A 'Fake' Case Study

It is somewhat surprising but I always seem to have a number of peculiar people around me. One of the toppers in the list is a guy; let’s call him Mr. Fake just for convenience, who thinks he is the cat's tail and also its whiskers. We used to get along quite well till his totally weird personality traits started to come up. He now stars in my trying-to-avoid list though poor thing, he fails to get the hint.

He starts arguments without a reason - note, a complete absence of reason. The slightest complement triggers off a chain reaction of bragging and boasting. Most importantly, his idea of friendship is do what I ask you to or get the hell out of here. Trust me, he has got the basics wrong, be it love or friendship. Now the former is another, more painful story. More on that in another entry.

"We are best friends!" his voice follows me...It is so fake Mr. Fake. See, I told you the name suits him. Just for instance, one fine day we were told about this report we had to submit within a week. This was very close to our exams and hence a frustrating and irritating announcement.

Excerpts from the conversations that followed:

Day 1: Afternoon

"Don't worry ! I have a friend who has lots of report ideas. I will arrange it."

Day 1: Night

"Well, I couldn't get him on the phone. I will surely ask him tomorrow morning. He lives near my house."

Day 2: Noon

"He is out of town. He'll be back this evening. It'll be done sweetie...relax!"

Day 3: Morning

"The idiot will be back next week! There is some stupid wedding he has to attend. If he had told me before, I would have worked on it myself."

Day 5: Evening

"Have you made the report yet? Listen, get print outs for me too please. I won't be able to go out tonight."

Day 6: Morning

Best friend comes prepared with 2 copies of project reports, cursing herself for ever having trusted Mr. Fake.

Repeat above case scenario three times. The conclusion – Either the ‘friend’ doesn’t exist or belongs to the same peculiar group as Fake. The fourth time onwards, I totally stopped delegating tasks. No more trust implied no more 'work' for Mr. Fake. How very convenient!

Well, if not anything else, people like him make an interesting subject for behaviour analysis. My two weapons of defence from his subtle attacks - Indifference and Diplomacy.

"Oh of course sweetie, we still are friends!"