Tale of Two Woman

Now as a short introduction: I almost exclusively had male, Caucasian friends.

If one was to look at my social circle from when I was living in Cape Town my group was the proverbial "sausage fest", yet if you look at my social circle up here in Johannesburg it's overwhelmingly: Chinese and female.

Now I can't really understand why that is the case, why the sudden change. But overall I'm not too concerned with it. For the most part I enjoy their company even though sometimes I long for some arrogant male chauvinist fun.

Now to the topic at hand, lately I have been shocked by two woman's sudden decision to drop everything and go back to Cape Town to reconcile with the boyfriend or ex-boyfriend. Their decision comes as a huge shock to me both because of their suddenness and seemingly as a truly terrible idea.

Now as a good friend to both of these two girls and take both their well being as the paramount importance - my reaction to their almost identical decisions was rather drastically different. Both educated, Chinese, raised in South Africa, incredibly pretty and with warm personalities that attract vast majority of the male population, but at the same time couldn't have been more different.

The first girl is a strong character, generally well thought of by everyone she meets (male or female). Sometime it seems to me that she does rash things that defies logic - but what never seizes to surprise me is her ability to make the best of her decision. She calls herself easily pleased but for me she is personification of true inner strength.

The second is a rather timid girl whose vulnerability inspires men to help her, nurture her and protect her. On the other hand the same quality makes her very unpopular with other girls; especially pretty ones. Her lack of mental strength, and competence in the work place makes me more than worried. Unlike the first girl who can make the biggest mistake and still make the best of the it - to me she doesn't appear to understand the implication and consequences of her actions. Neither does she have the inner strength to support herself through the hard times.

When the first girl told me about her sudden decision I was able to rattle out the usual cliches: do what your heart tells you, I will always support your decision, you never know unless you try. For some reason I even meant it.

The second one I eventually rattled through some of the meanest and harshest things to say about her and her boyfriend. I guess maybe it's because of trust: I don't trust her to make the right decisions. What's hurts more is probably because I care for her, a lot. Even worse, I don't believe she understands what she is doing. Eventually days after the initial outburst I spewed the same cliches that I told the first girl - but for fucks sakes I don't in my 'heart of hearts' mean it at all.

I realised that I have neither the right or ability to convince her to reconsider her decision. All I can hope now is that I haven't burnt the bridge so badly that she won't even as ask for my help when she needs it. My worst nightmare is now that I have irrevocably dented her trust in me that I'm now just an irritation to her.

I guess that's why I'm so bloody miserable lately: I want to help so badly but it seems like the more I care the more damage I do - to her and myself. I breaks my heart to think that despite coming from the best of intentions and with her best interest at heart all I have achieved is to lose a friend?

Or is this my punishment? For being so arrogant as to believe that I know what's best for someone else? Is this the hell that I found myself walking towards on the pavement that has been completely paved with good intentions?

Screw this, I intend to get horrendously drunk.

UPDATE 1: I got TOTALLY trashed last night and broke my personal record for the most tequila downed in less than 30min. My head hurts...