Friends / The Rat Race
Over the past weekend, I met up with one of my old university Flat Mates/friend who now lives in London (which is a fair distance away from me, think a flight).
While I mostly enjoyed my time spent there, I came out of it feeling kinda sad and bad about myself to be honest, although of course I doubt this was my friend’s intention.
He’s very career-oriented hence the move to London. He’s slightly younger than me and has about 1/2 as many years of experience as me in the role, albeit in different industries (Him Finance, Me Medical).
The things I noticed after not seeing him for a year and a half, were as follows:
- He admitted that he had gotten blunter and was constantly shooting down jokes or attempts at humour from me. He was such a buzzkill at one point I straight up called him a cunt.
- Said that Working From Home would be detrimental to any career (despite knowing that I work from home, fully remote)
- Said that anyone who works in Software who doesn't move to London is stupid as it's basically double money (as you can guess from the bit about travel... I do not live in London)
- How cool driving is and you’d be stupid not to (I tried to learn to drive before Covid, my test was the day after Covid shut everything down and I've not felt the need for a car since - I'm an avid cyclist and my city is very cycle-able - plus I like keeping my money)
- Saying that giving up sleep now means he can in a few years have a job where he can sleep normally again (I don't know... I'm just not inclined to believe this, I think overwork is a company culture thing?)
- Fact he’s making half my yearly salary as a bonus, and complains that it's not enough as some people make multiples of their salary as bonus
- Doesn’t see himself as a member of the working class anymore (which I think is just a way to frustrate class-struggle unionism)
- He was saying how corporations should vote, unlimited political funding from companies, with restrictions. When I mentioned these restrictions I asked "So not like letting US companies funnel their money into the UK arm to influence politics?" and he was like "No." Like, have you looked at how that's working for America right now... Hint: It's not.
- He said that only 2% of all people are ever worth talking to. While I'm sure that I'll talk to less than 2% of the population in my lifetime, it just felt sort of stuck up. I feel like most people have something unique to share or create that can only be done by them.
I suppose I just feel sad that someone who I used to know and get on with incredibly well has changed so much from the person I had in my minds eye.
I get that the city may make you blunter, but I don't think this is a reason to treat your friends worse - although I'll admit, while not the softest person ever, I'm probably softer than average... so maybe it's a me issue? I did spend my time waiting for the flight back trying to keep myself composed in the airport. In fact this post (in a rougher form) was my way of getting these feelings out on the plane ride home.
I guess this is normal. We've taken different paths in life and so our values will separate, I just find it hard to reconcile in my head...
P.S. (Didn't really know where to put this: Admittedly, for the longest time I've felt if I'm not working on some side project, then I don't want success badly enough... Hustle culture has got it's grubby hands on me before and I'm sure it's got a good chance of doing it again, so maybe this compounds those feelings and I'm assigning that meaning to these things.
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