Friends
Social Group Man-Child Attends BBQ With Cadbury Favourites Instead Of Actual Food
Local man-child and social group deadweight, Trevor Millson (33), has again attended a Christmas social bbq with his friends brandishing nothing but a $10 box of Cadbury favourites.
Wearing a t-shirt and jeans combo recycled from his laundry hamper, Trev arrive 90 minutes late to the BBQ at Bicentennial Park, with even the group’s younger generation giving him a sideways glance as he sauntered over.
“I made a God damn quinoa and chicken salad for today, making sure I had all the dietary requirements covered,” steamed an upset Angie, school friend and historic babysitter to Trevor, “Michael brought half a bloody butchers shop, even Andrew picked up some non alcoholic beers for the designated drivers.”
Unaware or ambivalent to the ire of his friends, Trevor dumped the Favourites on the main table before scoffing down 2 chops, 3 sangas, and a six pack of craft beer.
“Ahh, Trev’s ok,” Michael told UnOz reporters, “it’s just sometimes I think my 6yr old has her shit together more than he does.
After lunch Trevor started complaining about having to buy a Kris Kringle present for a family event, before spending the rest of the afternoon swiping right on Tinder.
GK Kidd
@GKTweetsHard
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Reacher, Doctor Who, Stranger Things, SNL & More: BCTV Daily Dispatch
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Stranger Things, SAG-AFTRA, Friends/Matthew Perry, Doctor Who, Rick and Morty, Invincible, Reacher, and more!
The Worst Kind of Listener
The worst kind of listener isn’t the one that is patently distracted (by thumb-flashing smartphone interaction or some endless performative scrolling), cannot make eye contact, shows through their follow-up questions that they weren’t paying attention anyway, rolls their eyes, or indulges in several other variants of not-so-passive aggressiveness.
No, the worst kind of listener is the one who pretends to listen but actually doesn’t. For as you speak, this ‘listener’ emits little, squeaky, emissions of ‘uh-huh, yeah, right, sure’ as you talk, shifting and squirming as you speak as if ants were ascending their pants, and then, as you finish, launches right into their own story, the one that they have not so patiently been waiting to begin telling. You are told, in no uncertain terms that you have merely delayed their speaking. Your time is up; you must exit stage left and let the main act commence.
What makes this performance particularly noteworthy is that such a listener has both distracted you with their patent lack of attention while you speak, for their nodding and grunting is not a sign of comprehension, but rather, a marking of time, one that lets you know how much precious time of theirs you are taking up, and moreover, they have added insult to injury by making clear that nothing whatsoever in what you said has merited any kind of expression of acknowledgement, interest or follow-up.
This kind of listener is a true abomination. As you speak, and unavoidably are distracted by their performative inattention, you find the coherence in your speech fade, as you find yourself, whether you like it or not, speeding up, not so much to finish what you wanted to say, but rather to relieve yourself from having to pay attention to this insulting pantomime. Your thoughts and words, jumbled by irritation and distraction, are no longer worthy to be shared. You amble to the finish line, relieved you don’t have to speak any more. And then watch them hold forth.
Listening is an art; it requires performance, patience, and lots of it. It has an ethical component too; to behave as described above insults the speaker, rendering them minimal respect. If you recognize yourself–as a listener–in this description, it’s not too late to save yourself from the often-unexpressed resentment of your friends, companions, and sundry interlocutors. If you’ve borne the brunt of such behavior, it’s time to speak up in no uncertain terms. We all can do better, and we should.
Killing a Friendship Over Email
Modern relationships end in strange ways. Last year, a friend terminated a friendship with me over email. We had not met in over a year, and had been exchanging emails on trying to find a time and place to meet and ‘catch up.’ Arranging a meeting time with another ambitious New Yorker that works is an intractable task at the best of times; still, my friend and I, thanks to our emailing back and forth, seemed to have found a rendezvous space-time point that worked. But that meeting fell apart thanks to my parenting commitments, and as it did, and as I asked to reschedule, my friend accused me of inattention, of not reading our communications carefully enough. I quickly and briefly apologized, and stunned by the anger on display in the accusation of inattention and distraction, retreated into embarrassed silence. A couple of weeks later, we ran into each other on the street, and found our conversation brief, rushed conversation–it’s New York City!–awkward and stilted. Having noticed that personal contact hadn’t helped, I tried again, over email, to reach out. But it didn’t; my email met with an another angry response; the relationship was well and truly over. Yet another attempt at reconciliation, hopefully in person, made by email contact, again ended in disaster, as I was accused of insensitivity and selfishness. I stared my email exchanges thread in some disbelief; there it lay, the forensic record of a relationship gone well and truly bad, down the tubes.
A year or so later, I’m still surprised by the speed at which an ostensibly ‘healthy’ relationship degenerated so quickly. My friend did send over a couple of accusations of self-centeredness on my part in our relationship, so the demise of our friendship was perhaps foretold, but I certainly had not been forewarned or been given a ‘call-out’ or a ‘heads-up’ to try to make amends. At the very least, as another friend of mine suggested, I should console myself with the thought that the friendship hadn’t been that great to begin with if all it took to end it was a ‘simple misunderstanding’ over email, one that did not even prompt a suggestion for a ‘conversation’ to sort things out.
I’m inclined to think too, that the intersection of our extended email correspondence with our hectic modern schedules and commitments had some role to play here. The endless back-and-forthing, the desperate hunt to find a time-slot that worked, the mounting frustration of scheduling details, the pressure to try to maintain a relationship through making appointments, the irritation of feeling another email to be replied to mounting – I’m inclined to think that trying to maintain a ‘friendship’ in the face of this can generate a temptation to just call ‘the whole fucking thing off.’ It’s tempting to want to trim ‘friend lists’ in the face of scheduling pressures; only some make the cut in the face of the imperatives of limited time and energies.
No doubt, my personal faults, as pointed out by my friend, had something do with the demise of our friendship; I’m deeply flawed like we all are, and these flaws often exert a damaging influence on my social interactions. But they might have been tolerated in a different social and cultural setting, where, if we had enough time and space to attend to personal relationships, my friend and I might have been able to work on ours.
Simon Wilson
I found a series of photo’s on an old back-up a few months ago. Which reminded me of my pal Simon. I’m going to post them here so that he can ask me to unpost it.
I am quite an annoying old friend.
Simon Wilson last seen 2001
I’m not quite sure how old I was, perhaps about 14 or 15, when I made friends with Simon Wilson. Without extended family in the immediate vicinity we were outsiders in our village. Tribal sports such as football or rugby did not interest us. We both liked gaming on ZX Spectrums. We were both a tad geeky, which was not cool back in 1984. It still isn’t really, despite what the telly tells you (Big Bang? Fibs).
A behatted Simon Wilson
We went for cycle rides mostly just to the gravel pits but at least once to Rinsey and on occaison to Ha’penny Park. We explored Lowertown woods with BJ, the Wilson family dog. Simon’s little brother sometimes tagged along. We enjoyed discussing and playing computer and board games. Jet Set Willy was my favourite, only because I could ‘hack’ it with ‘pokes’ (too boring to explain). The fledgling franchises of The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars all figured strongly.
Simon Wilson where are you?
Like the many friendships throughout my life this one dissolved in time. Now I live on the otherside of the world and never glimpse my old friend, which is a shame.
Wishing you all the best Simon.
His Ancient Beach
John Lee was a friend of mine who died of old age. I say old age but the hospital would tell you it was stroke. John would have told you it was because his body betrayed him.
After going for a run this morning I climbed down the 74 steps for a morning swim. The water was cold and the waves messy. I ducked, floated and dived before finally letting the waves wash me back in. As I walked back up the steps struggling with my damp t-shirt I thought about John. He loved Murrays beach, he pulled out the bitou bushes, to give the native plants a chance, and he picked up the rubbish people left behind. He planted grass and pandanaus palms to stabilise the sand dunes, he wrote many lovely poems about his ‘ancient beach’.
I hope his family won’t mind if I share one here:
My Ancient Beach
The over-arching vault of peerless blue sky.
The metamorphic tongue of blackened rock
lancing the beach of spangling brightness
to islands beyond the surf,
now rookeries for tern and gull.
The pineappled pandanus standing stark
its roots tracking nutrients and water
as it leaches back to the sea.Crackling waves kiss the beach today
swirling round the polished pebbles
which I Agrippa ple for my Shinto garden.
The search for tranquility in my life
comes closer to fruition here
and like some druid admiring Nature
I leave offerings by taking rubbish away
pulling out weeds and starting out
a host of young pandanus
to reach out and touch the sky.
John
John amongst the flora of his ancient beach
That’s that then
A friend of mine died last night, John was an old fellow who lived up Coro Ave. Eighty five years old he was. We became friends after he mentored Choppy and I down on the sand dunes. He was passionate about regenerating the foreshores of our local beach, he showed us the Bitou bush and how to kill them. He shared with me his love for Sawtell.
Over the years the knobbly knees on his long gangly legs began to grate and grind. Johns knees were buggered and constantly frustrated him. With the aid of a wheely frame we tried walking together down to the surf club, it was incredibly difficult for him. He knew it was his last walk to the surf club saying simply, “That’s that then”.
The next day a visiting health worker told him he would have to go into care. John fell into a final depression which ended a few days later with him tumbling out of bed and cracking his head. He had been popping the warfarin like lollies so he bled freely and fell unconscious. I visited John a few times during the day in the hospital. He never regained consciousness and died in the evening surrounded by his lovely family who had rushed to be with him.
John on one of his delightful visits in our kitchen
My Best Rose
Dear Z,
Thank you so much for your package, it is lovely and I shall treasure it.
You surprised me. I felt you were exactly the person I remembered but the lens of time and the walls of distance left me ignorant of the truth. I feel so stupid that I misjudged you and my errant timing has led us down different paths. If you’ll excuse my continued foolish romanticism. Under the shadows and sunbeams between scudding clouds; along grecian goat-paths; we recognised each other across a rocky valley and waved. Each carrying our own memories of the other. I remembered a witty and driven sparring partner who laughed at my naïve romantic ideals. When we parted I imagined you conquering the world with lovers adoring your every step. I had no idea you would remember me as anything other than a bit of a pillock you met one summer in France (see former foolish romanticism).
7th November 2015
I was just re-reading your letters to me. I realise that as a low life cur I have not responded in kind. I am sorry. I love your booklist and would like to add some of my own.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez – I owe my own tortured literary romantic unrealism to the magical realism of Mr García Márquez. Or maybe I’m just like that. I suspect I’d not be able to read this book now. At the time I drank it up and believed I could love someone forever despite what life might throw in the way.
In Patagonia; Utz; On the Black Hill; Songlines and pretty much anything by Bruce Chatwin. I have especially fond memories of reading Chatwins articles in the Sunday Times colour supplement. These articles along with, In Patagonia and other books* spurred me on to travel.
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall – I recently gave away my copy of this book to a friend who helped me during my marriage break up. I read this book because a woman I adored recommended it. The title was apt as she was an incontrovertible lesbian. Dammit.