BAD BROMANCE

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
Caught in a bad romance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
Caught in a bad romance

I have a friend, let's call him 'O', whose 'friendship' I can only describe as a 'bad bromance'. To simply label it toxic is to do a disservice to the many variety of colours of hateful abuse we share between us.

Since I've known him, we have antagonised each other mercilessly without barely any respite. We goad, we mock, we hector, we harangue. Common agreement is a foreign country to us and we sit on our islands of pride slinging shit at each other like we're in training for the Olympics. Often I imagine we have done this in centuries past and never learned the lesson. We are karmically enslaved to one another like escaped prisoners who have failed to sever the shackles that bind us, and yet, somehow, we seem to perversely enjoy this sadistic state of affairs between us.

At our best I would say we resemble Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering in 'My Fair Lady' where we occasionally take a brief pause from our insults to compliment each other momentarily and recall what affinities we shared that originally ignited our friendship in the first place. Then, in contrast, at our worst we resemble a sort of sniping, sibling 'Steptoe and Son' or a pair of vicious queers where the sheer vitriol and maliciousness take a turn for the macabre and we speculate about which of us will ultimately be responsible for each other's death.

Others who have witnessed our quarrels have looked on in astonishment that two grown men can happily co-exist whilst simultaneously knocking seven bells of Hell out of each other (metaphorically speaking).

Any individual success achieved is considered a mortal wound to the other. 'O' often likes to remind me of Gore Vidal's famous quote : "whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies." There seems an honesty to our ugly transparency of hatred and willful discouragement toward one another which appears to fuel the longevity of our 'toxic bromance' on and on through the years.

Where will all this squabbling and bickering end? Probably in some awful cruel prank of one upmanship where one of us will be finally bereft of the other's company.

Only then, perhaps, will the remaining one of us to survive this decades long onslaught of hostilities finally realise how much they loved the other. Oh the irony.

Although, even then, I'm not so sure there may not be further antagonising from beyond the grave like Marley with Scrooge.

If you don't have a friend like 'O' in your life, I highly recommend you find one. It tests and toughens the resilience of one's personal fortress as I now firmly believe that friends that haven't yet killed you, definitely make you stronger.