There Is No Such Thing As A Coincidence

Coincidence Number 1

This morning, as with every other, against my best instincts I woke up to shower and get ready for work.

As I was getting dressed, I scrolled through the WhatsApp pages of my mobile phone.

I watched the dismal underlit grey sky of the outside world through my window and watched the outside world by scrolling down the artificially bright blue light of my mobile phone screen.

It was startling.

“Everyone deserves help, no matter what.” #WorldSuicidePreventionDay

Mind

My cousin and one of my best friends, A3, had quite clearly changed his WhatsApp profile picture.

I thought about it for a few moments, composed myself and began my journey to work.

Whilst on the tube, I questioned his choice. The timing of it all. Coming mere weeks after I had ended my 3 year estrangement with the crew.

Given everything that had happened and everything that had been discussed on that night of reunion and reconciliation, it seemed self-evident that the profile picture was some sort of reference to me.

Even if well intentioned, I suspected that he wanted me to see this.

He was sending me a sign: “Remember you crazy fuck, I am here. If you need me.”

I felt conflicted emotions.

At first I was moved. Then I was saddened. Next came a sense of shame. And finally, perhaps, inevitably anger.

I was tempted to call him. On my way to work. On his way to work.

“Man, what the fuck is up with your profile picture? I need to let you know something. I am still standing! Whether or not you people thought I was dead and buried, I am still standing. I will not die so easily. I am a pretty hard guy to kill.”

Then I thought twice.

We had just managed that poignant and at times difficult reconciliation. We were at the start of that process of patching up differences and healing old wounds to move forwards.

Although I was convinced that he was thinking of me when choosing that profile pic – whether consciously or subconsciously - I knew that thought had come from his heart being pure and in the right place.

He was just being a man.

Rather than message me some syrupy, saccharine message of comfort which could have embarrassed us both, he wanted me to know he was thinking of me and there if I needed him. I had to be grateful for that.

Or perhaps it was just a coincidence. After all it was World Suicide Prevention Day yesterday.

Coincidence Number 2

A colleague retires from time to time. This means we go to lunch together from time to time.

It is nice in a way. I like her personally and so I was happy to be there.

We sit down and order from a set menu of modern day mass mediocrity.

I notice a couple of women staring at me from a table opposite.

They are young women. I am eager to avoid a scene.

I am wearing a slim fit three piece black suit with a red tie. Perhaps this has made me stand out in that tableau of menial employment history being made. I am probably looking more like myself today than I have done in recent weeks (or months).

One of the young women (possibly 22-25) approaches our table whilst I look away and pretend to be distracted by a colleague.

She wears a pink midriff top, brown leather jacket, denim blue short skirt and sandals.

“Excuse me, I have to say one thing. I really like your suit.”

Everyone at my table is now watching intently, silently, religiously.

Was that young lady’s act of will and spirit really a sharp enough blade to surgically slice through the veneer of professional working life?

Are their lives really so plain and devoid of the spontaneity of natural energy?

They sit watching a girl try to ask me out like wind up toys that have stopped.

Although they are fundamentally a nice bunch, they do have different opinions on me – ranging from mild dislike to admiration, from mild distrust to girlish crush. I feel self-conscious in this moment, perhaps because I still have not been able to forgive myself.

“Really? Thank you. That is very kind of you.”

“Where do you work?”

“Just around the corner. In fact I am with colleagues now. We are celebrating today. Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day. Today our cause is a quite different one.”

At this juncture, it would perhaps be useful to explain that I have a very dark and often multifunctional sense of humour. In this instance, I am quite consciously evoking the existential absurdity of my current situation (namely the wider context of the recent events of my personal life and the fact that a girl is currently trying to pick me up, in front of colleagues, much to my mortified embarrassment in view of that particular context).

“Oh really? Haha. I did not know. But anyway, if you want to join my friend and I for a drink after your lunch, you are more than welcome to.” she replies, looking back to her friend for moral support and the illusion of emotional neutrality.

At this point I really have to scan the arthropod gaze of my colleagues sitting around me. I had deliberately avoided doing so but at present I seem to need to measure their reaction in order to measure my own one.

I have not been well recently. I have started to work out again however.

I recently told a friend that I would self-harm for my ex, if she asked me to. I am not sure what I really expected my friend to say in reply. I just wanted to be honest.

I am not a simple man.

I can see curiosity. In the case of the young, lanky, bespectacled paralegal who looks like the quirky neighbor next door of a Television sitcom perhaps a hint of envy. I see fascination.

This brings me back to the absurdity of it all. One does wonder. If only they really knew.

I have not been well recently. I have started to work out again however.

A renewed recognition of the situation’s absurdity revives my resolve to bring it to an immediate end – a short and relatively painless end on the day that comes after World Suicide Prevention Day.

“Listen. I think you are very pretty. But to be honest, I only have eyes for my ex. I mean - I am not really over my ex. I am sorry.”

She handles this as well as I had right to hope for with a laugh and some degree of charm. I am grateful for her tact.

“Well, that was awkward” says one of my colleagues – a suave, and kindly middle aged man with a lively sense of humour.

At this juncture I should explain that I myself am in possession of a very particular, self lacerating brand of humour which is also very British. It would perhaps best be categorised (with an “s”) as falling within the umbrella term of “dry wit”.

This brand of humour is a hallmark of the British public school system. It is often worn as a sort of badge of honour and means of identification amongst British people with an elite education.

There is however a very real “Chicken and Egg” conundrum to be solved as to what does come first: dry wit or elite education? It is undoubtedly true that the British brand of dry wit lubricates the pivots of the great British public schools and universities. That is to say that if you possess a dry wit, you are more likely to gain entry to that special club.

The only possible light that I could shed on this matter is to say that in my case, it was always there.

My particular vehicle for this brand of humour usually takes the form of a monologue of sorts.

In many ways it is a “performance” unto itself. As a writer, I quite often enjoy the challenge of having to improvise such monologues in times when I feel the need to escape from potentially discomfiting social situations.

On average I deliver, and always have delivered, around one of these “monologues” a month.

It has in effect become one of the signatures of my personality.

So with all eyes on me in a moment of hitherto stated awkwardness, I begin.

“Well you say it was “awkward”. I say it would be awkward not to be awkward given the peculiar context in which I find myself. But please rest assured. My negotiation of a premature ending to that particular romantic entanglement does not constitute evidence of my suffering, of my failure to get over my ex, of my knowing that I never will get over her or of my chronic sensation of being stabbed in the stomach on the hour every hour. Oh no, ladies and gentlemen! On the contrary, it is to be taken as an explicit recognition that there is an entire world of romantic and sexual opportunity before me – and that this is a world which it is both my moral and spiritual duty to explore. I could of course instead attempt to present myself as a sort of tortured, mysterious and perennially single Mr Grey type figure – although I rather suspect that this is a role for which I possess not the requisite level of conviction. And I have been reliably informed upon good authority that a man without conviction is in effect a man without romantic ambition. And a man without romantic ambition is a man without life in his veins. So, ladies and gentlemen, rest assured – I have not resigned myself to a lifetime of eternal agony in the knowledge that I will not marry my ex. I must convict myself to a different, perhaps more perilous but ultimately more fulfilling pathway to a fresh love.”

This went on for around 5 minutes.

There are some who now know what to expect when I commence these “performances” and listen whilst pissing themselves with laughter (people who have usually been educated privately).

There are those who find them to be a curious oddity which demands careful attention before being dismissed as such.

Then there are those who probably just think: “What the fuck was that?”

However my mission was accomplished. What comes first. The writer or the deflecter? This is an oratory technique which I have used throughout my life.

You see what is actually happening in that monologue is in fact fairly complicated.

Firstly it has a defiantly ironic and post-modern dimension. By elongating the joke past the point of elasticity, I draw explicit attention to both its function as a joke and the fact that a joke is never just a joke.

Although at face value I present a case that I am over my ex, anybody who is capable of following my strange, bizarre and dark sense of humour will understand that at a self-consciously deliberate level I have presented the opposite case. In fact I am drawing attention to the fact that I am not over her and at present have no hope of being over her in the future. The onus on the listener is therefore not to humour my denial – but rather to tacitly acknowledge and humour my implied denial of my denial. The “joke within the joke” is that I am suffering because of my ex.

My use of elegantly and intricately constructed sentences serves the dual functions of highlighting the performative dimension of the monologue and rendering it final and incontrovertible (for the fact that it strikes such a marked shift in tone from normal every day conversation which would arguably be fairly difficult even for lawyers to match and respond to in the same way).

The surreal tone of the words, however and perhaps as so carefully arranged, places the message squarely within the function of self-deprecation. The act of self-deprecation for a man who is known to be uptight, surly and severe itself performs a vital role – a pressure release valve which allows others around to me relax with less worry as to what I will make of them doing so.

So – to put things very simply – I have shut everyone up.

I have given them both a “performance” to humour them and keep them “happy” but crucially also an admission of the thing that I do not want to publicly admit to – and in doing so in such a heavily stylised way – I have taken away the opportunity for anyone to ask (in perhaps a more normal way) the question I really want to avoid – “So, what happened with your ex?”

Coincidence Number 3

We trudge purposively back to the office.

On my way back I take a slight detour to smoke the one millionth "last cigarette" of my lifetime.

I am wolf whistled by a man. It takes me a moment to appreciate what just happened but I turn around and see him smiling at me intently. I think he might be Somalian.

My performance back in the restaurant saved the day. I am receiving my fair share of quizzical glances followed by rapid face turns to avoid eye contact but people seem to have appreciated my effort if nothing else.

I do wonder why that girl approached me at that particular time. On today of all days.

In fact the truth is I am still a bit shaken by that encounter. I am shaken by the knowledge that nobody does really compare to my ex in my eyes. I just cannot begin to imagine doing anything with any other woman (and yes, I do mean anything). I wonder whether even attempting to do so would make me feel sick.

I really had never imagined that this could be so hard. I could not believe the pain I felt.

I decided that I needed a sign. Something. Anything.

Just to keep me going.

By some strange instinct I felt an urge to ask my dutiful colleague when his birthday was.

He was a decent man. Someone who was attempting to complete his training as a lawyer in his later years. We tend to get on quite well.

So I ask the question that my circumstances compel me to ask.

“Hey. This is a slightly random question, I know. But when is your birthday?”

“December. I am Sagittarius.” He is smiling at me. It is the smile of innocent mockery.

“Oh….wow. Really? You know that is funny, actually. My ex is a Sagittarius.”

“Hahaha. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know actually....So what day were you born?”

He answers without hesitation. With in fact a nodding smile of approval.

I try to smile back.

“Are you ok Elliot? You look like you have just seen a ghost.”

“Oh. I am fine. Haha. It’s just that that is the same day as my ex actually.”

“Oh dear! Hahaha. What are the chances of that?? You know they say that Sagittarius and Scorpio is a very strange mix.”

“Yes. It is….”

I feel angry.

This whole thing. It is a farce. A joke really.

Reality as we know it is one big sick joke.

The weight lifting. The meditation. The hours of press ups and pull ups.

“All of the years I’ve tried, with more to go.” Fall to Pieces, Velvet Revolver.

What is all of this?

And by the way, what is with this massive societal hoax that you can get over the “One” quickly if you put your mind to it?

I have spoken to people. The people I needed to speak to. People completely opposite to me in every possible sense. The most stable and grounded people you could ever meet. They tell me that they still love that person after 10 years and in one way always will do.

I have finally learned that I did not treat her fairly or honorably. I treated her in a way which I feel ashamed of.

Over the past year I have made the strangest and darkest journey imaginable. I have had to compromise my health in ways which even I previously thought were beyond belief. I have travelled the whole of Europe. I have sat down and thought long and hard. I have had to look at myself in the mirror – and believe me when I say that this was not always a pretty sight.

But when a lesson has been learned and even a deeply flawed man feels the ache of genuine chronic remorse, there has to be some way to make the pain stop. There just has to be.

My colleague is watching me across his desk, measuring my facial expressions carefully and with trepidation. I remember that I am, in essence, his boss and I do not want him to feel uncomfortable.

“That is a strange coincidence, isn’t it? Why did you ask the question today?”

I am not a big believer in coincidences. My belief is that reality is just a projection screen of our own consciousness.

Everything that happens in our lives starts with a thought.

The challenge is therefore both obvious and immediate. We need to start off by thinking more positively.

“Well, I wanted a sign. And I think I received it. I have done things. Things I am not proud of. But I think I have turned a corner. And it is better late than never. I think this is just something that had to happen.”