"Even if I got rid of all my problems, I'd just go out and get new ones..."

There once was a man from Nantucket...
7:00 p.m. on 2005-04-19

At my university we had the college system. For the three years of my course, and forever after, I became a college allumni. For whilst you went to lectures with a variety of people, it was really in your college that you made your group of friends.

And I was lucky. For my first year I was placed on a floor with nine other people, most of whom were fantastic, and at least half of whom I've stayed in touch with.

Sadly, it was not all good. There was a boy, let's call him... Mini Doors (this is an in-joke to a few of my friends). Mini Doors was my neighbour for the first term of the first year - until he decided he was better suited living with people less boring, less uncool, less geeky.

Yes, Mini Doors thought little of us, and we thought even worse of him. Myself in particular.

I hated that boy. I hated that he repeatedly woke me at 3am coming in drunk and playing insanely loud, bad dance music for hours. I hated that I could hear him and his Barbie-dull girlfriend having sex through the wall. I hated that his mates thought it was fun to bang on my door at all hours of the day. I hated that I could hear him hack phlegm in the communal shower, and that he never cleaned up after himself when he'd come in after a rugby game, covered in mud.

But more than anything, I hated him because he represented all I hated about high school. Not the bullies - I was never a victim in school, that I remember, though I always felt intimidated and threatened - but the other girls, the 'popular' girls. The ones I hated not because they picked on me, but because they never noticed I even existed.

This is not the point at which I talk about longing to be popular, pretty, and loved. Screw that, this isn't a Warner Bros prime time show.

But Mini Doors was one of many. He led a crowd of similar characters who would knock past me in the corridor without an apology, who would wake me up at ungodly hours with no explanation, who would never think to clean up his mess for his neighbours - not because he thought I was beneath him, but because he wasn't even aware I was there.

I, like my friends, were non-entities to these creatures. On those occasions they did acknowledge our existence, it was to snigger, and mock, and to wonder 'how SAD can these people possibly be?' To scoff at someone because we didn't share their lifestyle (which, by the way, consisted of drinking, puking, rugby, sex, drinking, puking, nudity, drinking, puking... you get the idea).

By pure chance, I met him again today. It's been two years since I left university, and it's been five since he moved out of our floor in search of neighbours more like him. It took me three stops before I summoned up the courage to ask: "Are you..."

I spent that time wondering what I'd say. Whether I'd make up something, exaggerate the truth. "I've been travelling for a while... I work in television... I'm in charge of buying programmes for the station..."

Or whether I'd not say anything at all. There was something appealing about preserving my revenge fantasy, the visions of kharmic rebound that gave me solace during all those hours spent staring at the ceiling of my room, listening to bad dance music from next door.

If I didn't speak to him, I could continue to think he was cleaning public toilets for a living, that he'd caught some terrible disease that had caused his penis to fall off, that his Barbie girlfriend had six screaming sprogs, only four of which were his.

(obviously two of those ideas are mutually exclusive)

Stupid, right? Two years since I last saw him, five since I spoke to him. Months since I even thought of him. But one glimpse and all these feelings rush back. Resentment, and anger, and bile.

I spoke to him. He was friendly, asked what I was up to. Turns out he works down the road from me. Said he'd met up with a few people from uni recently, and we exchanged names and shared none.

I'm sure he doesn't even remember my name. There was no sense of recognition. But I remember him.

I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere, about how we're all the same deep down, despite our differences, and no matter how alien one person seems to you, your similarities may land you in the same place at the future.

Unfortunately I'm too busy wishing his penis turns green to learn it.

Listening to: Butterfly Boucher "Another White Dash"

Quote: "Hah! Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?"

<< >>