Selfish Pig

Ok, So I have this friend... she is working on a little something this year. She hates to mention her goals out loud because they have a tendency to come back to haunt her if they go awry.  But, no one reads this anyway, so I can admit all her faults if I want without fear of repercussions... right?

She is trying to be more service oriented. She needs to think more of her fellow man than herself. She still hasn't gotten quite up to date on her visiting teaching- but she has her own issues with assigned friendship that she needs to work through. She loves the girls she goes to- but she hates the feeling that they might think the only reason she's being nice to them is because she has to. Just like she feels her own visiting teachers would never have anything to do with her if they didn't have to say hi at least once a month.

Anyway, yesterday in church she talked to a girl who is fairly new to the ward and seemed to need a little extra comfort.  She took her under her wing and gave her this comfort, a ride home, and her phone number.  See, this friend, we'll call her... Sally, has a really hard time with people who seem overly needy and clingy and therefore tries to avoid relationships with such people.  The new girl, we'll call her... Pattie, has always seemed just such a person- hence Sally avoided her. Not being out and out rude- but just never making the gesture of friendship.

Well, today Sally got her reminder of why she isn't nice to people.  Not even 24 hours went by before Pattie was calling and asking for favors.  Sally, being such an independent person, has a hard time asking people for favors.  I mean, it's one thing to borrow a pan or something, but it's another to ask a person to go out of their way for her.  Yeah, she needs rides to the airport now and then, but she only asks people that she's known for a long time and is really comfortable with- not someone she *just* met..  She just doesn't understand the kind of person who would take advantage of an acquaintanceship.  It's not even a friendship yet.  And sadly, Sally will probably do what she can to avoid it in the future- but it's probably too late now.

And it's not even that she would be adverse to doing the favor for a friend- someone she has an actual relationship with- someone she's comfortable with.  She treats her friends like family (probably better than her family if truth be told) and would bend over backwards for them.  She has skipped the state for friends before, left her job to be with a friend who needed a shoulder to cry on, given help to her friends in anyway she could think of... but this is an acquaintance, a *fresh* acquaintance.

Sally's only reason for not wanting to do the favor is purely selfish.  It's not like she has places to be and things to do- at five in the morning.  But still, just the thought of doing it- and having it most likely be the beginning of a string of requests she can't say no to... Ugh.

Selfish Selfish Selfish.