“You really like people don’t you”, I was having a coffee with a friend who has recently gone through a fairly challenging period in her life and we were chatting about how she had to battle through and how things were starting to look up! This wasn’t the first time someone had said something like this to me to be honest, but I found myself thinking that well, actually if you knew the truth…

My Irish upbringing does not encourage complimentgiving and there is always a rather awkward reciprocation after one is paid and so before I could think about it clearly I had countered with “You are not so bad yourself”… To be fair, she was pretty empathetic, though it had to be said much more so when it involved a conversation with the opposite sex,  I think it’s why we get on so well…

She had recently started seeing a mutual friend and whilst the idea of my friends finding happiness was welcomed the insight into their ‘hooking up’, was playing with my head a wee bit. This is where guys and girls (I have found) are really different. I was then drawn into a conversation that focused on two main areas, 1) the physicality of the hook up, I kid you not, why women feel the need to talk through the time honoured Shakespearean bumping of uglies is a mystery to me. 2) The meaning of everything that he said and did since the encounter.

I ached to decamp to a wine bar and something very expensive seeing as this was going to take a while, but I was beholden to ‘Dry January’ so coffee it had to be. “He hasn’t messaged me in 18 hours, and he has been on line, I wonder what that means?”.

At this point in the conversation my previously noticed interest in people was definitely waining.

And so I became a listener, the person who is at a conversation rather than part of the conversation and who is expected to contribute messages of affirmation rather than point out that actually some of the actions of the soliloquy maker might not be mistaken as juvenile stalking…

Two large coffees later and I depart with slight tremors, later that evening my coffee date messages me to say it’s reaching the 24hour mark and still no message from…the very next person to message me…

“Hi Ki, hope all is well, went out with “X” last night, was OK, tho she was looking at her phone all night?!!”

People eh? This is one time I am not going to get involved… these two can sort it out themselves… or not… either way spare me the details… 🙂