#31. "Boat Drinks"
I’ve spent around 30 minutes of this morning in a WhatsApp back and forth with two of my closest friends. Split between England, Ireland, and Gran Canaria we do a pretty good job of maintaining contact. Especially so given they have three children between them.
I met Clayton at school when I was 11 and, now I think of it, our 30 year friendship is arguably one of my greatest achievements.
My friendship with Steve is much newer; 2011 definitely has an air of recency about it but 13 years is definitely a duration of friendship not to be sniffed at.
We met whilst working for a startup and his first words to me both set the tone of our friendship and draw a smile to this day: having blanked in office kitchen on his first day and made no effort to introduce myself to him at all, in an office of, at this point of the business, of around 15 people I needed him.
Rather than walk over, say ‘Hi” and discuss the task, I messaged him on G Chat.
"Now you’re fucking talking to me!"
He had me. We became fast friends. He’d be one of my Best Men.
Working in a startup is a special experience. There’s an electricity in the air. A feeling that anything could happen at any point. Truth is anything can and does happen at any point. You’re just more aware of it in this kind of environment because every day is mental. We’d spent three and a half years in the trenches before I left. It was like 10 – in a good way.
‘Boat drinks.’ That’s what we’d say to each other during the more testing times. A nod to the remarkable Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead and the shared fantasy of a group of criminals; a life in the sun, out of ‘the game’, sipping cocktails on a boat.
We took the mantra a little further with the addition of ‘our sons on our laps.’ Our own shared fantasy of sitting on the deck of a little boat enjoying sundowner, faceless children in tow, having escaped the relentless, thankless world of the startup.
I tested that friendship a few years ago when I called him to not only tell him my marriage was scattered and battered over the rocks, but that the catalyst of its implosion was the discovery of a long buried affair, but that is with our ex-colleague and I had in fact lied to him when he’d questioned me on it years before. It was humbling. He was angry, but he was worried about me and he put his feelings aside to guide me through a rough year from his new home in Dublin.
“Boat drinks. Our sons on our laps,” he’d sign off with after a long conversation or text exchange. “Boat drinks,” I’d reply.
Since then, he’s gone on to father a daughter. She turned one recently and the life change has rocked a guy who usually sails smoothly through most seas. The pressures of having moved country, started a family, and, in his words “not yet finding acceptance in what these changes mean for the dreams I had as a man without ties” have unsteadied his feet and he finds himself on the verge of professional help.
The role reversal felt strange and I know there’s little I can do but listen. There was even less I could say but, “Boat drinks. My sons on our laps.”
The laugh was audible through his written response. It doesn’t solve any his problems but a gentle wave of nostalgia and a reminder that you’re not in it alone buys you some time.
JF