The Office Friend

minor edit to avoid offending anyone...thanks to Golden Silence for pointing it out and allowing me to explain myself.

We all have one. The person you call when you want to gossip. The person who walks over to staff events and sits next to you in staff meetings. A friendly face in a sea of coworkers who really don't want to be in the same room together, ever. You don't really have much in common other than you work together and you save each other a seat in the conference room,and she stops by your cube every once in a while to chat about office politics.

My friends, this is the office friend. The person who you would never actually be friends with in the 'real world' and yet email them daily with jokes or what not because that's what you do when your real friends aren't just a room away (like in college).

I have my own work friend, but I think it's time to let her go. Let her fly on to others and move on to someone else.

"Kate" is of a different cultural background than I am. And I mention this only because it plays out within our interactions with each other and our cultural differences often are a point of contention between the two of us.* She is just a year older than I am, so we're going through the same things in our personal lives (boys, friends, jobs, etc). She ended at The Firm differently that I did, she was a temp that was hired on full time, I was recruited. And she started about 4 months prior to my start date. She's more of a traditional girl, liking to hang out in club, drink expensive drinks and expects the boy to pay for everything. I on the other hand would rather spend hours in a dive bar and insist on going dutch (at least most of the time). She's also almost always looking for pity or drama in life...I try to avoid it at all costs. Minor differences, none of which would really prevent us from being friends (work or otherwise).

When we first started hanging out she said she was lacking friends and things to do after work. Since I've got a great group of friends I took the initiative to invite her to a couple happy hours . I didn't expect them to all become best friends, but I hoped that maybe I could continue to invite her out to group things without that weird thing that happens when new people come into an established group.

She seemed to like them. They liked her. All was well in the world of "the work friend". But then she started to ask "so what are you to this weekend?" I'd tell her my (our) plans and make it an open invitation for her to join in on the fun. When I asked her what her plans were most of the time, it was pretty much "nothing." I felt bad, I had a full social calendar with great people who are fun. After telling her my plans she'd always say "well give me a call on Saturday and tell me the plans." Well, um, I just told you all of the plans. Yes, I realize it's only Wednesday, but I'm a planner…**

I realize that maybe my plans weren't what she wanted to do with her free time. BUT if you have nothing else going on (plans, friends, etc) then why not take up a friendly invite to do something, anything instead of sitting home alone?

Needless to say she didn't come out very often with my friends. The two times that she was going to come she ended up backing out 'cause she was "tired" or "sick".

But now the relationship has gone down hill. She has a new work friend that she hangs out with and I'm just the afterthought. We are in the same department, so if something is going on and it's just our department then she's right next to me, but if it's Firm wide, she's with her new buddy.

Where'd I go wrong?

And the bigger issue, how do I move on? Folks at the Firm think of us as a tag team, always together and moving on to new people is hard because they always ask "where's Kate?" or something along those lines.

How do I reclaim my identity as a person and not just Kate's sidekick?

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*This has nothing to do with race or religion or is meant to be discriminatory in any way. It's just that we have different views on dating/relationships, her views stem from her culture and mine are from personal experience and often prevent me from offering advice because I just don't have that kind of experience. I've also notice recently that she's started to build friendships/relationships with people that share her views (and can help her find an ideal husband) and I'm being pushed out...maybe it's for the best...?

** MAJOR pet peeve: If you are interested in joining me or doing something with me that you already know I'm doing, you should do the calling. I'm still going to do whatever I have planned, regardless of if you are coming or not, so why should I take time out to call you? I HATE this. Ii don't mind calling someone if plans were left up in the air, but if I've already got a plan in stone and you want to join me then call and see what the details are. Needless to say, I called Kate all of once to give her the info (again).