Friend and Good Friend

This is my definition/discovery. A good friend is someone to whom you can say "I have to go now" and hang up the phone. A friend is someone to whom you say "What? I can't hear you, you are breaking up, you wanna call me later?" or "Someone is ringing the doorbell" or some other lie and you hang up the phone. I just hung up the phone after talking to a friend. And one of my voices is making me feel guilty. So what do I do? Resort to blogging. Now you be the judge.

This friend of mine is very sweet, nice and all but she has this weird habit of calling me up everytime she comes across anything thats related to India or Indians. When you are a new Mom and especially a stay-at-home one, you can easily spend more phone time with other new moms, whom you meet at the park or mall or wherever and some of them become your good friends eventually, well at least friends. Thats how I met Ms.Chitly-chatly more than a year ago. We've gone out for lunches together etc. The first time we went out for lunch, she was talking about how much she liked Indian food and went on and on and didn't stop till I said "You gotta come home sometime to try some Indian food". I didn't know about her habit then.

Another time she talked about bumping into an Indian at a salon. And then she called me once to say that a few years ago she had tasted pan at some place in New Jersey and asked if I had tasted one. Another time she called me to say she heard a few people talk about a good Indian movie called "Monsoon Wedding" and what my opinion was on that. Another time she called to ask if New Jersey had more Indians than Pennsylvania. All these phone calls are apart from the usual phone-chat sessions we have every month or week. She is having 2 Indian friends over for a dinner or lunch and you can imagine the number of times she'd call this time. "They are from the north.", "They would eat fish right coming from that city?", "Their names are X and Y, what do you think, typical regional names?", "So its alright to say Mr.Firstname actually? Thats how they call us", "I am sure it'd be a lot of fun to have them over, what do you think?" Yes, I've been chased by this friend of mine for the past 3 days and I can't talk on this topic for more than 10-15 minutes. And I am not a non-talkative person, just so you know. So I keep hanging up giving some excuse and man, she wouldn't quit. I feel bad, after all, I like her. Does he think I am intellecually incapable of talking about anything else? No, I should't accuse her of that. She does talk to me about other things - our kids, diapers, baby food etc. (Well, what else do you think Moms who are friends-because-of-our-kids talk about?)

And thats why I keep giving some excuse to hang up the phone. I rest my case.