Part of the reason I stopped going out on the lash (this and getting older and wiser) was the number of times that I found myself “babysitting”
We’ve all done it, had a few then someone in the group can’t hold their ale and turns all soppy or needy, playing on the goodwill of those they are out with. They suddenly develop, “Chaperone syndrome”
Put bluntly, it’s a feckin pain in the arse!
One time this happened to me, I stuck them in the nearest shop doorway and fecked off.
If you can’t handle your drink, then learn to manage your drinking better and stop, or limit beers to one every other drink.
In the same way that I’ve had to!
I was dropped like a stone from childhood to adulthood when one of my rents decided to upsticks and left.
No choice involved and had to learn the hard way. About everything in life.
No easing into money, wages, school to work balance, etc. for me.
Sink or swim with only myself to blame.
I got stuff wrong, of course I did, but I learned from it, I had to… and fast!
If I got wronged or cocked up, it was my own fault and it taught me to not fall for it again.
As I look around me, today, now in middle age, it’s everywhere.
The levels of stress that chaperone syndrome causes is immense.
Everyday life is hard enough, but it’s getting harder to manage, especially coming from where I am, the other side.
If I can help, of course I will, but who helps me?
No one.
I can feck my own shit up all on my own, I don’t need anyone else to do this for me or with me.
So how do I cope when I’m feeling pissed off?
I stick my headphones on, I blast out some old tunes from back when I didn’t have a care or worry in the world.
I smile to myself and try to lose myself in the music and relax.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Failing that I watch old videos on youtube, of places I used to live, where my only concern was not getting caught watching Match of the Day, on the old black and white portable, with the sound turned right down and the brightness half off, after I’d been sent up the wooden hills.
Where my bike was my only needed mode of transport and the days were long and time was my own to do as I pleased, with whichever mate was around at the time I nipped out the back door and on to the street (usually about 8am after chucking some weetabix down my neck – with extra sugar of course!)
Tunes were only heard on the tranny in the kitchen, where I walked most places, where the only time I was stuck inside was due to long, persistent, heavy rain.
Where I didn’t give a shit about styles, fashion, creams and lotions, smelling decent (one bath a week), etc, etc.
The time was mine and mine alone to do with as I chose.
Oh to be back in those times again, the ill-health and the stress, that are so detrimental to everyday life now, would simply not exist.
Learn to love yourself for who you are, be happy in your own skin.
If you don’t, then how do you expect anyone else to?