A Betrayal. Not a Big One, But a Goodbye One.

My good friend Stuart asked me to write this. I’m not sure why. He was probably bored and just wanted something to read.

Here’s the skinny. I went to the Mud Festival with two ‘friends’. One I’ve known for a long time and is a great guy, and the other known for a few months, and it turns out he isn’t. Because whilst we were out gallivanting and, really, having a great time, he told me in extremely strong words, and entirely out of the blue, what he really thought of me. I’m not going to say what he said, but it was very offensive. I immediately took off back to the hotel as this was very late on Saturday night, and I’d had a few drinks, and left them to it.

On the Sunday morning, I offered him the chance to apologise, both for the remark and the offence it had caused, and he refused. Point blank refused. I’m going to have to tell you what he said, or you may think it’s worse than it actually was. He called me an ‘arrogant prick’. Yes. I know! Ha ha! Thank you…

I have, like everyone, many flaws. But I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been called arrogant. An arrogant prick at that. The word ‘prick’ has a whole bunch of offensive (behavioural, characteristic) connotations in its own right. According to Urban Dictionary it may mean:

• · Somebody so stupid it's painful to those around them.
• · Someone who is completely worthless.
• · An ungrateful piece of shit of a person.
• · A selfish person who only cares about himself.

In short, a prick is definitely NOT a nice thing to be called. Whilst I’m not perfect, I’m not exactly seeing myself slotting comfortably into any of the above. And while we’re traipsing through dictionaries, let’s look at arrogant. Dictionary.com says:

• · Making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud.

That’s not me either. We all, including me, have our moments when we feel good about ourselves. Some days are, after all, rosier than others. Most people reading this will have come from Facebook – have you ever posted a status that says something like ‘I’m so awesome - I just scored three basketball hoops in a row’ or something similar? Of course you have, we’ve all done it, and it’s always tongue-in-cheek. The reason I’m saying this is that I cannot for the life of me figure out what ‘ex-friend’ is basing this claim of ‘arrogance’ on. Maybe it’s something innocuous that I’d said? Maybe he doesn’t know what it means? And ‘prick’? Well, that’s just that you either like someone or you don’t. Isn’t it?

The thing is - we’d hung around together for a couple of months. With few problems. And the remark was not delivered amongst some angry outburst – it was almost like “by the way Paul, I know we hang around together, but in all seriousness, I think you’re a…. etc.”. Well at least I know what you think. In fact, it’s not the first catty remark he’s made to me, though it's both the strongest, and the last.

My abiding thought in this is that he clearly sees me as ‘beneath him’. He’s “making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights.”.

Or you might say, arrogant.

Yours with a little laugh at what life throws up sometimes.