The Meaning of Friendship

"Friendship". What does that term even really mean? A connection and the bond between many individuals. The bond between myself and one other person. Something that unites me with someone else because we are agreeable (95% of the time) in each others presence. Knowing someone for X amount of years... or is it because they know my deepest secrets and fears. What is a "friend", really? 

After 24 years, I still can't seem to pinpoint the exact meaning of that word. But I always understood that friendship grew out of all of the above and that with the term came unconditional love and understanding that sometimes we may not always be physically there for one another. 

So it seemed.

Friendship has always meant a lot to me, but I guess I should start practicing what I preach. If not, I should at least start prioritizing so that friends (and family) always stay within the top 2 of my "list". Not trying to write out a sad-sob-blog story, but in the last few years I've made and lost friends. Long story short, a friend (whom I had known for almost 14 years) and I had hit a rough patch due to miscommunication. Instead of straightening things out face-to-face, it was a lot of "she said he said she said...", which (as we all know) is the key ingredient for a disaster. Resulting in the fact that our friendship was not salvageable and we went our separate ways (in process, losing those 14 years of a strong connection). Two years have since passed and I am extremely thrilled to say that we have reached neutral grounds and are now friends again. There is a long way to go in regaining that trust, but we are both happy that we are going down the right path (to be honest, I missed this girl A LOT). 

After this whole situation, we figured that our circle of friends would have learnt a thing or two about the value of the relationships we hold with one another... alas I'm not sure that's the case since it feels like I'm going through this exact same situation with another close friend, whom I've known for (now) 16 years. This now brings up the previous question, "what is friendship?".

I guess the definition of "friendship" really depends on one's... well, one's main view of how it should be defined. For example, I describe "friendship" to be something that will never be lost between two individuals that truly care about one another. No matter what each individual goes through, the highs, the lows, regardless of all that comes between these two individuals, they will be able to reconnect as if time has not passed since they last saw one another. One of my closer high school friends and I have schedules that are completely opposite from one another, so I rarely have the chance to see her. But when we do, it's as if we saw each other just yesterday and easily pick up on where we last left off. 

I mean, is that not what it is? 

Life brings new adventures which cause the distance in friendships... but it certainly shouldn't be the reason in ending one.

Thoughts? Or am I just being foolish (as usual)?

Cheers,
C.
x

First World Problem Rants - Evenko

Before I go off into, what may be a long rant, I would like to just point out that this post is going to be a very "first world problem" post... topic and subject regarding Evenko. With that, let us begin:

Today's date, Monday February 3, 2014. Just a typical Monday, nothing different from any other in the last 24 years of my life. The only thing that made this Monday a bit more bearable was the fact that tickets to Bruno Mars' concert on July 23, 2014 at the Bell Center were going on sale today at 10h. 

WHEEEEE BRUNO MARS!!

 That being said, I was rather excited because the last time Mars came to Montreal, I had missed the starting time in getting tickets. By the time I had remembered (which, might I add, was only an hour after the tickets had gone on sale) the show was completely sold out. Not bad for your first gig here in Montreal, Bruno, not bad at all. 

Sufficient to say that I was not going to miss this opportunity again. Especially after seeing his performance at the Super Bowl last night. Wowza. What stage presence. 

I cannot begin to describe the frustration I was going through when 10h came around and it was then my turn to purchase tickets... but instead of recounting the frustration bit by bit, let me just copy and paste the post I had left on Evenko's facebook page:

"Before I get into this, I just wanted to let you know that this letter contains a heavy amount of sarcasm and frustration... with that I apologize, but here goes nothing:

Dear Evenko,

I've been online trying to get 2 tickets since 10:15am (and online even longer in your so called "virtual waiting room")... and for some miraculous reason unfathomable to me, they didn't have an single pair of tickets to sell in ANY of their sections available. So I took their suggestion and opted for split seats. And still ended up with nothing.

Evenko, I am normally satisfied with your system, but this is beyond unacceptable. WHAT is the point on having your turn, to realize that there is NOTHING available? Please explain this to me, because I can't seem to wrap my mind around it (as I am sure most of us here can agree).

Just for fun (and out of my own curiosity), I even went as far as to purchase 8 tickets... and yet there it was, the beautiful box we all so love, "We could not find any tickets based on your selection. You can try again by changing your event selection, the price or the number of tickets." Sure, if I were actually buying an odd number amount of tickets, I would be more understanding that there are no seats available and that splitting seats would probably be the best option. But two. Just TWO are unavailable anywhere. Actually, not even. I couldn't even find ONE. This must be one hell of a glitch that the rest of us have never seen before because that seems to be the only explanation I can come up with that makes sense. They say Firewall is terrible, just switch to Apple products and I can guarantee that all those little bugs may finally be out of your (system's) lives. 

Or... perhaps you should start phishing out the scalpers who will only see (y)our precious tickets at almost 4 times the price (as seen the last time Bruno Mars was in town)... because Lord knows that extra $250-$300 could go to, oh I don't know, a charity fund that actually cares who they service and cater to.

Again, please forgive the sarcasm and frustration that I am throwing your way. I realize that this is not actually your (whomever is reading this) fault. But as a well known and successful entertainment company... (here comes a bad pun) get your act together!

Cheers,

Someone who's wasted way too much time trying to get tickets to see Bruno Mars (and then more time writing this post)... and all the upset Montrealers/Quebecers who could not get one single ticket today"

Boy. Was I ever upset. Again, insert the "first world problem" stereotype here... and I felt bad once I had calmed down and disconnected myself from the situation. Because no matter how I tried to put it, I was getting upset over the fact that I couldn't see this man at his upcoming concert in July. How selfish does someone have to be to have steam blow out from their ears over something so minute as that?

Pretty damn selfish, really. 

The only satisfaction I had from sending that post were the witty puns and sarcasm that I had come up with without really thinking about it (trust me, when I try to think about it, it always comes out... well... wrong - a good example is when I was telling someone that I had the "right of way", but I was so engulfed in the conversation that it came out as "the way of walk". Classic).

This is where it gets better though... "Evenko" decided to respond with this statement:

"Dear Cynthia, 

I can guaranty you there was no glitch this morning. Just thousands of people trying to buy tickets. Tickets were sold very fast because there are simply not enough for all the people that wanted to buy. Therefore, it explains why you could not find tickets for your selections. I understand it can be frustrating, but it's just the reality of things when we present a very popular artist. We wish we could accommodate everyone; however the demand is too high. 

About scalpers, our system does detect any "machine" trying to buy tickets. However, now these days, individuals buy tickets and resell them on resellers’ website. This is something that's harder for us to stop considering it is not illegal, that’s why we put a limit of tickets per person. We do not encourage scalpers. In fact, we recommend people to not encourage them as well and not buy from them. 

Again, I’m sorry you could not find tickets for this show, hopefully Bruno will come back to Montreal soon."

Oh no way! Is that how it really is? Thank you for clearing up ALL that confusion for me. It is SO much clearer now... also notice the typo in "guarantee"... all credibility lost if you ask me.

Did you just really pull a "Supply and Demand" on me? I'm not an idiot. Nor is the rest of the Bruno Mars fans who had the exact same problem as me this morning. Besides, not being able to see Bruno Mars isn't the problem. My beef here is the fact that, even with choosing ONE bloody ticket... I still wasn't able to find any seats in all the colored sections that your system claimed to be AVAILABLE.

Do you realize HOW BIG the Bell Center is? And you're trying to tell me that the demand is so high that there isn't one single bloody seat in the nosebleed section? 

Piss off.

And by the way. I went all "supply and demand" on your site's ass and tried for 8 tickets remember? That's a demand, no? So where's my bloody supply? If that whole thing actually worked, you would have given me the 8 tickets I was looking for right off the bat.  

Yeah. Think about that one, Evenko... "supply and demand" my ass.

I miss those days where I could rush over to la Baie and just buy my tickets there... not only that, they would show me which seats were actually available and I could choose right there and then. The earlier one would go, the better the seats one would have. "First come, first serve", fair and square. What happened to that? The only waiting you would have to do was for the clerk to say, "Suivant. Next."

Golden words. 

All to say, f*ck you Evenko and your malfunctioning online system (not to mention your online service charges and extra mailing charges to mail out the bloody tickets within the city). Those tickets DO NOT cost $10 to mail out from inside Montreal.

This threat means nothing to such a corporation... but I hope that the next time you want to see your favorite artist at an upcoming show, that you end up waiting for 1h in the virtual waiting room, only to wait another half an hour before being allowed to purchase tickets, only to find out that THERE ARE NO TICKET(S) AVAILABLE ANYWHERE, to getting kicked out because your page froze, to waiting another half an hour, to realizing almost two hours later that there is no hope in you seeing this artist as the colored sections go from vibrant to matte. 

Yeah. Go. F*ck. Yourselves.

Next time Bruno comes back to Montreal, I hope that his management decides to go to Metropolis for him to perform... because they'll be much fairer than this.

To those who were lucky and got through their flawed system, enjoy Bruno's magnificence as a talented performer while the rest of us "hope that Bruno will come back to Montreal again soon."

What a performance that was last night!

Cheers.

C.

Sorry. No "X"s tonight.