meet up for a drink. We always got on, so I agreed. However, after only a couple of texts he started telling me about how he'd been in therapy since we last met and had had to resolve a load of issues about his violent dad otherwise he'd have killed himself.
Now, I'm not an unsympathetic man (well, actually, I am), but I hadn't seen the guy in more than four years and he starts blabbing on about his therapy and childhood traumas? What the fück is wrong with people these days? Why do they imagine everyone wants to hear about their shít? What's wrong with just keeping this crap to yourself?
I'm dreading meeting up with him now as I fear he's going to spend all night talking about his daddy issues.
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Or may decide that it was you at the root of his troubles and set about your heed with a claw hammer.
I must admit that after marrying into the middle classes, my social circle became a motley crew of very well spoken alcoholics, junkies and abuse victims. I have spent hours in deep earnest discussions of mental health.
In one case the 'parental abuse' transpired, under scrutiny, to consist of being allowed to do whatever he wanted all the time; spoiled in fact. They should have been tougher apparently.
Trouble is, a few generations now have been raised to be dismissive and unenthusiastic, even contemptuous, of children, the family and so on. Even those that somehow end up having them have no interest in doing the thing properly, largely based on the fact that they actually have no idea how to do the thing properly, having never seen it done.
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Yes, there's never been a more solipsistic time in human history. People have been encouraged to believe their trauma is unique and special and deserving of scrutiny. In fact, for the most part it's fücking boring, far from unique and they should mostly just shut up and bore off.