Non-sequitur

Ok, this one's my fault. I kinda knew what to expect. It's my fault for knowing and still going ahead and organising a ketchup session. After all, Self-Absorbed had been hassling me for awhile to get together. That's gotta be a sign that S-A cares about me, right?

Sure enough, as time ticks closer, I get a message to push back dinner by an hour. Just as I'm about to leave the house. Later, as I sit at the bar waiting, S-A is running late (even though S-A is coming from down the road) and calls me 4 times in the space of 15 mins to find out where the restaurant is. I gulp down my drink - because this *always* happens. Even when I email the address, full postcode, and even Google map links - this ALWAYS happens.

Sure enough, the dinner conversation is the same. S-A's stressful job, S-A's disatisfaction with partner's lack of ambitions, S-A's blah blah blah.

S-A: "So where you going after dinner?"
Me: "I'm going to this performance art thing called Shunt. Meant to be really good... Do you go out much these days?"
S-A: "No. You know the project I'd been working on?"
Me: "Yeah..."
S-A: "We won a best project award for it!"
Me: "Ok..." (expecting a good story about Big-Team-Celebratory-Night-Out-At-Cool-Rondon-Joint)
S-A: "It was like an awards night for management consulting. We beat all the other consultants! It's really prestigious blah blah blah!"
Me: "Oh... OH. Well. Done."

I hear a mental click as I realise I'm suppose to give S-A a pat on the back *sigh* Why do I bother... I can't tell, am I suppose to be impressed? Or envious? Do I look like a girl who cares about a consulting awards night? :P It's not to say I don't care about work challenges, but... where the hell was the substance?!? Was it about using available technology innovatively? Nope...

In my mind, as hard as I tried, even with the booze, I couldn't help thinking, "Why do I bother?"