I Loved You, Betty, And You Threw It Away!

To those of you hoping for a titillating exposé: This is not a saucy tale of Sapphic love. Although come to think of it, it is a story with tits, exposure, liquor and lesbians.

It starts in Beijing where I had acceded to the notion that studying in China for a year was a great idea. Evidence to the contrary is fodder for another rant, but at the moment my story begins, Betty and I, in the manner of peregrine students who instinctively cling to any links with home, are forming a friendship over copious amounts of booze in as many varieties as we can read off the drinks list.

When whispers of an affair with Martin began to circulate, I staunchly refused to believe the rumours. After all, wasn’t Betty sporting a ring from her fiancé back home? Alas, when Martin opened his door to Betty clad only in boxer shorts, possibly in anticipation of a quick romp and unaware I was with her as she knocked, I was forced to conclude my trust was misplaced. I realised from the amusement of my clued-in roommate how naïve I’d been, and began to recognise Betty’s other faults.

She was lightning quick to form harsh first impressions which she clung to with Mr. Darcy-like stubbornness. Woe was he who, due to inadequate English, innocently referred to breasts as ‘tits’ and was branded boorish and crude.

Betty also had a seeming inability to be punctual for anything whatsoever. Out of all the times she’d arranged to meet me for lunch, dinner, drinks, movies or outings of any kind, she was always late. This was annoying if not a little insulting, but Betty was the kind of person one always forgives.

Back in Australia we remained friends and continued much the same as before: Betty predictably late for everything or getting in all sorts of scrapes that put me to the kinds of inconveniences real friends are for, and me forgiving and consistently charmed. I listened with rapt wonder and a little envy at a worldliness I could never aspire to as she described a cross-dressing party which became for her a lesbian threesome. I talked her through bad partners of both kinds and we shared deep and painful truths.

I thought we’d be friends forever, which is why the end came as such a shock. What a way for a friendship to die – murdered quietly and without warning after Betty stood me up at the movies. When I rang and found out she was alseep instead, I laughed and said it was fine, I’d see her another time, but I never heard from her again.

In the way of such summary executions, I was mystified as to the actual reason for it, and all hope of resuscitation faded as I gathered my tattered pride around me after my attempts to contact her were met with stony silence, and I was too hurt to risk further rejection. For years I regretted the end of our friendship and moped over it, wishing we could have some sort of Hollywood-worthy reconciliation. But now, while I know that perhaps I can’t climb onto the high horse whickering to me so enticingly, after my unfriendly cold disapproval of her multiple affairs in China, I sit astride the Shetland pony of the thenceforth contrite and now wrongfully-terminated friend and say: Eff you! I loved you, Betty, and you threw it away.

Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.