Years ago in St.Thomas' Hall Canterbury the prog rock band 'Egg' pushed away most of an audience. They were wrong for each other. 'Egg' played long and mostly instrumental pieces, scarcely any of the audience had heard of them, and after twenty minutes of disappointed expectations the natives got restless. A group of offensive mongrels near the front kept calling for rock-and-roll; after which Mont Campbell consulted the other two and they attempted a weak 'Johnny B Goode'.
Following that he delivered a lesson in life that I should have learned all those years ago but regrettably failed to learn. He went right ahead and pushed people away. He stood up front and told the audience that he did not play music that you could dance to and that they could leave if that was what they'd come for. He really wouldn't be offended. And within one minute the group were down to an audience of forty odd (some of us hooked for life). It was a small shock.
People who push others away. You who live in large groups do it every day - don't meet my gaze and don't talk to me for I do not have the time. But do you fail to 'push away' sometimes when you should? You who settle for a boy-in-love because he is keen and he is, well, there, you who inflict damage later when you yourself do fall in love with another. Your love-lives are badly run, but isn't friendship an even worse run state? Nobody has time to nurture more than, what, eight close friends? Nobody has the right eight surely? Don't you have several 'tack-ons' - friends who clog up your time and dull the talk, passers-by who from the very outset should have been kept slightly away as pleasant-enough acquaintances. And when new passers-by come along, they who actually make you raise your game, aren't they (incredibly) allowed to slip away for there is no spare time left? Aren't they released with a slight frown of regret on the very day they're met and soon forgotten (not least because in all probability they don't have time for you either)? People who raise your game should be in your group of friends, you know that don't you. The big sloppy breast of a friend who 'knows you so well' is fine, but it's not enough on its own is it.
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