Confrontation

I read a friend’s blog the other day about confronting a certain someone about something. She’s not much of a verbal person, but she went on ahead and confronted it anyway. I applauded her for that as I think it takes a lot of courage not to mention guts, to confront someone, especially if that someone is very dear to you.

Well, I had the opportunity to be confronted recently. A friend of mine, someone quite dear to me confronted on something I said. Considering that I am a ‘tak kisah person’, I didn’t think what I had said would actually created a huge impact on him. Well, he was quite upset and called me up to clarify the matters. We talked on the phone. He was where he was, while I was at the Putrajaya Mosque attending a friend’s akad nikah. It was terrible. I have never engaged in such heated arguments with him before. I raised my voice at him. I couldn’t control my temper. I could sense that he was trying to control his temper by not raising his voice. But the tone of his voice reflected the anger that he had towards me.

I paced up and down the aisle of the mosque while looking out for Marsya (she was enjoying the huge space and was running here and there). The phone was in my left hand. I guess that friend of mine was hurt. I was hurt too. I hated that he accused me there and then. He made me look like a culprit of something bad. I guess I was being a little defensive. I couldn’t help it. He questioned my doings like as if I did something terribly wrong.

Him: What did you tell her? Now she has a bad impression of me

Me: Well, we talked about you. I told her stuff about you just like I would have talked about you to another friend.

Him: But you don’t know her as well as you know another friend.

Me: Yes I do. She’s my friend. I was just trying to be nice to set you up with her. But since you didn’t even have the courtesy to call her after the first date, that created an impression by itself. Don’t accuse me of saying bad things about you.

Him: What else did you tell her?

Me: I told her that you went to the wedding with N. And that you fetched N from Klang and bring her all the way to Seremban just to attend Lin’s wedding. Which by the way she already knows. She even knows that you’re going out with N.

Him: What else?

Me: And that she wasn’t aggressive enough like N, and that’s why you prefer her to N.

Him: Some things are being told to you in the strictest confidence. You have no right to talk about me with her.

Me: Well I’m sorry. I didn’t know that it was supposed to be a secret. Besides, who told you? I bet it was N.

Him: You don’t have to know who told me. That’s not important. What’s important is now that you talked to me behind my back.

Me: I know that it has to be N. Who else? How did N know about this? How do you know that she wasn’t exaggerating it? I know that you’re now going out with N, but that is no reason for you to believe everything N said? She knows you for only a couple of months. Whereas you have known me for more than 10 years.

Him: But that does not give you the right to say things about me.

Me: So I’m sorry. What else do you want me to do? The damage is done. Do you want me to say sorry to you for like a lot of time? Go on, tell me what I should do? So, I have admitted. Is that it? You want me to feel bad, right. Well, I’m sorry. What else do you want me to do?

Him: You shouldn’t have talked to her about me. The thing is, if I don’t tell you, you’ll be asking me a lot of questions. But when I do tell you, you just had to inform her.

Me: Look, we weren’t badmouthing you. Why don’t you call her herself and asked her what we talked about concerning you. Don’t talk to me about it.

Him: I hate it when people have bad impressions of me. Now she’s thinking I’m like that, when I’m not.

Me: So, what did she think of you? Is she wrong to form her own opinion of you?

Him: Yes if it’s based on the wrong perception. You have no right.

Me: Why do you care what she thinks anyway? She’s no concern to you.

Him: That doesn’t mean that you can talk about me with her.

Me: You know what. Fine. Don’t tell me anymore anything about you. I’m not interested. You can go out with anyone you want or marry N for all I care, but I’m happy with life. I was only interested in your life coz I thought we were friends. Well, you can forget about telling me stuff already. You can just keep it to yourself. I don’t have to know what’s going on with your life now coz I don’t want to. I have a husband and a baby and that’s already quite a lot for me to handle. So I’m a blabber mouth. Fine, then don’t tell me anymore coz who knows whom I’ll be spilling your stories to next. Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I want to hang up. You need to cool down and I don’t feel like talking when I’m like this. Maybe we talk some other time.

Then I hung up the phone. I was mad (and sad too). I’m sure he was mad at me. [sigh]… I don’t know. Sometimes I talk without thinking, I guess. I didn’t expect the conversation with her was actually being relayed to him through N..!! I admitted to being a bit defensive. But the damage is done. I was truly sorry for saying things that was supposed to be ‘treated in the strictest of confidence’ to the girlfriend of mine. I was just relaying to her my conversation with him just like I was relaying to another friend.

Now we aren’t talking. I don’t know whether we’ll be talking again. Though I told my friend (the one whose blog I read) that we’ll move on, especially if we’re close friends. But in this case, I don’t know. I just don’t know.