The Strange Ponderings of My Twisted Mind!

More and more I am beginning to believe in the miserable saying “You are born alone, you die alone.” Okay, in my case that doesn’t hold water because there was a doctor present, I assume my mother and maybe a nurse or two. But it’s the general message of the saying that I have been thinking about lately.

Most people are involved in relationships, whether it is a relationship with your family members, relationships with friends, relationships with a partner, there are always relationships. There are always people in your life but the question is how well do these people understand you?

This weekend I experienced a Pearl of Incredulity which didn’t come from The Odd Couple, it was supplied by Flyboy. The two of us spent the weekend at an airfield, sleeping in a friend’s hangar which has two small apartments in the hangar. Flyboy was busy holding court; regaling his cronies with stories about flying and mechanics and all the sorts of things I have heard a number of times. As usual I could have fallen off the face of the earth and he wouldn’t have noticed – I don’t mind this anymore, I have gotten used to it. After telling him I was going to town quickly, a friend and I went to hunt down supplies for the evening’s festivities but we first stopped over at his house, had a beer, watched the tail end of the Sharks, Stormers match on TV and then went out hunting. On the way back to the airfield my cell rings and I get the “Where are you? I am starving, why have you been gone so long, blah, blah, blah?”

Now, Flyboy’s little episode left me rather gob smacked for a number of reasons. Firstly the man was sitting in a hangar surrounded by food of all shapes and sizes. When we got to the airfield he hadn’t even started the fire, he sat there in a miserable little heap, getting cold and sulking. Thirdly this is the man who thinks nothing of leaving me alone at airfield while he has fun and enjoys himself but woe betide poor old me if I flex the odd two hours of freedom muscle and go and enjoy myself as much as he is enjoying himself. My mind boggles! Maybe he should shorten my chain.

“Friends” is also a concept that I battle to understand. I got asked this weekend by someone whom I consider a friend if I am happy to be back in the Land of the Living Dead. I said “No.” His compassionate response: “Oh. By the way, did I tell you about the developments on the airfield and that there is an avgas shortage, yackety yak!” This was further enforced by the fact that I ‘phoned another friend because I was feeling a bit alone in a crowd and I wanted to have some company for a minute or two. I came to the conclusion that when you have been out of friendship circles for a long time people become absorbed in their own lives and the circle, it isn’t easy to just step back in and make a cameo appearance for a short while.

Having said that maybe I am being a bit harsh, maybe I am not the kind of person people associate with being needy, maybe it was a good thing not to talk to someone because then you don’t focus on the problem and you get to feel better a bit later and pretend the problem has gone away.

One thing I find really, really strange is that no one in my real life asks me “How are you?”