CHAIN MAIL FRIENDS

The older I get the more I realise that

hooking up with some acquaintances is just plain stressful. It’s not fun.  Agreeing to meet is like opening unwanted chain mail. You unwittingly unleash the genie of unsustainable (and more often than not, undesired) friendship. You can’t live up to their insatiable demands on your time, energy and efforts so just end up feeling monumentally guilt-ridden. What should have been a jolly, bi-annual gossip in Starbucks turns into a diary inquisition. These vampire-acquaintances have the tenacity of a lepidopterologist when it comes to pining one down. They imagine that by taking you hostage they can force you into developing Stockholm Syndrome. “Now that I’ve finally got you here, when can you come to dinner/Cornwall/lunch?” they ask before you’ve had time to even cover your upper lip in milky froth. “ I’m sure you’re very busy but I want you to meet a great friend of mine, what are your plans over Easter?” It’s knackering; for ultimately it’s completely one-sided.

It’s a bit like going on a blind date with a bloke that starts planning where he wants to take you on honeymoon. It’s too much. True friends take no for an answer. They understand if you’re sometimes non-committal, they appreciate when you’re busy, they anticipate when you’re running on empty, they visualize the effort of juggling various balls in the air and they allow for small pauses in a relationship. Chain-mailers don’t. They really don’t want to meet twice a year for a coffee. No. What they want is a full blood-transfusion. Your blood. And unless you are prepared to selflessly give it, don’t go there in the first place. Break the chain and concentrate on real friends.