It’s very uncommon for me to really feel anger towards friends however when a supposed friend consistently mistreats their friend that’s when I feel it’s a bit unforgivable. Today’s story? The inconsiderate friend.

HS was a girl whom I had known from English class back when I was in high school. Somehow or another, we had kept contact even after graduation and well into our college years simply due to our mutual interests in Asian pop culture. When HS abruptly moved to Taiwan (Due to a large sum of inheritance entering her family), we more or less lost contact. In a way, I allowed the contact to be lost because of the distance and also because being friends with her, there was a kind of pressure.

I hadn’t spoken with HS for ages when suddenly this past Thursday night I received a phone call from her saying that she would be coming to HK the following day. Not only was she coming to HK, she had no place to stay and was hoping to stay at my place. It was a little inconvenient, in the sense that I wasn’t given advance notice and that I had made plans for the weekend but figuring that this was a friend, I really had a problem saying no. HS mentioned to me that she would arrive to HK at around 12 pm whereas I responded that I would be available after 3 pm. After I mentioned that I would figure out some sort of ideal lodging situation for her we hung up the phone.

The following day, at around noon time I receive no phone call. After I finished sending off New York friends to the airport express stop at 3 pm, I still hadn’t received any call from HS. In turn, I decided to pick up the phone and call her.

I immediately get pushed to voice mail.
So I did the next best thing- text message.

Almost every hour I would call her phone without any availability and thus I simply stayed at home waiting. At around 7 pm I finally receive a call from HS.

“Hey so this is HS.”
“Hey where were you? I tried calling you like crazy and couldn’t reach you at all.”
“Oh… my phone doesn’t seem to work here.”
“Why didn’t you buy a SIM card then?”
“I don’t know where to buy one.”
“At 7-Eleven! It’s so cheap, just like HKD$70.”
“Oh.. oh well.”
“Just buy one. Don’t be cheap. So where were you?”
“Oh we went to the big Buddha and then went outlet shopping in Tung Chung.”
(But you don’t think to call me to let me know you’ve arrived to Hong Kong?)
“Oh… wow”
“So how do we get to your place?”

So after explaining how she could get to my place, I wait for her. When I receive another call from her. This time once again from a pay phone.

“So we got to Central Plaza.”
“Ok, so you can stay there and I will pick you up.”
“I think maybe we could figure out where you are.”

So then I go on to describe the buildings around me. I mention to HS that I will leave my apt now to meet with her. As I walk along the path that she would have used to get to my building I notice that I do not see her at all. My brain thinks, “Oh shit!” At this point I am running all over the place looking for HS and her sister but do not find them at all. After fumbling around aimlessly for about 20 min, HS calls me again via pay phone and tells me that they will just wait for me at Central Plaza.

Though I was rather tired, I traveled with them both to Tsim Sha Tsui and had dinner with them. After our dinner we went over to Jordan to shop at Temple Street. At Temple Street, HS mentioned that at many stalls she wanted to buy some stuff. (Such things as T-shirts, little trinkets, notepads, etc.) Though in the end, she came out with nothing. It shocks me that she bought nothing as many of the items were not expensive at all with items being priced from HKD$20 to HKD$50. In the end, I turned out to be biggest spender in the group, purchasing 10 pairs of socks for HKD$100.

The next day, HS had left early so that she could have dim sum. I passed on dim sum because I really didn’t want to wake up at 8:30 am, as well as the fact that I’ve been feeling a little sickly these days. Thus, I slept in till 11:30 am. When I awoke, I found that my inside door was left ajar.

I had already made plans to have lunch and coffee with a net friend and thus HS knew to just go exploring HK without me. However what felt weird to me was that she never called once to check in with me. Being that we are in fact friends, I would have been happy if they could kind of let me know what their evening plans were and if we were to eat dinner together.

Not a single phone call.

The worst part was, I didn’t have the ability to call them to check up on them because they wouldn’t buy a SIM card. It annoyed me that I was saving them HKD$600+ for letting them stay with me in my apartment and yet they cannot even spend the HKD$70 so that they could at least be reachable. So that I could at least know that they were doing ok in HK.

By 9 pm I was in my apartment starting to get worried if anything had happened to them. At that point I received a text message from my friend letting me know that they were drinking in Central. It was either continue waiting for them in my apartment or just go meet up with friends in Central for a drink. I was angry so I decided to go drinking.

I got to the bar at 10 pm and had a good time drinking with friends. At 11 pm I still didn’t receive a call from them and had decided I simply did not care anymore. At 11:20 pm I receive a phone call that didn’t come from a pay phone. (I later found out they called me from my doorman’s phone)

“Hey this is HS. We’re at your apartment right now.”
“Er… I’m actually out drinking right now.”
“Ha?”
“Um… what time is it now?”
“It’s around 11:30 pm.”
“I should be home at around 12:30 am.”
“Oh… ok.”

I decided to stay for 30 more minutes and then promptly leave the bar at 12. I think it was one of the first times in my life where I could still take the MTR home on a night of drinking.

As I enter my building the doorman looks at me and tells me that my friends were here and that they’ve been waiting at my door for a really really long time.

The following day we all wake up at around 9 am so that they could get ready to leave and pack. After they were done with their bathroom routine I went to take a shower. After I came out of my shower I saw that they had left my apartment, all their stuff was gone and once again my inside door was left ajar. After walking around my apartment for a bit I found a note by my couch.

“We went to the supermarket downstairs. Meet us there.”
(What the hell? You think I was gonna take an hour in the shower?)

Time then? 9:40 am. So I decided, I was going to take my time and play Farmville on my computer. At 10 am, I figured I should probably go downstairs. When my elevator reached the ground floor, I saw HS bugging the doorman about me.

“What are you guys doing?”
“Oh we were looking for you. We thought maybe you didn’t see the note or something.”