I first met Paul during secondary school as I was good friends with his older brother, who I was also in several bands with. I got to know Paul a bit better when we were both at university in the same city, as were a couple of our other friends and I would drive us all to Canterbury on a Thursday morning as we all started at roughly the same time.
We always used to drive past a sign on Stone Street which said “Caution: mud on road” yet we were never able to see any mud. It was the highlight of the journey, but then it was around 7am, so none of us were at our peak conversationally. At best we’d manage a few grunts at each other which passed for conversing.
It wasn’t until I joined the same rock’n’roll band as Paul that we started to become close. We were in the band together for maybe 4 or 5 years. When I joined the band, I was the oldest and the only one with a car. This meant that I was the designated driver for any gig that wasn’t in walking distance. Paul was usually the most sober of the rest of the band at the end of a gig and as such he would assist me with playing equipment Tetris to get all of our gear to fit into whichever vehicle I was driving. He would then be the most likely to stay awake to keep me company on the journey home.
Significant memories that I have of the journeys home include the band trying to keep me awake by shouting “STEW! WAKE UP!” at me, when I was clearly already awake, and singing along loudly to Christmas songs in the middle of summer. Oh, the larks we had.
As well as being my sober buddy when we were in the band, Paul was my drunk buddy when we were both single and looking for love. We would go out for a few drinks and lament our woes. There were times when we were both a bit too down about things, feeling like we would end up old, single and grumpy and I always thought we’d end up being a real life version of Statler and Waldorf, the two hecklers from The Muppet Show.
We were both playing for the same football team for a while (the second time I accidentally started up a football team, and again a story for another time), and at the same time we were both exploring the world of online dating looking for Ms Right. During training sessions, we would pair up and whilst warming up or doing circuits, we would discuss our tales of woe and all the experiences we’d been having.
I think perhaps the fact that we were chatting and not training might explain why neither of us are pro footballers. It’s either that or our ages and lack of skill. We’d inspire each other to persist with online dating, even when it seemed to not be going well and, in the end, it was the method we both used to find our partners.
Whilst neither of us may have been really good at real life football, Paul is exceptionally good at Pro Evo on the Playstation and I think has beaten me 95% of the times that we have played. This is despite an intensive training program that I put myself through, playing a season on every version of Pro Evo from the dawn of time. I think perhaps I just suck at computer games.
Paul asked me to be an usher at his wedding two years ago and I am pleased to be able to return the favour and that we have both found that happiness that we moaned to each other about being unable to find on several drunken occasions.