You never really know what is going through other people's minds, do you? You also never really know if those special moments in your life will seem so special in a few years time. As social media becomes more 'mature', we see more and more people posting comments on memories from a few years ago, saying "That didn't age well". What this generally means is that we believed something to be true but events have shown that a completely different reality to the one we perceived at the time has emerged.
As I mentioned earlier this week, someone who I had believed to be a close friend 'defriended me by email' this week, the email was not even directed to me. I was just cc'd into an email to a third party. I cannot tell you how surprised this turn of events was. I believed the person to be a very steady, reliable, trustworthy sort of person. The sort of person who I felt I understood. I have flaky mates, who I know are very unpredictable. This was very different. Once I got over the initial shock of something that was totally unexpected, I started going through all of our interactions over many years. I was trying to work out what the clues were. When we went to football together, and he bought me a beer, what was going on? If he had said that he had come to the conclusion I was a terrible person and was no longer my friend, that would make some kind of sense, but his email made 100% plain that he has not considered me a friend for a considerable time. During that period, there has been no indication to me in regards to our friendship. I am now faced with the fact that many of my good shared memories with him are something rather different to what I thought they were. To me memories are important mementos of a life. Good moments shared with friends are like cherished coins in a collection.
I feel like a coin collector, who has spent years collecting valuable coins. I have paid handsomely for a fine, rare coin. I've displayed it in my collection with pride. Just imagine how I'd feel if I was informed that this fine rare coin was actually a knock off fraud. I hadn't known, I hadn't spotted it. I'd wonder how many of my coin collector friends had spotted what should have been obvious a mile off. I'd wonder if they were all laughing at me behind my back. I'd call my own naivety and trusting nature into question. I'd look at all the coin collector events I'd displayed my collection at in a different light. The memories would be tainted. Now I am not a coin collector. To me my friends are like the valuable coins. And one is not what I thought. It is different to having a great friend and falling out with them. I founded the False Dots with my best friend from school. We fell out. It was a specific moment in time. It didn't taint the memories we'd shared before. There was no duplicity over a long period.
I very rarely fall out with people. If someone is a friend, I try very hard to maintain that friendship. I try to be honest. I put my hands up when I am in the wrong. When I have fallen out with people who matter to me, it has usually been over a specific event or episode and it has been clear to me why. It is like walking a path with someone and meeting a fork and off you go in different directions. But when there is no fork it is a very different thing. I find myself looking for clues in the memories. They are there. The odd bit of strange, out of character behaviour. Things that made no sense at the time, suddenly becoming apparent.
I have a good friend who's wife was cheating on him for a long time. One day, she cleaned out the bank account and left him with two kids under 8 years old. It took him a long time to get over it. For a couple of years, we'd invariably end up in the pub and he's always say "I just can't believe I never saw it coming, all the signs were there". The circumstances make it very difficult to take anything positive out of the relationship, apart from his children, who are wonderful. I thought it was very sad, but quite understandable, that he had seemingly erased the good times completely.
The events reminded me of my father. He was betrayed by his solicitor, who was also a personal friend. Unlike what happened to me, it had a huge financial impact. My father ran a business called Mac Metals in Mill Hill. In about 1982, he had the opportunity to by the former railway depot site on Bunns Lane from British Rail. Dad had rented a portion of the site from BR for many years for use as a car park. Dad negotiated a knock down price, as he knew the BR property department well. He instructed his solicitor to proceed with the sale. It kept stalling. Eventually Dads solicitor advised him that he should withdraw his offer, as BR were no longer playing ball. Dad, trusting his solicitor implicitly, followed his advice. Within a matter of weeks, the site had sold to a developer. The next time Dad saw his solicitor, Dad expressed his surprise that the developer had bought it and got planning permission. The solicitor replied "That's because he had a good solicitor". Dad was taken aback by this comment. He asked "Who is that solicitor?". The reply was "Me!". Dad exploded in rage and said "You were acting for me, you said BR wouldn't sell it". The solicitor said dismissively "You don't know what you are doing so I thought it was a bad idea if you bought it". Dad realised he'd been completely stitched up. I discussed it with him a couple of years later. He said "When I calmed down, I realised it was just an expensive lesson. Never trust solicitors, instruct them and sack them if they don't do what you tell them." He added "When the dust settled, it made me realise how lucky I'd been. He wanted to go out with your sister. Just imagine if a snake like that had been part of the family. I was actually quite sad she didn't like him as I thought he was a solid bloke with a good job". In my case, the only damage has been to my memories. Dad was right though, in all such things, there are lessons and not only that, things could have been a million times worse.
It also made me reflect on the things that cast a different light on our perception of things. Perhaps an illustration of this happened on Friday night. The False Dots did a gig at Nambucca. It was an amazing night. We played really well. However there was one small problem. The venue has a brilliant lighting system. As a guitarist, I play with guitar pedals. These add effects such as echo and distortion to your guitar sound. Although it has a good sound system, it is actually quite hard to hear your instrument properly on stage. This is not normally a problem. I know that the guitar pedal is functioning and giving the desired sound because it has a red light on when the effect is operating. The problem? The lighting system was very powerful and one of the most common effects was to bathe the stage in red. When this happened, I simply couldn't see whether the effects were on or off. The light was shining red, but because everything else was red, I couldn't see it. The sign was there shining brightly but you cannot actually see it until the colour changes.
It made me realise that a simple lighting change can alter your whole perception of the world. The lights were very hypnotic and during one musical section of a song, it appeared that there was a 'light curtain' in front of us. For about a second, the hypnotic effect overcame me, and I thought I was lying in bed and the sun was shining on a curtain. It was very strange and I almost missed my cue to come back in. Thinking you are in bed at home, when you are in the middle of a gig is a very odd feeling indeed. But it made me realise just how fragile our hold on reality and perception can really be. I am sure that anyone who was watching had not the slightest clue what was going on in my head, as we played.
Which bring me back to my opening statement " You never really know what is going through other people's minds, do you?". If I can think I am at home in bed, when I am onstage in front of a 100 people, it really isn't that surprising that I didn't pick up that someone was not being honest with me. It is sad that the shared memories are now, to some degree, tainted. However, some perspective is needed.
Here is the moment from Nambucca when I simply drifted off. You'd not notice.
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