A friend has messaged to make clear their concerns about the prospective venue for next week’s meal. He and I tend to order the same dish and the night can be ruined if the other’s steak is considerably bigger. He’s reminded me that on the last two occasions, my steaks have had the edge. I wouldn’t care normally if my steak was smaller than someone else’s. Chances are you’re going to look at what someone on your table is eating. If the dishes are the same and their portion is bigger, it might bother you a little but it won’t ruin the night, but this friend is so competitive with everything, I have to concede it would bother me if his steak was superior in size to mine.
Whenever we’ve visited what was a regular South Lambeth haunt in the past, I could see him clocking the waiters a few metres away as soon as they were coming over with our plates. His posture would become more upright, he’d be craning his neck like an excited child, or in this instance, an anxious one, waiting to see how the steaks were looking and then wondering why it was the waiter had given him the noticeably smaller steak. With someone else, I would probably swap the plates, but as I say, there’s just something about this friend, who I’ve known since I was 4, where everything gets so competitive, I’m not going to do that with him. If my steak turns out to be smaller, I’ll quietly suffer it. If my steak is bigger, a part of me relishes that than the meal.
This guy, back in ’92 in Dulwich, south east London, played the funniest, most controversial and competitive game of Subbuteo (the greatest table soccer game ever) I’ve ever seen with his opponent Micky Blue. I may as well give my competitive friend a moniker at least. ‘Mitch’. Mitch has been a life-long Norwich fan while Micky Blue, apart from a brief spell supporting Wolves in the late 70s, has been a WBA fan ever since. Both are native south Londoners. They just developed a deep love for those two clubs in their early years and both were playing with their teams in this Subbuteo tournament at my older cousin’s. My older cousin had just become a dad for the first time and was on babysitting duty. He’d also grown a standalone ‘tache for the tournament, something he refutes to this day.