I’ve covered some of this before and it is by no means anything new or secrets of the universe or indeed secrets of me. Feel free to drop off now, its not gonna get any better, but I feel like typing.
This weekend one year ago I was in Bristol. I had just started seeing my then girlfriend and we were spending the weekend together. The Saturday night we were suppose to go and meet some friends of mine for dinner, it was an event that had been planned on and off for some time and had just never happened. Anyway we had finally gotten some time alone and were sitting on the couch talking. My girlfriends flatmate and another friend were downtown doing some shopping, we had managed to get rid of them for a while and were to meet them and then go on to dinner.
So anyway my mobile rings and its my girlfriends flatmate, message is short and simple, something is wrong, can you come downtown and meet us now. It’s pretty safe to say that I knew then, I mean a message like that can only really mean one thing. So the backstory. My friend Matt was never really healthy, he had some transplants when he was younger and his life was complicated as a result. He was in and out of hospital his entire life. A couple of weeks before this, the doctors had found something wrong and they didn’t know what. So Matt was in hospital under observation for a while. One night I met another friend of ours and we went in to see him. Being a hospital visit and all that you have to bring something and well FHM and a couple of FHM specials were the perfect trick although his mother did disapprove.
Anyway we spent a couple of hours there and talked for a while and generally just hung out. That was the last time I saw Matt. Back to Bristol and we made our way downtown. That sinking feeling was there all the time, there was always a chance until you heard the news but there wasn’t really. But we met the others and it was all over, girlfriends flatmate confirmed the news and that was that. I don’t know exactly what happened for the next few minutes, there was a number of phone calls to various people but that is all. I do remember ringing my friend and cancelling dinner and telling her why and then at some stage going back to someone’s house and that’s that.
Over the past 10 days I’ve met more new people than I have since I moved over here and went into the office. Tonight was strange but kinda cool. I was sitting on my own waiting for some people and this girl came up to me and I thought she asked if she could have the seat next to me and I said “yes”, turns out she actually asked if I was on my own, because she was there alone and didn’t know anyone and wanted to talk to someone. Anyway we sorted things out and spent the next while chatting. Really nice girl and we seemed to be getting one, fairly cute too (always a bonus, but not single). So that was all that. Going to see her again at some stage tomorrow and introduce her to people so she’s not alone.
I could never do something like that, it’s just not me. I’m not good in people situations at the very least nevermind going along a complete stranger and just talking to them. Last weekend was tough enough, going to dinner with a large group of people where I was pretty much the complete stranger in the group, but that was ok as there were other new people and the people in general were all nice and welcoming.
I know a person who has a lot of friends, a hell of a lot. More precisely she thinks she does, what in actual fact she has is a lot of acquaintances and who has such a high opinion of herself considers them all dear close friends who worship her. Anyways not to get side-tracked, the thing I don’t get is she uses these “friends”, if she can get something from them, or they can do something for her, they get attention and become for a very brief time they centre of her world. Anyways it sucks and its a damn bad way to treat people.