't check my e-mail. You know, work and all has been so demanding for, y'know, the past nine weeks...

And that's what's so difficult about relationships of any kind. At my workplace, I have several colleagues- and even though I truly do not like several of them, I keep up the pretense that I do. Again, a lie. However, I am somewhat excused by the fact that I work with these people day in, day out, and it IS imperative that I get along well with them. Which I do. I just don't like them.

There is one person whom I work with who I particularly do not like- I refuse to expend any energy on 'hate' because it is an unproductive waste of time and emotion- but I dislike her for the fact that not only does she have an inferiority complex which makes her constantly talk herself up all the time, she is also jealous of me (or my position, although WHY you would covet being in my work role is a mystery) and that simply annoys me.

Fine, honey, talk yourself up all you want, but if you constantly hang over my shoulder trying to point out mistakes and undermine me, THEN I get pissed off.

And yet, she believes that we are friends. I have never given her reason to believe otherwise. Which makes me quite the hypocrite.

It's all about the masks we wear, the varied fronts we present to our friends, to our family, to our colleagues, even to customers. I think sometimes I can get a little too manically happy-looking at work whenver I present my 'HELLOOOOOOO CAN I HELP YOU?' front, which collapses as soon as I get in the front door at home and put my feet up. But whenever I see my friends, it's always a huge mood lift.

As my friend Kris so eloquently put it, there are people that you are sure that you will love for the rest of your life. To me, there is nothing sweeter than finding a friend with whom you can share exactly what you are thinking- unfiltered and unedited. Blogging is personal, but in a way it's also contrived in that you can twist your words and hide behind the shield of language. My favourite bloggers (Rosy, Kris and Jenai) are wonderful because they tell their own stories in a unique way, with everything included, nothing left out. As someone once said (George Orwell perhaps?), beware the man who writes his autobiography with no accounts of his own failure, humiliation or shame.

Although I love going to meet people in groups, it's the one-on-one outings that I also treasure. Most of them involve coffee or chocolate of some kind- and that, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to get to know someone. Because there's no one else around that would cause you to put that front up- the only thing between you and that other person is a sweetened latte.

(Or a chocolate lick. And a croissant. And an Italian hot chocolate. And maybe some gourmet handmade chocolates to boot.)

I guess there's a time and place for honesty. And thanks to that guy's phone call at 10:30 p.m, I now have lost precious sleep time. I have half a mind to send a brutally honest e-mail tomorrow, just because I don't think I can keep up the pretense of this any longer.

I feel morally pathetic. And sleep-deprived.

Tomorrow, I shall face the world with a giant vat of sweetened barista coffee, which always does wonders.