Get on the bus (2)

Coming home from work was a different story. I saw Mate sitting on her own on the bus with an empty seat beside her. I usually hate sitting downstairs; I find the upstairs of a double-decker bus sways you to sleep whereas downstairs, every vibration and bump can be felt. But I rang Mate to reserve my seat. This is a slightly sad and annoying habit I have (I am weird and I have way too much money after all); I think it’s hilarious to call someone who doesn’t see you and watch them try and figure out how you know where they are and what they’re doing. Mate was doing something alright, she was keeping the seat for someone else. So this girl Sharon sits down beside and I turn round and talk to them all the way home, twisting my insides a bit too much I’m thinking now in hindsight.

Mate and The Fella might buy a house. WOW! Mate and The Fella. In a house of their own! Call me cynical (no, do; it’s my confirmation name, the bishop was not impressed) but girl meets boy at age 17, goes to college but ignores anything but the work, preferring to go straight home and down to the pub she’s drunk in since before she was legally allowed to drink, girl gets diploma, job, perks, still lives with parents. Boy meets 17 year old girl at age 18, graduates, misses out on chosen course, takes year out, works in factory, starts new course next year, leaves course and goes working in factory again, factory closes and boy gets another job AND a moped. Girl and boy hang around with boy’s friends. Childhood friends; kids he knew aged 4. Some have kids, some have guitars, none have an open mind between them. Some are pleasant, some are scarred, some are utter gobshites but all they know is each other. It’s a circle, a closed circle.

Now Mate wants to get a house with The Fella. Admirable, only where will this house be? That’s right, the suburb they grew up in! Congratulations, Mate. You work in a travel agent yet you’ll never go far. In fact, every friend you cherish was his first. You’re locked in now, there’s no escape button. I can’t imagine only ever knowing one life. I’ve had three in the past three years. I may be anti-social, I may be the psychological equivalent of a looted shop window, but I’m so much more. When Natasha, a friend of ours from years ago, met me on the street, she told me all about splitting with her boyfriend of three years. She told me everything she told you. But the difference is she told me some more things she wouldn’t trust with you. I’m trustworthy, because even if I work in a call centre and you have your own office, extension number and life plan, I’m mature. And I can grow more; that’s the most important thing. I can grow, you can’t. You can get savings plans, American holidays, trips to Cyprus, a car or two, a 30 year mortgage, two or three kids and a plasma television to hang up beside “that picture of the flowers” but you’re still a 17 year old with accessories. You’re still a BMW 3 Series. And I’m almost a 5.

Sorry to wheel out the BMW analogy again.