The Size of a Cow

For the first time in a week the Doctor contacted me. It was via text and it said...

Well, I don't know what it said, as when I was over zealously trying to read it in the pub' toilets I dropped my phone in the loo (not for the first time in my life). In the vague hope there was not too much damage or there was an extension of the four second rule (that food dropped on indoor floor - but not in toilet - at trusted location was still edible/servable/alright within this time limitation), and with the consideration it was pale number one, I rescued phone from its watery death. Unfortunately the phone could not be resuscitated and message was lost to the sea forever. As were all my phone numbers...

This has me thinking - not too much about the content of the message, which will have been a bit sad, a bit nasty, a bit pleading, and, well, generally a bit raw - but about whether I will re-contact everybody in my phone?

There are somebody who were flushed out of my life forever; generally these are people with whom I've been drunk a thousand times but have never socialised with as anything other comrades at bars. Y'know swapping war stories and were the lasting hangover from my very social under graduate days. They will either serendipitously come back into my life, or both parties will find other people to occasionally have a beer and a chinwag with, occasionally referencing the other as "Oh yeah, I knew somebody who once went... (fill in the gap)... Said it was great."
Everyone's a winner.

Then there are people who will contact me who, well, I am just a bit too emotionally bound to them: if this requires explanation, then I envy you. These are people who have very suddenly, and very soon after meeting them, unburdened their life onto me - it ranges from divorce to abuse, and it means that once they have revealed themselves I/you/we can't escape. But similarly the relationship can't progress, as it's too much too soon to know that much about them, and also you want to protect your long established friends from them so can only socialise in the isolation of a cosy couple, which heightens the false sense of intimacy: making it a time consuming emotional drain, in which they psycho analyse themselves, you and their therapist over two bottles of wine, whilst I/you/we get quietly, morosely pished.

There are people who I have become friends within a short fling of knowing them, who I can't live without. I called these people 'soul friends' when I was younger, and although a bit cringey I stand by the sentiment. These are people who you meet and have an easy rapore. You know when you meet them you should be friends, but let it develop over time and experience things together that you would have only had with that person.

Ryan is the perfect example of this: we met when we both worked at Nando's Chickenland - he was a traveller, and I was in my fresh faced, post travelling first year of Under Graduate - after a month he left the world of Chicken and at his leaving party we spoke to each other for the entire night. It wasn't a romantic brief encounter, but a realisation that we viewed the world with the same idealism and perspective. After that we emailed twice a week, eventually decided to travel for a few months around Eastern Europe, the States and, later this year, Russia together. I was also a witness at his wedding to his lovely Wee Man Liam, in Ryan's native Canada. In the three main forms of love - agape, eros and platonic - this relationship is the most deep and beautiful platonic love you can imagine.

There are obviously more friends, who will always unquestioningly remain a fixture in my mobile phone ( the German's call it a handy - much better) contact list, but there is another list of people who have never been, may never be a contact in my handy. These are people who I've never had the balls to say we should be friends or go for a drink, and that's kind of sad. The people, who, when you talk to them, you think: this person is super nice, and laughs, whole-heartedly, at my feeble attempts at humour; we'd make great friends...

So maybe I will let certain entries slide by the wayside, but this means I will have to make the effort and return to the youthful exuberance that helped me make new friends, without hang-ups, feelings of unworthiness or fear of looking needy or foolish, and befriend the people who I like but have never had chance to socialise with...