Fairly recently, I had the rather unfortunate experience of having to listen to an argumentative phone conversation between a friend and his girlfriend.  However, despite the trauma caused to my ears, I believe there were lessons to be learned from their conversation, as well as the backgrounds and personalities of those involved.  This dialogue was proof that first impressions can often be misleading, as in many cases, the facade put on by people during social situations does not resemble their real self image and outlook on life.

On the outside, this friend appeared to be confident, and showed an attitude of apathy towards anybody who thought negatively of him.  Although at times he could be arrogant and unintelligent, he often made up for it with this bold attitude.  His supposed confidence would show when he would talk to girls, and at the time, I was somewhat surprised that he didn’t have a girlfriend sooner than he did.

When I found out that he was finally involved in a relationship, I said something to the effect of “It’s about time.”  The real surprise didn’t come until I actually met his new girlfriend.  She was completely unattractive, in both appearance and personality.  I couldn’t understand what he saw in her, as she was snobby, unfriendly, and nauseating to look at.  I felt like he could do better, based on the way I had seen him act in the past.

Eventually, my friend’s phone plan would cause me to learn more about him and his girlfriend then I had any desire to know.  His girlfriend lived outside of our area code, and after his long distance plan expired, he didn’t have the money to renew it.  So, he came up with the brilliant idea to call his friends with long distance plans, and ask them to three way call his girlfriend.  Often, I would be the unlucky one chosen to endure their long, pointless, and often melodramatic telephone conversations.

As I continued being forced to listen to their phone dialogue, I began to observe the same pattern in most of their conversations.  The girlfriend would act entitled, and make various demands, and my friend would give in to all of her demands, in what appeared to be fear of losing her.  After she got off the phone, leaving just me and him on the phone, he would express anger, and make continuous claims that he was going to tell her off and break up with her.  However, he couldn’t get himself together to follow through with these claims.  I began to see that while in the past he had appeared highly confident, in reality, he was desperate and lacking in confidence.