Relative Envy

There’s an old saying, and I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how it goes, but it’s something along the lines of envy being bad for you. Is it one of the Ten Commandments, or is that my imagination? They were definitely the product of someone’s imagination, grossly outdated as they are. Anyway, this envy concept feels like it might have been drilled into me by a red-faced schoolmaster when I was young and impressionable, along with the idea that I should ‘dream big dreams’. I lapped all that stuff up back then, but cynicism is taking a firm hold as the years go by.

I find myself feeling envious every other day, and on the days I’m not I’m truly thankful for the life I lead. It’s a strange predicament in which to find myself. I wake up one morning brimful of confidence, rearing to go. I charge out the door and take on the day with not a care in the world. Then there are the days when I get out the wrong side of bed. I’ve considered sliding it up against the window so that I can only exit in one direction, and given there has been an abundance of space in my bed for the last few years, I’m unlikely to annoy anyone with such a furniture shuffle, but it leaves me with just a fifty percent chance of blocking off the correct side.

My envy is generally aimed at one target: coolness. Neurotic and overly analytical as I am, I often find myself at once dazzled and nauseated by coolness. I find it impressive and loathsome. I catch myself admiring someone, wanting to be ‘that cool’ but I always end up reassuring myself that it’s just as appealing being ‘different’. I have been described as ‘different’ many times. The fact that it’s usually in the same sentence as ‘strange’ and ‘curious’ is beside the point. I will cling onto anything that sets me apart from the masses.

It seems only yesterday I was a moody teenager, slouched in a musty old cinema seat at the famous 7 Arts in Harare, watching Four Weddings and a Funeral with a date whose name and face escape me, but who became the first person to ever utter the words that haunt me to this day; “You know who you remind me of? Hugh Grant!” I swear to you I have heard variations of this comparison four or five times a year, every year, to the present day. In fact only a few days ago, as I described a personal anecdote, did a colleague dub the story a ‘classic Hugh Grant moment’. I want to relate the tale to you, as it demonstrates just how capable I am of being stunningly uncool. You’d think I would be grateful to have celebrity comparisons drawn against me, but I have no desire to be caught re-enacting the famous Titanic scene in the back of an old white hatchback with a mystery hooker, Divine or not.

The story goes like this: I had popped out to buy some lunch and upon my return the heavens opened and an almighty deluge descended from the skies. As I made my way to the office I noticed a young lady scrambling for cover. She held a soaked notebook aloft above her head in a feeble attempt to protect her blonde hair. I marched over and asked if she’d like to share my expansive golf umbrella (identifying it as such was probably the first step in the direction of uncool). She gratefully accepted, at which point the umbrella caught a gust of wind and inverted. I have had this umbrella for nearly ten years and never once has it behaved in such a manner. I apologised profusely as now not only was she once again exposed to the elements, but the umbrella was flailing about wildly in the wind bashing her on the head and depositing sheets of its collected rainwater all over her back and bag. I eventually managed to rectify the situation, and we trudged on towards a path of flattened woodchips that was a shortcut through a flowerbed to the nearest shelter. I told her how sorry I was and how hard it was to be ‘chivalrous in cyclonic conditions’. This brought a brief flash of a smile to her mascara-smudged face. I felt I had gained some ground lost in the umbrella debacle.

Halfway down the narrow path we came across an ocean of a puddle. No, I didn’t throw down my jacket. Worse. We assumed single file, me brandishing the umbrella ahead like a burning torch, she nearly breaking into a sprint to get to dry land. As I rushed to keep up my oversized boot caught the back of her left foot. Why was she foolishly wearing sandals in this Godforsaken weather? After the toe of my boot had raked the back of her Achilles tendon, it made its way down to the now exposed heel of the sandal, for she was midstride and her foot was at that precise moment where it had left the ground to push off but the sluggish sandal had yet to follow suit and snap dutifully up to her heel. Her foot left the sodden ground. The sandal did not. Instead my shoe pinned it to the dirt and slipped halfway into its straps. I proceeded to scoop it up as I took my next step, and the momentum of my leg caused it to fling with force and accuracy directly towards the deepest section of the gargantuan puddle. At this exact moment her now barren foot, positioned at one end of her imbalanced body, came crashing down into the murky, cold puddle. A splash of water erupted up her trouser leg, taking with it a large serving of mud, twigs and leaves. The foliage clung to her, the water streamed down to her dripping foot. I scurried after the sandal as it floated gleefully away down the length of the puddle. I eventually retrieved it and, after shaking off what water I could, replaced it on the naked foot. I was down practically on one soaked knee. I realised at that precise moment that I was in a scene exactly opposite to Cinderella and her famous slipper.

It has taken me a few days to recover from this traumatic experience. I sit now in an airport on my way to Mauritius, which is where I go to bury my face in the sand and hide away from the shame of such experiences. Just kidding - it's a work trip. The point of this tale is that if, single as I am, I am to be ‘on the market’ and available, do I have to decide whether it’s best to be cool or best to be different? Is it possible to be both? Is it best to just be yourself, regardless of which way that ends up making you seem? Surely coolness is determined by popularity, i.e. conformity to that which is popular? To be truly different in this increasingly demanding singles market, you have to stand out in all ways. And if you can do that, you are surely the essence of cool. Further, the only way possible to stand out is to just be yourself. Being yourself and believing in yourself is the first and only step to being cool and different, because we are all individuals. And once you accept the individual you are, you forget all the individuals you’re trying to be. What a load of old Grade 1 crapola.

My father’s cousin is a pilot. I’m not talking a weekend Cessna driver, I’m talking Virgin Atlantic’s top pilot; a man who recently flew a Boeing 747 in formation with the famous Red Arrows aerobatic team at The Biggin Hill Airshow, and shortly after landing, made his way to a Bruce Springsteen concert in Hyde Park. It was his 60th birthday after all. My own cousin lives in New York and has just had his first book published. He is already a highly regarded travel writer who told me once (although it was the millennium New Year and I may have imagined it in my drunken haze) that he once went out with Fidel Castro’s daughter. My sister has put on hold a wonderful career in British television to have my gorgeous nephew, but still finds time to do the odd bit of freelance for the likes of Rowan Atkinson. I have to ask; is envy relative, or relatives? You can choose your friends, etc?

Whatever the case may be, I am learning very quickly to just be me. If that means I have to be strange and curious at the same time as being different, then I am sure there is someone out there willing to accept that for what it is. This post was meant to be a little more humorous than it has turned out to be; sorry for that. I better dash as my plane is now boarding. A pilot has just walked past with a moustache. Now there’s a thought … and how about a mullet too?