Life

Bring on the redheads…

~ monkeywithgun ~ Leave a comment

It’s taken 42 years, but I’ve finally got a hammock slung in my yard; a cool and comfortable one, under a tree, where I can kick back, have a beer and ruminate / sleep / watch porn and play games on my mobile phone…whatever blows my receding hairline back. The point is it’s my space (until the kids invade).

Since getting this little luxury sorted I’ve spent some time reflecting on life, as you do with a two beer glow and some time on your hands. I’ve been checking off my history of loves, hates and vices through my life – everything from women, food, booze and narcotics to music, fashion and my on and off again flirtations with olives and anchovies.

It seems I’ve lived my life in 5 year chunks, and when slipping from one chunk to the next some or all of the loves, hates and vices flick over to a new set.

The summary goes something like:

15 – 20: It was blondes, spirits, dope and ecstasy, house music and trance, and I wouldn’t touch an olive or anchovies if my life depended on it.

20 – 25: blondes and brunettes, and to be honest any university chick that would fall for the lines, started drinking beer (mass market and cheap), ecstacy and the odd bit of coke and acid, house more than trance and still a violent dislike of olives and anchovies.

25 – 40: a whirlwind of change and stagnation which I won’t bore you with but on the female front it must have been brunettes as I came out of this period in love with and married to one…and able to nail a bowl of olives mixed with anchovies in 30 seconds.

But now I’m in the thick of the 40 – 47 episode of my life and things have swung. I can handle most of the upheaval but the one that’s thrown me is ‘out of nowhere, totally uncontrollable ‘thing’ for redheads. And I’m not only talking about the dark skinned, green-eyed type, it flows to the ghostly pale, freckled sorts and the skinny vegan ones who look like they’ve grown on a willow tree by a fast flowing stream…you know the type…very strange.

There’s more to come…I’m sure.

Final justification…for the miserable

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I can hear them, the excited little pops of cork exploding out of heavy glass necks. I can hear them from 13,000 kms away across several oceans and from different points on the globe, and the poppers of these corks are the ‘we knew its’ and the ‘I told you sos’ who fled South Africa in mini-migrations from the early 90’s onwards.

I can picture the scenes.

The stooped couple in their twilight years. The first wave to leave ahead of the elections in ’94. They’re in their little outer London flat, or if they’re lucky a small, doily bedecked  bungalow somewhere suburban. This is cheap champagne and their sad smiles are pulled across their weathered faces. Their decision to run from black rule has finally been justified. Their years of morose unhappiness and perpetual unease at the relative stability and blossoming reconciliation in the rainbow nation; their double decade of jealous rage at the lifestyles of their friends whom remained. All of these things now justified.

The botoxed, inflated & tight waisted Jewish women in St Ives and Double Bay. The dentists’ and cosmetic surgeons’ wives, now divorced and living loud in the coffee shops, hairdressers and nail bars around Sydney. These woman cackle and tap tap their titanium gelled talons against their glasses, to choruses of ‘the fucking ANC…we knew it…we told those fucking liberal moffies that it wouldn’t work…see. Top me up. Yes!’

The young professional couple in their tidy Perth flat grinning from ear to ear. Their friends should have listened to them. They knew it. They told them that ‘they’ would drive the economy into the ground. That ‘they’ would get more violent and that ‘they’ would [insert any negative]…and that they should have come with them to this wonderful(ly fucking dull nirvana for terrified white folk). The ‘they’ can’t get them here…oh no, not here.

So what is it that has got these corks popping, the botox cackling, the young, uptight self-righteousness slyly bursting forth…it’s Zuma’s latest ‘fuck you’ to his country. His sacking of Finance Minister Nene. The man who said ‘no’ to his odious demand for a personal jet. The man who questioned why South Africa needed a mortally wounded national carrier. The one human being fighting to keep South Africa’s status out of the analysts’ junk pile…and here’s the rub. I’m not South African…so I have no axe to grind, but I have, in the past had to endure the relentless negativity and gutless whinging and whining of these modern day migrants. These settlers, ‘settling’ in far flung countries, congealing in suburbs in their numbers, bringing their biltong and  their Old Ma something or others fucking blatjang. I’ve stood squashed against them in tube trains across London and had to endure their boisterous conversations on the ferries criss-crossing Sydney’s incredible harbour. And 3 years ago I finally got the opportunity to move to South Africa and to ‘settle’ in Cape Town. To live in this wonderful land. The land I’d been told I was ‘focking mad’ to go to. ‘Was I not scared ‘they’ would kill me?’

I wasn’t scared and I was excited and I am also hopeful. Today especially I’m hopeful that this lastest nail that Zuma has hammered home is into his own coffin and not the coffin of the 60 million wonderful people who make up South Africa. I’m hopeful that people are going to see beyond politics, to humanity. That blacks, whites, Indians and coloureds are going to dig deep and find a way to rid this country of the foul, bloated creature that is hell bent on destruction and insatiable greed…I wonder if any of the South Africans abroad might choose to come home and make a difference, rather than sit in their bedsits, flats and their dull contractors’ desks toasting thier apparent ability to see into the future…I somehow doubt it.. but hey.

Farewell old friend / rogue

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It’s not what I expected. I knew you had to go and go for good, but I hadn’t grasped how I would feel. It’s bitter sweet, like losing an arm, but realizing you’ve still got two perfectly good legs.

Old rogues. They’re the most fun and engaging. All my good friends are ‘rogues’ in one sense or another and that’s why we got on. So when it comes time to cut one from your life it sucks but you know it’s for the best.

Friends come and go. Our friendship dates back over 20 years. There were good times, bad times and times when we didn’t see each other for a year or two.

In those 20 years I’ve moved countries several times, lost a parent, been married twice and now have two wonderful daughters. My second wife has never really liked you. She’s felt threatened. Has felt that you changed me. Did not want you over when the kids were awake, and I got that. She spent a couple of nights with us, but it was always strained.

So now you’re gone, and let’s be clear I didn’t really have a choice, It was you or them, and I love them and they’re what I live for, so it had to happen. I know that, but what I didn’t know was that I would suddenly feel alone. You see, nobody to pick me up when I’d been kicked down, shouted down, argued with. Nobody to hang with on sunny afternoons when the family were away. Nobody to listen to music and chat harmlessly to women with. I’m going to miss all of that. Each time I argue with the ‘other half’ and storm out of the house, which doesn’t happen all that often, I’ll expect to find you waiting. Whenever there’re are old friends in town they’ll want to know where you are…and ‘what? Fuck off, what d’you mean you don’t know him anymore.’ And each of these times is going to be hard, but I hope, I really sincerely hope that we don’t meet again. I need to get on with my life and to do that we can’t be friends. That said there will always be a dull gap which you used to fill that is going to remain…dull for awhile at least.

Happiness is…

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‘They’ say that ‘happiness is earning more than your brother in law.’

If that’s true then I’ve just come back from 5 days of depression inducing hell…Easter with my 3 brothers in law and their families.

They’re all great guys and I’ve known them for years (including as friends, before I did the unthinkable and dated, then married their little sister…but that’s another story for another time.)

I’ll lay the scene; BIL (bother in law) 1 is on the board of directors of a bank; BIL 2 is a partner at a global law firm and BIL 3, one of my oldest friends (apart from the 2 years he wouldn’t speak to me because of the sister situation (see above)) runs a little business from his house which sees him earning more than BIL 1 and 2 combined. This trifecta, this triple whack with the ‘you’re worthless’ stick, this probe with the ‘what the fuck have you done with your life’ finger (and thumb) hadn’t registered before…it’s rare that we’re all in the same country at the same time…but this Easter it happened and happened in full force in a big rambling farmhouse we’d hired for the weekend.

The 6 kids ran amok and did what kids do. The wives drank wine, flicked through magazines and did what wives do. And the guys do what apparently guys with prestigious jobs and / or high amounts of disposable income do, and talked money…

By day 2 I was spending more time with the kids. By day 3 I was even considering starting work on a novel, simply to give me an excuse not to participate in the conversations I couldn’t really participate in, and by day 4 I was drinking heavily to dumb down the internal voices tearing sheets off me. I’m not a jealous person (although a couple of ex-girlfriends might beg to differ…especially the one whose dress I cut up after she screwed around on me with some floppy German fool in a camper van…) but it was tough. As many times as I tried to divert the conversation to anything other than money, business and finances (and cars I’ve never even heard of), they managed to slickly slide back to the point they’d been interrupted at. It was exhausting.

By day 5 I was feeling like the knock-kneed fat kid at a school sports day and my ego and self-worth were both punch drunk and reeling. I’d wondered out into the never ending garden with glass in hand. I was vaguely aware of the kids voices nearby, when a chubby little 2 year old hand grabbed mine and pulled me to the trampoline.

‘Daddy look. Do like this.’ She said, and I looked down and she had her head between her knees. I didn’t understand. The she dragged me onto the bouncy canvas, tucked her head down and executed a perfect somersault and lay on her back screeching with pride.

‘Daddy look. You do.’ and I did…the first somersault I’ve done in about 25 years,landing on my back next two my youngest daughter, the 2 of us laughing madly (and me feeling more than a little disoriented after spinning my gut full of wine 360 degrees), and I had one of those rare moments where life gets thrust back into perspective with such a force that your mind slaps you upside the head…and you realise that you’ve just spent wasted x number of days feeling worthless when really you’re OK…you’re a good dad, your daughters are healthy and all have the right number of limbs and eyes and don’t think you’re a fool all the time. You’ve got your health. You’re not eating somebody else’s Pot Noodles out of their bin for breakfast and in the rain and cold you’re dry and warm under a roof that’s not made from cardboard boxes or a plastic sheet.

Life is good…I’m just not rich.

Flinging of virtual faeces

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‘They’ say that the only thing you can be sure of is your own mortality. It’s coming. Like it or not, you’re going to die (as is everyone else by the way). That’s what ‘They’ say.

But I have another. I can, with as much certainty as I’m going to shake off this mortal coil, predict which of my Facebook friends will pounce at my posts. This is my new sport. I am the zoo keeper dragging my cane across the bars of their virtual cages.

For example I recently posted some quote by a dead Irish poet about ‘exploring the dark corners of your soul and so on’…I hit the post button, placed by bet and waited. It took a little longer than I expected (probably due to the recent change in time difference), but with pin point accuracy the flinging of digital faeces commenced from the predicted cage…this faeces was flung with such abandon and relentless vigor that contagion occurred…cages up and down the row began to vibrate, howling and barking erupted. More bits and bytes of faecal matter hit my screen and then peace and silence ensued. It was awesome. If I’d quoted that dead Irishman to the same people in a physical space – a bar for example – it would have gone unnoticed…

…and so I posit thus; humans are both more extreme and more predictable in their reactions when reacting from behind the screens of their devices…but I’m not sure what that implies. Do we feel more free to be extreme if we’re not face-to-face? Does the physical world dull our natural selves? Are we too afraid to be us in public, but totally happy to let it all hang out in full force when we’re operating in the virtual?

And in case you think I’m being unfairly judgmental, I’ll let let you in on a little secret. I too used to punch holes in my keyboard and let it all hang out over the dumbest of shit….sarcasm and dismissive ‘humor’ were my weapons of choice…this was until I caught myself in my own game.

All of the above is simply an observation…but 10 bucks says your keyboards have taken a bashing at things you wouldn’t have given a flying monkey’s about in the real world.

PS

For anyone looking to find a virtual predictor of future anti-social / deviant behavior, my theory (untested) is that the number of ‘I haven’t got a clue who they are’s as a percentage of one’s full set of Facebook connections would be a good place to start.

Cocaine for carrot juice

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So the low level struggle continues – wanting to be 100% present and the best parent possible periodically knee capped by a weakness for cocaine. I’m not ready to call it quits and put a life long ban on my vice by calling in the rehab cowboys…I’m determined to keep my party licence but keep it under control.

I’ve got my ‘tool kit’ sorted – it’s a combination of ‘taking a day at a time’, pumping up the exercise and good fuel (carrot juice in my case – although I’m going to have to ditch the beard…nobody looks cool with an orange moustache, or drinking vegetable juice through a straw for that matter)

Cocaine, dwarfs and business associates

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Last weekend I find myself standing, swaying ever so slightly, in a throng of party people I didn’t really know. It was a 40th. I get a perverse pleasure welcoming others to this decade, so make a point of going to them. They go one of two ways. You get the ‘I’m 40 now, so I’ll throw a pseudo-sophisticated dinner party to show I’m grown up’…these either end bloody early as they’re boring as, or wind up slightly later with people throwing up in plant pots and arguing with their wives. The other way they go, which is the way this one certainly looked to be going was ‘I’m fucking 40 and I’m going to party like it’s my last day alive…mutha funkstas!’…my favorite of the two options, but that’s an aside.

I’m bouncing from one knot of people to the next and relaxing into the night. The little trip to the powder room has imparted a comfortable buzz. The night moves on and all things ratchet up a few notches. I’ve just extracted myself from the rant of some ex-architect who now makes leather bikes seats and my god had I seen his wife? Isn’t she wonderful and did you know she was black, you couldn’t tell by looking at her and look at those legs. Did I tell you I made a bike saddle for so and so and etc etc, and am taking a private moment when my focus pulls in on a short (ish) woman standing in front of me. She’s just called me by my name. My memory banks come up empty. I mentally scramble through recent occasions and events – still blank. I therefore assume we must’ve met in the desert recently…at that bastion of madness, Afrikaburn. That would make sense. Similar people. Similar vibe. That must’ve been it…but it wasn’t.

‘It’s me, X, we met at your office last week.’

I feel myself draw up straight and move into auto-pilot. The scrambled synapses find their sequence and we chat. When I say chat, we danced. We conversationally tangoed each looking for the opening to broach the ‘are you high?’ question. Neither of us allowing that opening to occur. Neither wanting to be the first to drop the pretense. How ridiculous, and I remember thinking this at the time, that two adults were struggling to be adults on their own time because of a link to their grindstones. This continues for a while until some guy (who turns out to be her husband) sidles up and offers us both some MDMA, and the faking and parrying ends and we have a blast and uncovered a whole lot of shared history.

As fun as it was this little encounter got me thinking: is there an etiquette in these situations? And if so what is it and what drives it? Surely as two functioning adults, what you get up to on your own clock is your business and not something that you need to hide? Is it though? I’ve tried to project our next ‘work’ meeting and wonder how it will pan out with the knowledge we each have about it each other. I’d like to think it will be more open. That we’ll each understand where the other’s coming from and that the level of professionalism will remain intact and be more authentic for no longer being clouded in fake funk. Has my view of her changed knowing that she tucks into the same recreationals as I do? It would be more than hypocritical if it has. I wonder if I’ll take her as seriously? We’ll see…

Anyhow, the night moved on to include a woman jumping out of a cake, a bunch of grumpy little Playboy bunny waitresses getting grumpier and the smallest dwarf I’ve ever tripped over wondering around, dressed in a ring master’s coat, with beer and cocaine on a plate for the party boy…but that’s another story right there, which I may, may not get around to writing. If I do I’ll call ‘Who’s exploiting who: the ethics of dwarf hiring’, or something similar, but right now it’s time for a swim. Over and out.

It feels like ‘that’ time

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I’m not a pessimist and I don’t sit around waiting for bad things to happen…but I don’t blind myself to the fact that bad /. unfortunate / sad things to happen and for some time now I’ve had this ominous feeling, like sludge backing up a drain, or  a dark stain squatting just over the horizon, that something’s coming.

If you’ve read / suffered through any of my previous ruminations you’ll know that I’m in a happy place. Life is great. I have 2 wonderful kids and a wife. I’ve been given a second to chance to live in a country that I love. All four limbs and five senses are in working order. I’ve got old friends I’ve reconnected with. Life is good, but I can’t shake the feeling.

If I do little else this year I want to learn how to live in the present – how to stop my mind getting stuck in the sidings and derailing, or shooting ahead of the tracks themselves…when really all that has any impact is the right now…so in all of this, the presence of this dark stranger is forcing me to lie on my own couch and bare myself to, um, myself.

Is it because I’ve got so little to complain about in life right now that I’m feeling that I should have. That things are too good? Because that’s a fairly, if not completely, pathetic world view and I don’t mind saying it. Does the absence of bad shit mean that bad shit must be coming, or that if I was swamped in bad shit already that it wouldn’t matter…so I wouldn’t be worried. And given I can’t do anything about this tonne of hurt that’s supposedly barreling my way, what the fuck am I giving it airtime for anyway…damn it!

Then I take a breath and the myself that’s on the couch rises slightly to one elbow and adjusts itself to a more comfortable position as posits thus…

Maybe it’s because you’re getting old? You’re finally becoming aware of the march of time and the effect of it’s dirty footprints on you and your friends? You’re no longer the bullet proof superheros you thought you were and that little sea of ‘pre-cancerous’ cells you just learned about in that latest Tim Ferriss podcast has got you spooked? If these are the reasons for the dark passenger you’re cruising with, then you’ve probably got good reason to have him there…but you still can’t do anything about it, so shake it.

You know what I find myself replying, to myself, you might just have nailed it. The fun may start at forty, but so does the dying. It’s just life. Your group is likely to thin slightly every couple of years from now – if you’re lucky you’re the one noticing the ‘thinning’…if not, no need to worry, because you can’t…worry that is, when you’re fertilizer for someone’s grass patch or favorite tree.

So just maybe this ominous feeling is just a result of becoming more aware, and now that I’m aware I need to become more present…because when all’s said and done what will be will be and why waste time worrying about it. Nuff said…now I’m worried about this post having gone live before it was done…oh well. From the schitzophrenic hip’s what you’re getting.

Rehab gives you greens

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‘It’s like this.’ he says. We’re sitting at a bar on a Sunday and the air is cloyed with tobacco smoke. ‘I’ve hit the wall. I’m checking in to rehab.’ His hands are shaking and he looks like a man who’s looked evil in the eye. ‘ I’ve fucked up. I’m telling my wife tonight.’

I’m hearing the words but the enormity is not sinking in. What does he mean he’s hit the wall? I let him continue, half thinking he’s over-reacting as he often does and that this is some kind of wind up.

‘You’re not going to say anything?’

‘What do you want me to say?’ I ask ‘How bad is it?’ I mean how bad can it be. This is a friend I’ve know for 10 years and one that always made me feel like I didn’t really have my shit together in the work world and my own marriage. We did a lot of recreational Coke and various other narcotics together but he seemed to be in control of his life more so than I ever was. ‘When?’

‘Next week, just as soon as I’ve let her know. And it’s bad.’

‘Quantify bad.’

‘All savings gone. Maxed out debt. Relationships trashed. 5 grams a day bad.’

We finish our beers and go our ways. I’m feel an unexpected rumbling of emotion, the main one being anger. How the fuck had it happened and why the fuck didn’t I know?’ I felt betrayed and bizarrely hurt. But it was what it was and those were selfish, churlish thoughts. I had no idea of the fall out coming. He was the first in the group to go at 39. Surely this shit happened in your twenties?’

Our group had all flirted with various vices and lifestyles and we each had our own and collective views on who might fall and need nursing back….mine had been totally wrong…and I’m sure the bets on me had been quite high at certain points in time…but I’d always felt there was too much at stake.

Most of us seem to be doing OK. Sure we have our low grade addictions / vices which we do battle with on occasion…but we’re winning, sort of…as much as you can win in these things.

Fast forward three or four months. He’s beginning to surface from tumbling in the deep conflicting and confronting waters of early stage rehab and we meet for a coffee (no beer this time) and I’m expecting to hear that he’s making amends and , realising the hurt he’s caused and all that healing type talk, and half expecting an apology, but instead…

‘I’m getting in with a real fox. She’s fun and loaded. 43.’

‘You’re banging someone?’

‘It’s just sex. She gets me. I feel wanted. She’s a fox. Why not?’

‘What’re you thinking?’ I find myself saying, knowing none of us is blemish free. His wife’s a friend and I’m mad. ‘You don’t think you should be doing everything possible to make good with your wife and kids instead of fucking some woman with issues? Kicking your wife while she’s down don’t you think?’

I break eye contact and shrug it off. feeling to push it harder would be pointless. We finish our coffees under strained conversation.

It just happens that I’m watching the Dexter series and the parallels are blinding. It certainly seems that rehab gives you greens.

It’s several weeks later and we happen to be a the same dinner party. We end up at one end of the table and he’s leaning in conspiratorially whispering about some other recovering addict milf that he’s fucking. It’s like he wants this wife to hear and I’m not interested in being implicated. This time my anger is battling with another emotion…it’s a tinge of jealousy. I don’t like what he’s become and I can’t relate.

‘I’m glad this happened’ he’s telling me. ‘I’ve got a new life now. I share at meetings and the chicks just open up. You should try it.’ He’s laughing.

Here’s a guy who’s fucked up royally, suddenly gaining this exciting, passionate secret life whilst his family and friends are picking up the pieces of what turns out to have been years of deceit. Is that what rehab’s about? Getting you to love yourself again to the point where the damage done is swept under the carpet? Because you’re not a bad person you just made mistakes? It’s not right and I’m pissed. My body language speaks and he gets my gist and the conversation moves to more mundane topics like sport and films…and I try to pick up chat with others around the table.

It’s 12 months now and the fall out seems complete. He’s stayed on the wagon and now goes on ‘golfing weekends’. We don’t speak about the women, but it’s clearly not over.

The good that’s come from this, for me, is my healthy appreciation for what I have and the full life I lead. Every day with my daughters is a gift. I’ve teetered on the brink but watching the hell unfold when you loose control to Coke opened up a window to one of my potential futures and I’ve slammed it shut. My low level but lively addiction has been pulled into focus.

Who knows how his life will pan out. I wish him well and hope that one day we can connect on the level that we once did. I hope his wife gets the life and support that she deserves and if she finds out about the extracurricular activity at band camp that she doesn’t freeze me out for not having the balls to tell her.

 

 

Too old for Facebook?

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It’s 3am, I can’t sleep so I’m on Facebook. Why? What’s so fucking fascinating that I need to be on Facebook at this time? Nothing, but it’s my go to place when insomnia grabs me by the short and curlies. I’m not ignorant. I know by sticking a backlit blue screen in my face in the lonely wee hours is not helping matters. In fact it’s ensuring that I can’t go back to sleep by turning on regions of my brain that shouldn’t be…but I can’t help myself.

I cottoned on to Facebook early on, living in London, feeling unremarkable and bored with life. It’s been an on again off again relationship ever since…and there’s a definite correlation to my state of mind for whom ever cares to track it. Bouts of over sharing and contribution interspersed with brief periods of rabid consumption and flat out frustration – set to repeat.

I remember very well the heady excitement of the now unlimited connection. Now I could pepper my days with looking up old friends, party people, girls I wish I had but hadn’t and so on. For the latter group Facebook felt like a tool from God to put nagging ‘what ifs’ to bed…and I certainly wasn’t alone in seeing it for that. The newspapers were reporting on the lunatic rash of infidelity unfolding. The mad reunions. The Facebook affairs, flings and marriages. The unions and the separations enabled by a connected world. The good and the bad. This was awesome stuff to a bloke flopping listlessly from one dead end relationship to another. I did my looking. I poked and poked some more. Got shut down and opened up to in equal measure. I Asked questions and told lies…and engineered a definite answer to my most nagging ‘what if’…and that answer was a resounding and sweaty ‘yes’ in the form of a ‘athletic’ night in a top end hotel off The Strand with some girl I’d once shared an E with on the side of a mountain in Africa 5 years earlier. We never spoke again and didn’t need to. Facebook had answered a nagging question for us both. Magic!

But I digress. That’s not what this post is about. This post is about my more recent feelings towards the social behemoth and what it says about me and my closer friends. I find myself taking photos of the kids that have a purposeful glimpse of the pool in the background, or making sure the cars’ steering wheel badge is clear in the bottom corner of any staged photos to show how fucking hot it is on the car’s digital thermometer (it’s a Merc since you ask). Pathetic, I know. I find myself trying to out wit other parents with the captions under photos of my kids, as if anyone really cares…and this is the bit that gets me. People genuinely pretend to give a shit…and when I take a step back to consider, I lose a little respect for them each time they do.

I’m a social media hypocrite, and I’m online selfish. I refuse to ‘like’ dumb shit that my 300 odd friends post (they’re not all odd, but it’s an odd number because nobody has 300 friends), but I like being ‘liked’. If I feel they’re being insincere or only posting for show, I make a point of not reacting (it’s like pretending not to be home when the door bell goes – you’re the only one that knows it). I don’t ‘like’ to make people feel good. Facebook brings out the churlish side of me. The side that people don’t see face to face. It’s easier to be a non-responsive prick when you’re on the other side of the world…

…and it’s this level of dissection and wasted cerebral flexing that makes me think I might be too old for Facebook. Or am I too immature for meaningful digital relationships? Who knows, but 10 bucks says when the insomnia snags me in about 6 hours from now, I’ll be glued to the punishing blue screen making sure my photos from today are suitably filtered and accompanied by wit…and going out of my way not to ‘like’ those who look to be having more fun than me.