Forgive me for being rude, but I was just being honest...

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Ordinarily, I'm really good at keeping myself in check and being tactful and "nice". Like, I'm not one of those people who is constantly opinionated, blunt and borderline offensive. When it comes to views on politics and world current affairs, I find I don't really have one because, even though I open each work day with a lazy skim of smh.com.au, I feel like I'm not knowledgeable enough about about every aspect of whatever it is that everyone's discussing, to assert my own views in a particularly persuasive way. (Yeah, I know, it's because I lazily skim and not vociferously absorb like other current affairs addicts, but whatever).

When it comes to telling my friends what I think about their boyfriends, I'm pretty diplomatic. If I despise them, I'll say "they're not optimum"; if they're acceptable with some bad boy blood in them, then I advise them to "make sure they don't go back to their bad boy roots, okay??"; if my friend's too besotted to see the truth, then I just tell them that "he seems nice, but he might not be as nice as he seems. I think I have to meet him for real, to tell you what I think!"

You get the picture.

Anyway, on Friday, things took a sudden turn for the worst and for some reason or another, I honestly could not give enough of a sh*t to keep it nice. The events panned out like this:

1. Met up with one of my closest friends for dumplings two weeks ago. She announced that she would be going to Canberra this weekend and emphatically stated that she would be catching the 6pm bus. I indicated that I wasn't a big fan of going to Canberra this weekend because Man from Mars had advised me of a "work lunch to welcome me to the team" which would invariably take up all of Saturday and involve much awkward chatter, handshaking and painful boredom.
   
2. I subsequently decided, okay, well if she's going, at least the bus ride down will be fun and since I've got nothing better to do, I may as well go.
   
3. I email her and let her know that I'm booked and practically boarded. Cue: lots of exclamation marks and excitement adjectives from my end.
   
4. She subsequently emails me to advise me that a work deadline a week and a half away may mean that she won't be able to go. But if she goes, she will catch the 7:30 pm, and do I wish to catch that one with her, and eat food beforehand?
   
5. I curtly reply that my tickets are discount, nonrefundable.
   
6. In my mind, I think, how is catching the 6pm bus very different from catching the 7:30 pm with a bite to eat added on. I mean, that means, you would be leaving work at about 6:30 pm to grab food at 7 pm to get on the bus by 7:30 pm. So, you would be leaving an hour later than if you were catching the 6pm, and given that it's such an urgent deadline, wouldn't you either need to leave much much later, or forgo the trip altogether? Plus, I've already told you I've booked, and I only went because I thought you'd be on my bus, and now, it's suddenly supposedly all changed because of this allegedly v.v. important and pressing work thing.

Well by gosh, I didn't buy that and I was supremely peeved, but didn't say anything.

Thursday comes along and I ask her half heartedly whether her deadline is looming and if she can go.

She says she can and that she's coming with me, "but I'm pretty sick".

Blame it on the swine flu, but I baulk at the prospect of having to sit next to her for the 3 hour ride, particularly, as I've caught a cold from her in the past.

My tact deserts me and I declare:

"If you're sick, then I might not sit too close. Hope you're not offended babe!!!"

Jeepers, did I just say what I think I said??!!!!!

To which she replies with an ambiguous, but arguably good humoured:

"Ha ha whatevs!"

We've been friends for 6 years, and she's never really been subjected to brutal honesty from me before.

Anyway, the next day she emails me and says:

"I'm going to try and change my ride to the 5pm one, and try get to Berra earlier, since I won't be sitting with you anyway! Cough all over other people! Ha ha"

5 pm??!! What happened to the urgent deadline??

And so, badly irritated once more, I tell her how it is:

"I'll be honest, I wouldn't mind being coughed over if I didn't feel like I was being stuffed around".

Cue: detailed description of how her timing suggestions didn't correspond to the pressures of work and that if it were me, I wouldn't even being going to Berra, if work was so pressing.

We exchanged a number of terse emails, and she declares that:

"You don't think I wasn't upset when you said that you didn't want to sit next to me? How can I not be upset when my friend doesn't want to sit with me when I'm sick"

As always in times of heated argument, I go all literary and turn into a semantic smart-arse:

"It's not that I don't want to sit with you per se. It's just that I don't to sit with you when you're sick."

Cue: Further emails expressing taking offence and further responses describing it from what it looked like from my end.

All is on the verge of going to the sh*t, when I decide enough's enough:

"Well, as one of my closest friends, I was only being honest with you, because I don't feel like I need to censor everything I say to you. But if you want me to creep around only saying the things you want to hear, well I can do that too."

She pulls her reins in and quickly recognises the attempt at truce and states magnanimously:

"Okay, well it's cool you told me you got mad, because we were both obviously pissed. Okay, I'm not mad now. See you on the bus!"

And so all's well that ends well and we caught the 6pm to Canberra with me straining into the aisle every time she sneezed, but proud of myself that I'd said what I felt like saying whilst successfully only being mildly offensive.

Maybe it's one of those things that happens when you get older... You don't really care what other people think of you, because even if they don't agree, they'll live, and you'll be fine too...