My mate called me a few weeks back (that’s a lie, he texted, because it’s 2025 and we’re men — actual phone conversations are reserved exclusively for wives, mums and random callers who’ve ‘detected a virus’ on your Windows computer).
“Mate…what the fuck??…is this normal??…call me I need a sanity check…” the message read. I could sense the exhaustion in his excessive use of ellipses and the four question marks. This was genuine man-code for ‘I’m having an urgent existential crisis.’
So, three days later, I called him. (What? I was busy. It’s how mates show we care, by demonstrating calculated unavailability.)
“Remember that trendy startup I was so excited about?” he asked. “The one with the polished concrete floors, Edison bulbs everywhere, and that ridiculous nap pod shaped like a giant avocado?”
I did remember — he’d been clutching that offer letter like a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Plus, I was the one who’d spent months encouraging him to ‘take the leap’ and ‘escape the soul-crushing corporate machine.’ I helped shove him out the corporate nest, assuring him he’d learn to fly in the startup world with its progressive culture…
