I met my friend a few days back and it happened that he is invited to a wedding dinner of our common friend. Casually he asked me, “Would you be bringing your partner along?” I thought he was daft. It was, after all, an invite to the wedding of a close friend of ours – an event that ideally should be filled with crude dirty jokes, unfettered laughter and mens' gossip and vigorous back slapping and butt kicking with more mates and buddies..
It’ll be just like old days, I thought. The missus werestaying home where they belong.
Time slips by before you even notice: It’s been several years since we laid eyes on each other or met to catch up. We’ve ORD-ed, finished university, changed jobs, changed yet another girlfriends, hairstyles or lack off or growing hairless, homes and a few – like my office mate – even taken the bold, uninsured step into the deep plough of marriage.
Expectations on my part were high. I was hoping for a guffaw-filled, booze-guzzling, heart-to-heart catching-up session with the rest where we exchange history and notes of our former friends and buddies. Male gossiping and jokes.
At the hotel, I swear I’ve never seen my once petite looking decent faced buddy turned-bridegroom dressed in his evening suit look better. I met a few of our common friends and this particularly guy which used to be closed to me. I greet him, he yells back an enthusiastic reply before pumping my hand for a full 30 seconds, mouthing the usual “What’ve you been up to?” spiel before i ushered him into the ballroom.
I find my seat and plonk myself down. A few vaguely familiar faces stare at me. We smile, then erupt into enthusiastic handshaking, and – yes – some backslapping and exchange of crude and friendly insult.
But two of my academy mates brought along their partners – one a wife, the other a girlfriend. The nitwits.
Suddenly, our conversation topics became awfully restricted. No reminiscing about the time an entire squad of 30 took five minutes to shower, towel off and get dressed again for the “water parade” just before bed. No more coarse jokes about how fat each of us had become. No more cussing. We had to behave.
It was so awkward we were actually feeling… shy. Imagine a bunch of guys who’ve seen each other butt naked before – guys who’ve crawled, dug, run, marched and slept in mosquito-infested forests wearing week-old fatigues – actually feeling reserved at the wedding of our best mate.
It was ridiculous.
God bless the squad joker: The gold chain, gold bracelet and gold earring-adorned bloke (who still possessed an idiotic sense of humour) cheered things up a little.
Then we got nostalgic. We spoke of our squad FI– a regular who was the archetype of the Devil in our BMT days – now badly in debt. We all took a solemn nod at a squad mate who died of asthma after completing his NS, who incidentally shared the same first name with the more popular platoon joker. We all thought the latter had kicked the bucket instead. (That drew a few more chuckles.)
All this while, the ladies rolled their eyes and tried their best not to look utterly bored. What else did you expect academy blokes to talk about other than well, our lives there?
Lesson learned: Meeting up is essential for the friends you want to keep – make time for that, because money can’t buy you true friends. We left the hotel with a final flurry of handshakes and promises to meet up. But the next time we are meeting, I will make them leave the women behind. They have no place in our gathering.
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