Last week, yet another acolyte of mine wrote to me, asking me for advice. "Dear Nigel, I need your advice on friendship," he began, and I sighed at the prospect of the whining of a hapless young man. The scrawl that descended down the page confirmed my preconception that this was from some lost soul being swept along by the winds of life. As I read on, however, I discovered that his query was a very complex and delicate one. He wanted to know how to terminate a ten-year-old friendship. Unlike ending a relationship, which is catered for by every formality short of an unsubscribe form, friendship comes with no obvious means of escape. You can allow it to fizzle out and become a mere acquaintance, but since the advent of social media, it is difficult to truly rid yourself cleanly of an unwanted friend. Formal declarations would sound absurd, and one suspects that the undesirable route of outright offence is the only hope. Being direct and honest seems more hurtful anyway, as it leaves the former friend with no language to air their grievances. Saying 'That bastard broke my heart' garners nothing but giggles when it departs the mouth of a heterosexual man.
Sadly, I know these things from experience, as I am still caught in the recency of a painful separation. After several years of friendship, affection, nostalgia, and camaraderie, I parted ways with a man who once played an important part in my life. I met this man (for convenience and anonymity's sake, let's call him Igualdio) when I was in my teens, and after the failure of his business in Thailand, our friendship went into decline. Igualdio and I were adventurous travellers, and after my stint in the Far East, he decided to set up shop in the Land of the Silent H. As we gazed at the stars one autumn night, he confessed his desire to develop a financial security upon which he could launch his true ambitions. Like many TEFL teachers, Igualdio did not burn with a passion for the correct usage of the present perfect simple; he preferred to develop another career from the time TEFL teaching allowed. Many pursue a career in writing or music or acting — in Los Angles frustrated ambition waits tables, elsewhere it teaches English. If you sincerely say to anyone in the industry that teaching English is your dream job, they will present you with incredulity and fearful looks (and probably plot to burn you in a giant Wickerman).
When Igualdio came home from Bangkok, he was a defeated man. His school, which offered nighttime refresher courses in English, sank after some initial success. Keeping It Up: All Night had attracted a slime of sex-pat teachers, who salivated at the prospect of jizzing English all over their nubile students' faces. The descent of the school's reputation correlated with the descent in enrolling students, and Igualdio left Thailand penniless. The only thing that saved him from total despair was the mirage that he had already departed on his true career and wasn't dependant on the fickle seas of TEFL teaching. His ambition had blinded him from the reality that the income that sheltered and fed him came from teaching. Lost in a deep delusion, he never missed the opportunity to tell people that he was an astronaut. Nothing happened in astronomy or space travel without his passing comment on Facebook. His Twitter page was an unbearably saddening sight, with regular and overly familiar comments on NASA tweets. He resorted pathetically to saying that he was on the greatest spaceship of all - Planet Earth - when confronted with his lack of space travel experience. I could no longer watch him embarrass himself, and I tried to help him. Alas, there is no subtle way of breaking the spell of such delusion, and he reacted with hostility. I exacerbated the situation by carelessly asking him to consider primary school teaching. We agreed after an argument that our friendship was now officially over and could never be salvaged. As the present perfect simple has taught us, things have never been simple or perfect in the present. I'm fortunate to have made it as a blogger and haven't fallen into this horrible pitfall. When I think of my escape, readers, I cry. I cry bitter tears of joy.
Sadly, I know these things from experience, as I am still caught in the recency of a painful separation. After several years of friendship, affection, nostalgia, and camaraderie, I parted ways with a man who once played an important part in my life. I met this man (for convenience and anonymity's sake, let's call him Igualdio) when I was in my teens, and after the failure of his business in Thailand, our friendship went into decline. Igualdio and I were adventurous travellers, and after my stint in the Far East, he decided to set up shop in the Land of the Silent H. As we gazed at the stars one autumn night, he confessed his desire to develop a financial security upon which he could launch his true ambitions. Like many TEFL teachers, Igualdio did not burn with a passion for the correct usage of the present perfect simple; he preferred to develop another career from the time TEFL teaching allowed. Many pursue a career in writing or music or acting — in Los Angles frustrated ambition waits tables, elsewhere it teaches English. If you sincerely say to anyone in the industry that teaching English is your dream job, they will present you with incredulity and fearful looks (and probably plot to burn you in a giant Wickerman).
When Igualdio came home from Bangkok, he was a defeated man. His school, which offered nighttime refresher courses in English, sank after some initial success. Keeping It Up: All Night had attracted a slime of sex-pat teachers, who salivated at the prospect of jizzing English all over their nubile students' faces. The descent of the school's reputation correlated with the descent in enrolling students, and Igualdio left Thailand penniless. The only thing that saved him from total despair was the mirage that he had already departed on his true career and wasn't dependant on the fickle seas of TEFL teaching. His ambition had blinded him from the reality that the income that sheltered and fed him came from teaching. Lost in a deep delusion, he never missed the opportunity to tell people that he was an astronaut. Nothing happened in astronomy or space travel without his passing comment on Facebook. His Twitter page was an unbearably saddening sight, with regular and overly familiar comments on NASA tweets. He resorted pathetically to saying that he was on the greatest spaceship of all - Planet Earth - when confronted with his lack of space travel experience. I could no longer watch him embarrass himself, and I tried to help him. Alas, there is no subtle way of breaking the spell of such delusion, and he reacted with hostility. I exacerbated the situation by carelessly asking him to consider primary school teaching. We agreed after an argument that our friendship was now officially over and could never be salvaged. As the present perfect simple has taught us, things have never been simple or perfect in the present. I'm fortunate to have made it as a blogger and haven't fallen into this horrible pitfall. When I think of my escape, readers, I cry. I cry bitter tears of joy.
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| We are all looking at the stars, but some of us have our minds in the gutter. |
