Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 17, 2020

There’s so many things I’ve had to actively un-teach myself about life based on lessons I unconsciously soaked up from movies and television.  

And, look, I’m not just talking about the ridiculous personality distorting ones about women and their sexuality or women and their weight or women and… well, basically everything most movies imply about women. That’s a whole other column. Or two.

I’m talking about more trivial things I’ve picked up from movies that aren’t true to life. 

Like, I understand that movies can’t follow all the mundane goings on of the main characters’ lives. We’re not going to see their uneventful trips to the shops where they don’t run into their big love or the times they look out the window and there isn’t a heartthrob staring up at them with a boom box over their head. That would make for a boring movie. I get it. 

But movies often have people meeting who they want to meet at the exact moment they would like to. At the airport departure gate. At the school prom. In the hallway of a hospital as the woman is being rushed to the delivery room minutes before her unborn baby claws its way out of her. 

The timing of meeting these people of interest is always impeccable. And that’s totally unrealistic. 

After nearly three decades of living, I have learned you can’t expect the rules of the movies to apply to your own life. 

KNo one is going to meet you on the outskirts of town and tell you to “pick out a white dress”. You’re not going to get a message over the PA system of the airport. And the late-night text message you hope is from your sweetheart declaring their affections for you is most definitely going to be Optus, informing that you’ve gone over your data limit and you’re going to be charged an extra ten bucks for each gigabyte you use.

So when I was sitting at the pub the other day, wishing for a certain someone to step through the door, I knew it was in vain. 

I’d gone out to dinner over the weekend, deciding to shout my mother and sister to a cheeky pub feed with all the trimmings (which is to say, we got garlic bread to start off with). 

Throughout the meal, I’d remembered previous visits to that establishment, when I’d go out for a round of ribs and beers on a Friday after a long week of work. And it seemed that, whenever I was being shouted a meal, this one character happened to be close enough to the action to overhear that someone else was picking up the tab. 

They were never around when I was paying, though. They seemed to have some kind of cosmic timing to only ever be passing by when it was someone else’s shout. Eventually this became a bit of a running joke. They’d always make some remark about how I’d scabbed a beer or tricked someone into getting the garlic bread.

So, as I was mopping up my mashed potato the other night, I briefly entertained the idea of this person popping by just as I was going up to the counter. But only for a second, because I know this isn’t how the world works. Life is a random combination of inconsequential coincidences, not a series of events expertly timed to give a satisfying payoff. There’s no meet cutes. There’s no grand gestures. And you never get the closure you crave. 

So when I went up to pay, I’d resigned myself to the fact that this character would never be forced to eat their words. 

But then, footsteps. A greeting from the bar staff. A familiar voice. 

It was my tormentor (I mean, don’t get the wrong idea, it was good-natured torment). 

And while I rarely ask for a receipt for my meal purchases (I don’t need to be reminded of my frivolous spending by a judgmental piece of paper) I made an exception this time. 

I took my receipt and waved it right in the face of my pub persecutor.

And, look, maybe everyone gets one chance to run into the person they want to run into right at the exact moment they need to. And maybe I could have spent mine on a grand gesture at an airport or being stuck in a lift with some dreamboat, but instead I spent it on this petty exchange.

But, if that’s the case, I regret nothing. 

Read the receipt and weep, mate!