Love begins, friendship ends – the catch 22

Trying to cope with the debacle of Cope? Here is a respite from that political nothingness – a human piece for a change on Thought Leader; we all need a break from stories about the defenders of freedom with super-human power and squeaky voices.

Love, why must it be this way? I have been inundated of late with pleas from friends asking for my intervention in matters of the heart, which have an adverse and irreversible affect, somehow, on friendships which surround the individuals in question.

There are scenarios that have played out in the past few weeks that have culminated in me writing this piece; this piece, my first in a while. I apologise for such laziness, my dear reader. This having a corporate career thing has taken up quite a bit of my time.

And when I went back and checked on the ad for the job, I realised for the first time that my job was not advertised for AA candidates, which means these okes actually expect me to do “some” work – no doubt I am still good for their Corporate Citizenship bottom line none the less.

I would like to also take this opportunity to state this unequivocally to all Gautengers – your province sucks! Your people are unfriendly and there is nothing good for improvement of quality of life here. My qualification for that statement you may want to know — money does not = improvement in quality of life. Let us leave at the fact that our definitions of “quality of life” may vastly differ and let us agree to disagree.

But, back to the mutter (as the comrades would have it) at hand; I am a softy at heart, naturally. There is nothing I can do about this. My other side, which is dark, stormy and vengeful, seldom comes out. What people mostly see is the rosy, sunny and loving Sumo whom they love to interact with socially and take advantage of, but sometimes they know to seek support and advice from the same said monstrosity of a human.

The reason that people will come to me first with their rather softer matters probably has a lot to do with the visual of The Sumo I suspect. Picture, if you will, a large, no – a very large continental pillow. But this particular pillow is the softest-looking you have ever seen. It has a few lumps and bumps here and there, but mostly it is soft and comfortable; a place you can get lost in, hidden away from your very sorrows and the world.

The pillow has a face, a handsome one if the hot girl from Tinty’s in Naturena last Saturday may be qualified enough to attest. The pillow also has an equally soft heart, is naturally and truly caring and you know the pillow already holds secrets tucked safely away within it’s folds that would blow up half the country if ever revealed. So the pillow will not only understand, but also will offer sound emotional and intellectual advice and also keep your information confidential – well, until the pillow blogs about your secret hoping you won’t read this particular installment.

I will present these scenarios to you in different stories and we may discover together why it is necessary sometimes to sacrifice friendship for happiness. We cannot please everyone, as some of us try to do, but at the end of the day our allegiance lies with self and will not sacrifice past a certain point of self-sacrifice.

I have a friend, let us call him Sibusiso. How shall I describe Sibusiso? … He is a guy with a lot of love, he has the stuff in abundance and could even donate some to half the people of Israel and still have enough left over to go around making a fool of himself on a regular basis.

So, Sibusiso had always liked this girl, we’ll call her Noli, and she was one fine young woman and very respectable. One would not sommer saunter up to Noli and start throwing game at her. She was too much of a gem for such a base approach. She needed to be treated like a lady, with tact and due honour.

They worked in the same office, Sibu and Noli, but she never even knew Sibu existed because of his humble demeanor. He never spoke to her except after a few beers at the staff party or maybe while he had a buzz from a huge lunch on that particular day. Boy did he love her dearly, and we, his friends, knew this all too well. Of course Sumo the Love Terrorist would encourage the young man to articulate these feelings to dear Noli. Sibu wanted to marry her, straight up! He could even see their cute chubby kids in her eyes whenever he had enough beer-induced bravado to take a peak in her direction.

So things had to come to a head, with the Love Terrorist at his back. He made his ill-fated move at about 3am one crisp Saturday morning after having met the lovely young lady at a restaurant by chance earlier that Friday night and continuing to consume the amber liquid of the gods through the night in celebration of obtaining her mobile number – a huge accomplishment in his view and progress for their engagement.

Sitting on his porcelain crown of kings, releasing the escape artist of a mutton roti morning snack he had acquired from Johnny’s on Sparks Road in Overport before he went home (please keep in mind that Sibu had never before said more than two words to this woman before this text message), he sits there and he types out the following, and I quote:

“… I love you …”

Hilarious! Love terrorism right there! Most of the other stuff he said doesn’t really matter, the crux of the message is summed up in those three little words.

Her response, when it finally came, was one of utter shock and maybe even disgust. She never again let the young man have more than a “Hi” in their interaction and always made sure that there was another person in the place whenever they came across each other. She had always been friendly to him before that, but now wouldn’t even smile at him for fear of a love terrorism relapse.

Friendship ends and Sibu has never lived that down. We remind him regularly of that escapade ensuring that he never forgets – for we will never forget – friendship ends so it is a good thing that young Sibu moved away from that part of the world to come and work in Jozi away from her to ever so slightly ease the embarrassment.

I have another friend, prone to emotional attachments to all the various women that stroll in and out of his life with the frequency of retail lemmings during the festive season. He, during the course of 2008, has indulged his penchant for said attachments far more than is healthy and as the year wound to a close and he seemed to be calming down, lo and behold, another female comes upon the scene and he is summarily smitten. Thing is, being a hot young female and thus blessed with an abundance of estrogen, this woman, whose name may have a connection with the prettiest of flora, has brought no small amount of drama to my friend’s life. She likes, she doesn’t, she really misses him, she doesn’t remember his name. All in a day’s work.

And he plays along. By turns Casanova and gelded victim. His love life does make for some fun discussion when his dalliances run their course and he has received the near-obligatory threats of murderous vengeance from his better halves. In fact the best thing about this young man’s romantic escapades is his willingness to share each and every intimate detail with all the energy and joy of a sozzled Kingsley Holgate by a campfire in Equatorial Guinea or summat. So it came to be that whilst in one of those self-doubt, validation-seeking moments he has about twice a year, said fella proceeded to enquire of his florally named paramour if she mirrored his feelings, and when she did not immediately, respond-panic set in.

Cue The Sumo being awoken from his REM viewing to shed light on how the love-rat turned spurned mouse should proceed. And Sumo wasted no time getting into Love Terrorist mode “Tell her you love her Nt—–s, you know you want to”. And he did. And as sure as Jacob will be president, he was jilted.

*Sumo takes a moment to laugh at the idjut*

There are many other versions of the same scenario. Some including the ending of a relationship between two people and as a result the beginning of another relationship between the one party and the other party’s friend. In this case too, love begins and friendship ends between the people who were friends. Even in ancient times, if that excellent piece of cinematographical genius Troy is to be trusted as an accurate source of history, even great nations fell because love began and friendship ended and with bloody fatal consequences.

I guess my point here is that there is a price to pay for this phantom intangible thing called love and the price is always heavy, but necessary for happiness, even if the price is a long and brotherly friendship.

I rest,
The Sumo