Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Human frailties

A few months ago, the bank that I work for entertained a large group of clients at a London theatre. The bank paid for a lot of the best seats in the theatre, invited various clients to attend, and then after the show they hired a smart restaurant nearby for dinner. Although I'm not usually involved in client entertainment, I went along at the last minute to make up the numbers when a sales colleague was unable to attend.

The show was good, but the dinner afterwards was fascinating because it turned out that the actors from the play had also been invited to dinner. As a result, rather that entertaining the bank's clients, I found myself chatting to a young actor in his mid 20's who was seated on my right.

"I really liked the play :-)," I say to him, as an easy way of starting the conversation.

"Thanks," he replies smiling coyly at me, "I'm glad that you enjoyed it :-)."

We chat a bit about the play, and how he got into acting. He mentions women a lot, so presumbaly he's straight, but nonetheless a little later the conversation becomes interesting for other reasons.

"It can be quite difficult being an actor," he says, "because one can't always find work."

"I guess you have to take part time jobs then," I reply, "while you look for acting jobs in your spare time?"

"Yes, but when I'm not working, I REALLY miss the excitement of being on stage, and the buzz that one gets from the audience!"

"I'd never thought about that side of things," I admit. "I suppose that's an extra incentive to find acting work."

"Yeah, but sometimes I'll need to find other ways to get the buzz. For example, I love spending all night in a casino. If I'm on a winning streak, it's almost better than being on stage!"

I'm always fascinated by human frailties like this. In my case, although I enjoy gambling, drinking, and even drugs, I guess I'm lucky that I'm not addicted to any of them. However, long time readers of this blog will know what my weakness is. I'm definitely addicted to men!

2 comments:

Latelygay said...

This is a timely post GB because it seems to me questions of men and addiction tie in very well with your post on fidelity.

I'm just not sure I'm can stick with just the one guy. There are so many guys out there that I've still not got to sleep with.

Whenever will I feel that I've had enough.

psych said...

GB, from your postings you do seem to have calmed down quite a bit with boyfriend T. Could he perhaps be the Petruchio to your Kate? (in terms of your wild ways)