Why does he do this?

My friend J is one of my best friends from my college days. He lives in Southern California. Several years ago, Madonna (whom I am a HUGE fan of) was doing her Drowned World Tour. Thinking it was probably her last tour, I was desperate to get tickets. I tried everything, including recruiting several friends at work who took time out to try to be caller 101 for a SF based radio station every hour for days. Unfortunately, all our efforts got us nowhere. The closest one of us got was called number 99. So close, but soooo far away. And I wasn't about to splurge several hundred dollars for tickets from Ebay either. So, no concert for me.

J called me around that time and said his friend invited him to the LA concert. Fine. I asked him to get me a program. A few days later, he calls me again - it's very hard to hear him because of all the background noise. Where is he? Sitting in the audience of the Las Vegas concert waiting for the show to start. He went twice! His other friend had an extra ticket and instead of maybe mentioning 'me', he calls me from the concert. I would have bought the ticket from the friend. Thanks... That call was just rude in my book.

Now, this isn't out of bitterness, but I'm glad I didn't end up getting tickets to that concert, because I saw it on DVD later, and I didn't like it at all. I ended up forwarding through most of it. I didn't like her song selection and (do I dare say it?) it was a boring show. Sorry Madonna!

I did get tickets to Madonna's last concert, the Reinvention Tour, and I swear it was meant to be. It was FANTASTIC! I loved every second of it. Good thing I got lucky with tickets too because this show didn't get put on DVD - so I wouldn't have seen any of it (except little exerpts from her "I've Got a Secret" MTV special - which also didn't make it to DVD). This concert was the best!



So, my gripe of the day... J calls me this morning and tells me his friend just invited him to Madonna's latest concert in LA. The Confessions on a Dancefloor concert. I do not like this new album, so I didn't put in any effort to get tickets for her San Jose show. I'm not big on disco. J just went on and on about it, and I couldn't stand it anymore. I told him that the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas sent me an invitation for a three nights stay, plus 2 tickets to the concert at the MGM on May 27th. That's not a lie, but why would I tell people that?

Why am I not going? Like I said, I don't like this new album, and in reality - a free concert in Vegas means: buying plane tickets to get there, gambling (you have to gamble or you'll never get invited for future events), food expenses... Free is not "free" when it comes to Las Vegas. If we didn't just come back from Europe, I might have considered it. I guess J got a little embarassed or something because he had to get off the phone pretty soon after that.

I just don't understand, why does he do that?

Totally reminds me of the Giada book signing incident, only in that case, my friend has apologized many times since then - and I know she totally didn't mean to not tell me about it. She forgot. I accept that. But J calls to gush and I don't like that at all. It's just rude.