To be honest, the people who have said they’ll be turning up were all part of a small-ish group that I really got along well with at college. We would go out together all the time, sometimes going to a cottage in the country and getting wildly drunk in the local pub. It’s not like I’ll be meeting any of the total arse-holes who I knew at that time (and there were plenty of them). Maybe I’m just worried that everyone’s lives have been a lot more successful than mine. Actually, I know this is the case because one of them is working for the BBC as some sort of producer and another is a journalist. I know it depends on how you define ‘success’, but I don’t think that my many years of being on the dole and developing and nurturing an alcohol addiction would count for ‘success’ in many people’s eyes. Still, I can always bum up my (non-existent) music and writing ‘career’ (which mainly amounts to not even Z list status in even the sub-underground world, despite years and years of doing it).
I’ve only really stayed in touch with a couple of people from those days and, generally, I think we only really keep in touch with people we WANT to stay in touch with, don’t we? Sometimes our lifestyle differences just don’t allow us to get along as we once used to. It's sad but true. I remember sitting with one of my oldest mates a couple of years ago and he pointed out that we were doing exactly what we’d been doing for years (which was: sitting in a room, drinking cider and listening to loud music) while other people our age were married with kids. We found it kind of funny but it’s getting less funny the older I get. I don’t actually WANT to get married and have kids, but it does sometimes seem ‘the thing to do’ doesn’t it? Society bombards us with these images of ‘things you should do before you’re X age’ and we believe it all like fools.
The fact is, I’ve never really had any ambition to speak of. I don’t ever try hard enough to achieve anything because there’s nothing that I really want to achieve. Well, that’s not quite true, but the only things I want to do are small-time. Like this ‘piece’ I’m writing now. It’s not designed with any particular audience in mind. It’s being written purely for my own amusement/sanity. Because I need to get certain things out of me and writing helps. I’m just not ambitious enough, or ego-tistical enough, to push these things on into another realm. I don’t want to be famous. I think most famous people are damaged people to start with and fame only damages them even more. Often beyond repair.
But I know I’ve been living in a dream world practically my entire life and that it can’t go on forever. Doing shitty jobs is part of people’s lives whether they like it or not. Most of us don’t have a choice. I’ll soon start getting hassle off the dole again. But it’s my so-called ‘peers’ who I reserve most of my shame for. Certain friends I have, or is that I ‘used to have’, haven’t been so keen to see me as our financial worlds drift apart. When we used to arrange to meet, I would always suggest a more moderately priced place. They, of course, would look down their noses and opt for the swish wine bars which I can’t afford (and wouldn’t go in even if I could). It’s not merely my imagination.
So, we’re having this college reunion thingie in a pub where we always went ‘in the old days’. I never much cared for it then so God knows what I’ll think of it now. When I texted someone that maybe we should meet in a cheaper pub, he retorted with ‘We’ll keep you stocked with drink, don’t worry’. Now, that might sound like a dream come true, but it just makes me feel like a loser and a twat (which, of course, is what I AM!) We’re not meeting until 8pm so I’ll probably be pissed before I even get there, which I’m sure people will be expecting from me anyway. Will I disappoint? Only time will tell.