A guest post by Kieran you can follow him on his facebook page : A Fifo man’s weight loss journey
Let me ask you this – excluding your husband, wife, fiancée, boyfriend or girlfriend; who is your best friend? Do you even have one, that one person who you are super close to, you may have been friends since childhood, since you entered the workforce or perhaps like me you can’t pin one person down in particular who is your bestfriend.
For me, FIFO has taken a toll on my ability to have really close friends, in saying that I can’t really blame FIFO for this, thinking back on my school days as far back as grade 5 for me, I’ve never been a person who has had a lot of friends, I was teased a lot at school, I’m not sure why, I wasn’t brilliant at sport, I wasn’t in the cool group, and I guess I have just never really had the ability to attract friends and maintain those friendships. High school was a similar story, quite often I would be sitting on my own around the corner at lunch times, or down the back of the oval under a tree in the back corner, I guess I’m just a bit of a loner, I’m ok with that but sometimes it gets lonely…really lonely.
Do you have that one person you can pick the phone up and ring and talk to about anything and it not be awkward? I don’t, I wish I did. I talk to counsellors instead, sounds like fun hey.
So how do people make friends? Friends that will hang around, friends you can hang out with, I’m not one for partying or going to a pub. I’ve joined a sports club that does multi-sport and I’ve met some people there but only a few, however, they are more just acquaintances that I see if we have an event on or some training etc, I don’t hang around afterwards and mingle as I have responsibilities to my wife and kids, and being FIFO, means I need to manage my home time carefully as I don’t want to take away from time with them which in turn means I have restricted time with “friends”. People in the club don’t even know me, I rock up and just stand at the back.
I’ve been paying silent attention to what goes on when it’s nearly time to fly home from work, I’m always here guys at work arranging stuff to do with mates on their breaks, on the phone chatting to their mates etc, I don’t receive one call, I don’t receive one invite to a bbq, nothing at all, my social life consists of inviting my parents (who I am not overly close with) to come around for a bbq so they can see their grandkids.
My contacts list in my phone consists of my wife, my bank, my doctor, my travel agent, the kids school office, EHP for crocodile sightings, my coach, my younger brother, the medic at work and our neighbour, I have a mate who now lives in cairns and I have his number too (he would be the closest person I have to a good friend, they are really good to us and our kids, but he’s not that mate I can call and discuss anything with).
Sad isn’t it! but I am not one to dwell on it for too long, it’s just the way it is I guess, I have mates all over the country from FIFO construction work but once a project is over we all go our separate ways.
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{Image is with thanks to here.}
