A girlfriend came to stay for the weekend. She too is divorced and it so happened that we both found ourselves sans enfant at the same time. She is much more sorted than me emotionally – she left her husband because she was bored and fully expects to meet the man of her dreams. She is immensely positive at all times and is the most highly sexed person I have ever come across. As a gorgeous, sexy doctor, opportunities seem to arise fairly regularly for her – I think she has three lovers on the go at the moment. So far, in her “relationships” she has managed to keep her emotions in check, suggesting that I need to start thinking more like a bloke in order to actually enjoy myself, instead of being completely traumatised by everything. “What you need to do is get yourself a couple of fuck-buddies, that’s what single people do”. Keep things casual (I have no idea what she means, I’ve never been casual in my life, let alone about sex).
We went to my favourite pub. The one that in the last two years has become almost a second home. She seemed quite impressed that I knew so many people and it occurred to me that I have quite unintentionally found myself a whole new circle of friends, post trauma. Although “circle” is perhaps the wrong word, it suggests something a bit too neat and tidy – a better description would be a “blob” of friends – still a sort of circle, but a bit more messy and random.
As a result of my current state of mind (not terribly sound), I really love my pub friends. More than I should, probably, given that in an emergency they’d be completely crap. Generally speaking, in life, it is natural to grow out of pub friends as we settle down and move on to more sensible, meaningful things. However, when the sensible, meaningful things betray you, you are inclined to lose the plot a little.
One thing I’ve noticed that we all have in common (because it certainly isn’t age) is that we all have a similar attitude to life, a sort of “life’s too short to be taken seriously” attitude. This is because we are all clearly dysfunctional. Damaged goods. Complete fuck-ups. However, perhaps it should be argued that being flawed makes a person more interesting and that being able to laugh at your inner disaster areas means our failures begin to stop being a hindrance and start being a positive asset. They certainly stop you from being so judgemental and allow you to be more open to new experiences. The general consensus of opinion (in the pub) seems to be that dysfunctional is the new functional. The conversations lurch from sex, unhappy marriages, suicidal mothers, prison, broken homes, drug addiction and then back to sex in the same way that in my previous married existence we would talk about kitchens, bathrooms, loft extensions, congestion charges and children.
These pub friends can be divided into a number of different categories:-
1. Old friends going through a similar experience.
2. Old friends who wish they were going through a similar experience.
3. New friends going through a similar experience.
4. New friends who I’ve met in the pub who don’t appear to have any other friends.
5. New friends who are not really friends but pretend to be because they are predatory and can clearly see that taking advantage of a vulnerable, needy woman may result in a shag (the average age of this category is about 12 and they are mainly male).
What tends to happen of an evening, is that I go to the pub with a few friends from category 1 and/or 2. We generally sit at a table, eat, drink, smoke and laugh. At some point in the evening we will migrate to the far corner of the pub where all the people in category 3, 4 and 5 are lounging about (or sometimes they will come and join us). By the time the two groups merge, enough alcohol has been consumed to lower any initial inhibitions and therefore the conversations tend to be relatively basic. “Oh hi, how are you, come and join us, we’re just listening to this hilarious story about how Ade had anal sex once and found a baked bean stuck on the end of his knob”. Think I might be out of my depth.
On Saturday morning, I woke up laughing (a good sign), but I can’t remember why (a bad sign). Probably it was because I didn’t have to get out of bed for any children’s activities. I made my friend a cup of tea and sat on my daughter’s bed for a debrief of our night.
We spend the rest of the weekend doing dreadfully indulgent, girly things like having our hair cut, shopping and having a facial. I feel a pang of guilt for not going to watch the marathon – and an even smaller twinge of guilt that I am not actually participating in it. It is one of the things that brings a tear to my eye – all that energy for the greater good – it’s a fantastic event. I can’t quite believe that out of 36,000 plus people running, I only vaguely know one of them.
