The Take Out.

A brief encounter with a cheeseburger and a pretty hefty hangover on a Sunday afternoon in March led me to consider McDonald’s to be a resting place for the common people, which in theory, during a recession, means everyone.

I started to see it as not only a place for thirteen year olds to awkwardly put their arms around each other outside of their parent’s living room, but as a place of community. I don’t know whether it’s just the nature of inner city McDonald’s or be it a global phenomenon but this establishment allows a mish-mash of society to dine side by side, and I think that’s pretty cool.

Just the other day I saw a clip of Queen Delevigne being hounded buying (not eating I might add) a Big Mac. This only served to prove my point about it being a place fit for all. It also caused me to reminisce on some of my better times in Ronald’s abode. I spent a Valentine’s Day in the Exeter one,  proudly celebrated my eighth birthday in the Fulham one and have even handed over my number on a used napkin in the Piccadilly one. I won’t lie, my “romance” with Barry the copper ended swiftly after he asked me to join him at Battersea Park to watch the fireworks, followed quickly by an invitation to use his handcuffs on him. But I must thank McDonald’s for the story all the same.

Last night has re-awoken these thoughts about our favourite fast food haunt. I waltzed into the Wandsworth one, practically weeing myself at the thought of a French Frie when I found myself caught in the middle of an argument between a respectable woman of about fifty with two complete pillocks. They’d pushed in line prior to my arrival apparently. She stood up for herself. They called her names and intimidated someone probably the same age as their mother, declared that they “hated white people” to the whole store whilst asking their clearly quite Caucasian friend if he fancied anything from behind the counter. They were served promptly by the staff, and guess what? No one, including myself, said a word.

So maybe you think that my comparison of our society to McDonald’s is, in fact, pretty dismal, but it’s also a reality and a trip to one will open your eyes to the wonders of our little melting pot called London.

With every trip you’re guaranteed to see the following: a group of youfs who look intimidating but couldn’t give two nuggets that you’re there, a pensioner clutching a filter coffee, a young couple who clearly couldn’t be bothered to cook, a bunch of twenty-some things soughting after greasy food after a night out in Clapham, working men on a late shift, paramedics fuelling up for the long haul and then… you.

I’ve been in love with this city, and curry sauce, for a long time now so I’m down with casually eating horse meat next to a homeless man.

Not so cool with that? Then this city just isn’t for you I’m afraid. Or maybe just avoid greasy food if you can’t handle it.

There’s probably a Pret perched around the corner anyway.

The Chase.

Mexico. 2008. Spring Break.

My first encounter with a chaser.

I.e. A soft drink that jocks knocked back after shotting vodka or tequila.

London. 2013. Spring Term.

My second encounter with a chaser.

I.e. A lot of teasing which led to a dumping which burned like a shot of Sambucca but was forgotten as quickly as a hangover.

Ever since Nursery school, chasing has been a major part of our social interaction. The boys would relentlessly follow us girls around the playground in pursuit of an innocent peck until the bell went or the whistle blew. I then went home to sit in front of Tom & Jerry which was essentially twenty-five minutes of the same thing. This frantic cartoon was later exchanged for ten years worth of cat and mouse action between Rachel and Ross. Pretty much the same plot line except for I don’t think Tom was trying to shag Jerry the whole time, unless I missed something really quite pivotal, of course.

I feel like I’m now living out this childhood game, except for now it normally takes place in dark rooms with loud music and vodka and comes to a halt at last orders.

Although undeniably thrilling to watch, I think we have to ask ourselves why we permit ourselves to enter into this exchange later in life? Why do we bother to chase or be chased? I think it’s to fill a gap until something better comes along. That probably explains why, when we finally get what we’ve been pursuing for such a long time, we lose interest. To the chaser, it’s normally just a passing the time supper with a side of ego boost. Think about it. Why did Tom never actually catch Jerry?

We must be careful. Along the road we chase upon, wooing can lead to winning someone’s affection rather than just their attention and it’s at this point you should stop teasing and start walking.

The truth of the matter is, you shouldn’t have to try to win someone over. If they like you, they will be with you. End of story. A chaser might chase you all the way to the top of Primrose Hill, but if it’s for all the wrong reasons, they won’t be waiting for you when you get to the bottom.

Spend your life chasing your dreams rather than people; the rest will fall into place.

The Technicality.

In the digital age it’s very easy to get caught up in the mechanics of things.

We salute Jobs for revolving his life around technology and making our journeys to work far more convenient as we swap cassettes for shuffles. However, we now grunt in the face of a phone call. We clap at a WhatsApp. Even Skype has become far too personal. Social interaction of the flesh is becoming less frequent, but you know that already. Now, it seems that when it comes to matters of the heart, we are detaching ourselves from emotions as easily as we like a photo of a dog in a pink panther suit on Facebook. This is where I find that our advancements in thinking technologically, runs the risk of being dangerous and, at times, downright degenerate.

Although I can see the plus side to making things compact, what I can’t do is sit back and watch people’s moral choices being belittled to the same importance of finding a phone charger that fits their iPhone 5. More and more frequently I am hearing the excuse that people have “technically” done nothing wrong. This, technically, means nothing as there is nothing technical about hurting someone’s feelings. The presence of that “technically” immediately eradicates morals, loyalty and responsibility, and replaces it with a pathetic excuse for basically being a bit of a rubbish human being.

Us hiding behind technicalities, in both the technological and metaphorical sense, worries me. I think we’ve started to make like Windows by shutting down and rebooting when things get tough, but this systematic approach is not fool proof and I think that when something hurts you for real it will knock your system for six. The words of an internet troll are nothing in comparison to that very real sinking feeling that you get in your very real stomach when someone hurts you with their very real words.

We’ve become far too used to the convenience of the undo button to eradicate many of our troubles in life that we forget there isn’t a software in the world that can fix feelings.

And it’s at this point, you’ll realise what friends are for.

The Friend.

Friends ran for ten seasons; a lengthy lifespan for a television series. But, much like this phenomenon, do real friendships have an expiration date?

Whether it’s because your bum chum turns into a lover, or whether you simply move away, a change in dynamic is inevitable when it comes to primarily platonic relationships. This change can come in the form of growing ever closer, or drifting apart.

Humans are ultimately going to do wrong at some stage. And although a true friend can, at times, be upheld as some sort of modern day superhero for putting up with you, they’re no exception to this fatal flaw. But it’s how much you would forgive them for which is the greatest gage of how much they mean to you. True friends are invaluable. If you think about your best friend and are unable to bring yourself to picture your life without them in it, then they will always be there. Basically, because you won’t let them not be, regardless of the mistakes they make, or how many times they falter. I guarantee that your bestie could poke you in the eye with a needle whilst getting off with your ex and you’d still find it in your heart to forgive them.

Your school friends will have been there with you as you slowly but surely grew into your face and your teeth were being forced into alignment by, what was essentially, barbed wire. Your university companions will have cleaned up your vodka induced vomit from the kitchen sink. Your work makes will have told you, (sorry, lied to you) that your behaviour was totally acceptable on Friday night, despite falling asleep in the loo until closing time. Your gym buddies will compliment your dewy complexion after 45 minutes on the treadmill and your oldest friend will tell everybody that your family are completely normal, whilst ensuring they never, ever mention that time involving your father and a red, glittery thong.

What I guess I’m trying to say, is that a friend can come along at any time, for any length of time, and for whatever reason. You might never truly be aware of why or ever really appreciate their presence until they’re gone, but they all play a part in your story. It’s whether you want to carry them through to the next chapter which is entirely up to you. There are those who will play a leading role right up until the end, there are many who will feature fleetingly and a few that you will kill off for good reason. Regardless of this, they were a friend and we can all do with at least one at the best of times.

The only friend that I can safely say we could do without, is a “friend with benefits”. The benefits of a friendship should not fall under the same category as blow jobs in my opinion.

But who am I to classify the capacities of friendship anyway?

A true friend is like a wonderwall: completely subjective.

The way I see it, as soon as you think you’re able to make sense of how to loosely define what a friend actually is, you’ve defeated the point of them.

After all, it’s impossible to define love.

The First Love.

In reality, my first love was a pink, holey leotard that I used to prance around the house in as a child. I was given it at five, grew out of it by seven, still wore it at eight and verged on camel toe by nine when mum decided to throw it out and I went into mourning.

Much like my tatty leotard, first high school romances generally don’t fit properly. Hence why it’s a romantic rarity for couples to remain together from the age of nineteen to ninety, or why most girls blub at The Notebook (myself not included).

Me and my first boyfriend went to the same school. We found ourselves in the same friendship group. I lost my virginity to him while his mum had popped out for a Chinese. We stuck The Streets on, fumbled around for a bit and soon enough it was time for dad to pick me up. There was no fuss and it probably sounds a lot like your first time. And, probably not too dissimilar to your version, we loved each other a little too much. I, for one, was infatuated. In fact, if I’m honest, I was bat shit crazy. My MySpace was pretty much homage to him, we spent days at a time in bed and a two week holiday away from him felt like a twenty year stint in Holloway.

Never mind how serious your current relationship (or marriage) is now, that ability to love too much is something that cannot be recycled. Much like that teddy you lost as a child, you always hope that they are sitting safely somewhere, undamaged, with someone to love them as much as you did.

But do we ever really let go? Of course we do. However, just like your old toys that are stowed away in the attic, gifts from him are probably dotted around your room. You might not wear that bracelet someone bought you for your christening any more but you still have it, just like those disposable photos you took by the sea on that weekend away together. There’s a naivety that surrounds that first love that you’ll always want to protect. It reminds you of a time where cheating was only committed by the most wretched of humans and marriage didn’t seem so ridiculous. You’re basically reminding yourself that cynicism didn’t always exist.

It would seem that first loves bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood; no matter what age it strikes. It teaches you your capacity to love, exposes you to terrible loss and, of course, what to do with someone else’s furry bits.

So what would you say to your very important person if you could talk to them now?

I’d probably say thanks for teaching me at a young age that not all men are idiots. Oh, and for introducing me to capers.

Still with your first? You might as well write a book it’s so rare.

Wish you were still with yours? You could always put your faith in that cliché about ending up wearing the first thing you tried on…

Or you could just get out there a little more. They might have been the first but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re the one.

The Nostalgia.

If this time of year is all about new beginnings, why do we find it so heart wrenching to tear down our Christmas trees and wave goodbye to our holiday weight? Maybe because they subconsciously remind us of a time, perhaps when we were younger, of home comforts and warmth. A fine example of things we try to cling onto.

At midnight on the 31^st, we’re reminded that it has been yet another year since some happy occasion; for example, graduation. It’s coming up to two years since I left, some of you maybe even longer and all I keep thinking about are house parties, lazy days on the beach and meeting my friends in halls for the first time. My thoughts also return to the fun I had in the library at three in the morning, high on lucozade and playing “find the biggest book on the shelf”. What I forget about however is how much I disliked living in a small a city as Exeter, how lonely it was when I missed my friends from home and how much the workload actually was which lead me to being in the library at 3am in the first place.

My point is, that by dusting away the bad bits of our memories, we focus only on the good. This should provide us with a ten minute, positive trip down memory lane, but what it can do is make a dig at the here and now. We actually tend to be quite modest about our present. We too easily complain about how much weight we’ve put on or how much we hate our jobs. We barely ever think about how lucky we are to be able to enjoy the company of our colleagues on a Friday evening, or how much bigger our boobs have got. In comparison, our pasts are gleaming with arrogance and brilliance. A few years ago we were oh so slim, flourishing in our work lives, our purses were brimming and we had a line of prospective partners practically knocking down the door.

The first issue here is that we’re lying. Secondly, we’re pointlessly comparing. Although we’re the same person that we were then, we’re here now because of changes that we made happen. Sugar coating memories before comparing them to now is doing no one any favours.

That wonderful single life, free from the shackles of children? Think about how much better your Sunday afternoons are, watching them play rugby. Still living with your parents? Think about how warm it is in comparison to your uni house. Things don’t seem so bad when you look at them in the context of 2013 instead of 1997. Besides, the era of the Spice Girls will make anything look mediocre in comparison.

Nostalgia is more of a yearning than reminiscing, leading you to believe that your past is better than your present. This is damaging, so ban it. Think back to the fun you had in history class or on that trip to Croatia, but be sure to realise that the beauty of now is that you’re still yet to enjoy it. The sooner you get excited about that fact, the better.

Or you could just book a flight to Dubrovnik full of expectations.

The choice is yours.

Happy New Year.

The Loss.

Despite being seventeen, weighing far less than I do now and being head over heels for my boy-band look-a-like boyfriend of the time, 2006 was undoubtedly my worst year to date.

I lost three of the most important people to me within nine months of each other, and it was more than a kick in the ball bag, as I’m sure you’d imagine.

In retrospect, that year consisted of a ridiculous amount of tea, sandwiches and biscuits, memories of relatives that I’d never seen before or since acting as though they knew my life story, a bleary eyed great aunt Phyllis and the need to wear ill-fitting black dresses just because they were funeral-appropriate.

I manage to push all of this to the back of my mind, until those fateful days when I come across an old photograph, a gift from them, or I have to help someone else face losing someone they love.

That’s when I’m reminded of that thudding sentiment of disbelief.

If you’re privileged enough to have never felt this sort of sadness, imagine being really, really hungry. Not “after a run” hungry, really hungry. And now imagine knowing that you’ll never be able to eat again.

Think of the worst break up you’ve experienced and times it by five billion. You might just about come close to what it feels like to lose someone for good.

It’s the control that we as humans strive for so often that in these circumstances we lose, leaving us, ironically enough, for dead. You’re the least in control you’ll ever be when something like this happens.

The only positive that stems from this incurable pain? The sobering effect that it has. Nothing seems a big deal and petit problems concerning a lack of funds or a pair of shoes become trivial. The realisation that you could die tomorrow is the moment that causes you to start living.

So make ends meet. Get back in touch with those who you’ve always meant to, take that trip across the other side of the world, but most importantly, simply take the time to appreciate the people you have around you now.

As scary as it is, we have no idea what tomorrow brings.

This weekend reminded me how lucky I am to be surrounded by such great people.

For Sue and Sue. x