The ones in the loud shirts, who keep knocking back the wine like it’s free, and then get all smart-Alec-y and think they know everything? I hate them.
If, like me, times are a little hard, and you can only afford to go out occasionally, you really want to have an enjoyable evening, relaxing with friends, free from the cares of the world, for a nice chat and a few laughs. Or, you may be going to dinner at someone’s house: Old friends from school, perhaps. Or work colleagues that have become friends. Family, even.
What you really don’t need at an occasion that’s meant to be fun is some boorish goon, who starts out relatively normally, but gets progressively louder as the evening goes on. You know the type – quaffing your expensive Pinot Grigiot like it’s a bottle of Value Cider, and gradually getting louder and louder, whilst their anecdotes get progressively longer, the hilarious bon-mots are actually decidedly un-funny, and their tales of brilliant japes steadily sound less and less believable.
And then they seem to feel the need to try and take control of the conversation, in some ill-advised attempt to keep the evening jolly, which it would have been, had they not done precisely that. They’ll try and out-do everyone else’s stories, by dredging up an even better story from their own murky past, and even though they have some inkling that they might actually not be the life and soul of the party, but in fact it’s imminent death and joy-free harbinger of dullness, they still struggle on.
Amusingly slurred words turn into alarmingly incoherent sentences, as they gradually go from looking reasonably smart and intelligent, to a sweaty, scruffy sad-act who everyone would pity, were they not too traumatised by their endless blathering.
By the end of the evening, you’re politely telling them how great it was to see them, that you should all really do it again soon, when what you’re actually hoping is that they’ll just go soon, so you can commiserate with whoever is left alive, before going to bed and hoping it was all just some horrible dream.
The next time you see them, they’ll appear once more to be a nice, gently amusing, normal human being, and you’ll start thinking it was you that was the ogre. Did you overreact? You did have a fair few drinkie-poos yourself didn’t you...?
Before you know it, you’ll have invited them round again, justifying their miserable existence once more, and condemning yourself to yet another evening of excruciating, miserable, existence, whilst smiling, listening politely, and wondering why you spent £12.99 on that wine.
I have something to tell you: That person - It’s me. I realised it recently, when a moment of clarity struck me at a lovely meal out, that I was busy spoiling by being an insufferable oaf.
The bad news is... it’s probably you, too...
Have a, soberingly, good weekend.
If you can.
This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 21st September 2012. This is the unedited version - you can view the printed/online version here In a rare case of me second-guessing the sub-editor at the NWEM (or maybe they were just on holiday) they actually used my title this week, which is the 2nd and a half time ever, giving me a massive 10% success rate! Woo! Get. In.
The column this week lost 47 words from the version submitted, but you've got the full, rather dark and gloomy, version here. Sorry about that. On the wise advise of my, much better, half, I actually softened the ending a bit too. Yes, I do have a fairly unhealthy level of self-loathing on the go, don't I?
(Listening to the bonus CD with the new remaster of Mike Oldfield's QE2 - a gig from 1981. Have never seen Mike live - it's on my bucket list. Right underneath the buckets.)
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