For the first time in my life, without any trace of sarcasm, I uttered the words ' I want us to still be friends'. And what's more I meant it.
Unbeknown to me at the time this was a prompt for some force of universal, external, whatever you believe in, cosmic irony to start to royally take the piss. But what I didn't know is that it's like the musketeers (in a 'all for one, one for all' kind of way), as once you say those words- and mean it- it's a global free for all, with every person that you ever went out with comimg out of the woodwork and reappearing without warning or invite back into your life.
Now whether you believe in free will or determinism (and please return to your respective corners, I want a nice clean fight, no gouging, low blows or physiological questioning), this fact seems to me, when you examine the following evidence to be inexorable…
…I was on my way to the other side of the world when it first happened. Upset, heartbroken and leaving all forms of civilised culture behind - I was off to Australia -I had time to kill that drinking simply wouldn't do, so I checked my emails on a free terminal. And there it was, the first of them to appear out of the blue. Now whatever I say about this girl I have always admired her timing, and this was the piece-de-resistance.
After that the first breech it started to happen more. I was in Sydney in a bar being whatever the equivalent of the Australian Billy-no-mates is, (Bruce I guess), when I gate-crashed a conversation. The normal small talk ensued, asking where we each were from etc. only for me to recognise name of the place where one of the lads was from. When he questioned me as to how I knew this place I replied that I had gone out with a girl from there a long time ago, and had even visited it.
He asked her name…
…I asked how old he was…
…at least 5 years too young to have known her…
…he pressed the point…
…I said her name…
He went white - "That's my cousin".
Of course it is.
This to me doesn't seem like the norm. It seems like something is taking the piss. Now believe what you want, but it wasn't the only thing. Another separate ex-girlfriend, again through the joys of modern technology (oh how emails break down the barriers)…..mailed me telling me how she was in Melbourne. Coincidence? I think not. This is global stalking on an unprecedented scale.
Now this isn't always a bad thing, being a boy and like all boys I like things to be tied up; I don't like loose strings, I like endings. Most of us are brought up on sport and where there are endings: we have extra time, we have penalties, we have golden goals. We have the bell at the end of the round and one bloke standing and one bloke unconscious. We have finality. That's how we like it, most of us. Black. White. No grey. That's why I hate the ending of 'The Italian Job' (and NOT the re-make, bah). What is that 'plan' that he has? I want to know! I also hate the end to Rocky 3, when Rocky and Apollo go in for that 'friendly fight (surely an oxymoron?), as I want to see what happens, I want closure damn it. And here I am with far too much closure, more closure than I can swing a cat at, in fact once something re-opens can it be closed again?
I dunno.
It does give me the chance to atone in certain circumstances. I've missed this person a lot anyway, but some of the people are crap and that's why I didn't want to see them in the first place and now I'm stuck with some sort of virtual chat due to the effects of age and attempted politeness. Doh.
So here I am, and rounding up these random ramblings. The moral, I guess, is to be careful what you wish for as you may just get it.
Or is it?
I guess the real moral of the story is to make more of an effort to keep in touch with the people that you want to and not the ones you don't. As for all the moaning and the bizarre coincidences I'm still not in touch with the person I actually said it to, and that's the real piss take. - PK
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