![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/20200817_134742-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a>By Radical Rhymes<\/strong><\/p>\nWe all have difficult friends, don\u2019t we? They come in all shapes and sizes, as do the difficulties they present for us. Being an ex-academic the temptation is always to categorise, to create typologies. So, not to disappoint here\u2019s an off-the-cuff beginning:<\/p>\n
\u2022 The socially unaware friend \u2013 that person who will vigorously demonstrate a dance move or sporting action regardless of their surroundings
\n\u2022 The argumentative friend \u2013 they could start a fight in a room on their own, but in public you usually end up bailing them out of trouble
\n\u2022 The borrower friend \u2013 books, clothes, money, nothing is sacred, and they never return everything they borrow
\n\u2022 The worm tongue friend \u2013 quietly, gradually, they undermine your self-esteem and bring you into their own unhappiness<\/p>\n
\u2022 The loose cannon friend \u2013 for some reason you can\u2019t remember any more you got to know them and you carried on with the friendship even though they can go off like a landmine, and you always feel like you\u2019ve taken up residence in the Twilight Zone.<\/p>\n
I could go on with this, create a fancy table, put in some academic theories and support it with some data, and I\u2019d have a potential paper. Mind you, I\u2019d have to find the right journal and hope that the reviewers were open to ideas that they themselves didn\u2019t come up with in order to get it published. Well, okay I sprinkled a little bitterness there, but it\u2019s not wholly untrue.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the long and short of it is that we all have friends that we suffer with or from, but what I want to write about here is THAT friend, the one who always has to be right. They cannot bear to be wrong under any circumstances. What shall we call them? I know, the Renard friend\u2026<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t had the pleasure, it can be incredibly wearing. These people would stand over your death bed with evidence that something you said, a throwaway remark several years ago, was, in fact wrong. Arrggghhhh!!!!<\/p>\n
My own initiation into this kind of friendship came early on. Walking to school, probably around eight years of age, with my best friend who lived a few doors away, we were talking about the episode of a programme I was currently in love with. I was just outlining the plot and getting to a part that had intrigued and terrified me, when he stopped me mid flow and said: \u2018That didn\u2019t happen\u2019.<\/p>\n
What? I thought I\u2019d misheard, so after a short pause, I started again. Nope. It wasn\u2019t that I\u2019d misheard him, he was actually telling me that my interpretation of a scene in a TV programme he hadn\u2019t watched, was incorrect. I am not someone who enjoys arguments, but I had to stand my ground. Predictably, it descended into a massive row and we didn\u2019t speak for weeks. I wish now that it had been a permanent rift, but we live and learn.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t end there though, my association with the Renard friend, was only just beginning.<\/p>\n
During my time in the civil service I came across several people like that, some I would call friends, some I wouldn\u2019t. One was a young woman I replaced in post because she\u2019d been promoted. She was not a gracious soul eager to help the new kid, she was always more than willing to publicise my mistakes, and when she wasn\u2019t ratting me out, she was revelling in my misery. She knew everything (in theory) and it drove me nuts.<\/p>\n
But the worst know-it-all friends I encountered worked in academia. I suppose that it\u2019s an occupational hazard really, as a lecturer, you are classed as an expert, and such individuals struggle with not knowing something. Academics, and I include myself, are frequently insecure people looking to shore up their inadequacies with intellectual achievements and the recognition offered by other clever people. It doesn\u2019t work for everyone, which is why some are so brittle when challenged.<\/p>\n
I even had a friend, a senior academic, who, on the morning of my viva (the oral examination you need to \u2018pass\u2019 to obtain your doctorate), told me what my PhD was REALLY about. It was not the best preparation! The last thing you need before facing the firing squad is someone handing you a bullet-proof vest made out of paper!<\/p>\n
Thankfully, I didn\u2019t take their assessment seriously, but I was so overwrought and stressed that on a different day I might have entered the dragon\u2019s lair completely befuddled and blown it entirely.<\/p>\n
These days I don\u2019t have someone like that in my life, I\u2019ve had my fill of it, the drain on my credulity and patience is just too much to stomach. However, watching my sons navigate their young relationships I\u2019ve seen a few individuals that fit the criteria. I should warn them, shouldn\u2019t I? But we both know they won\u2019t listen, after all, they know everything!<\/p>\n
Joking!<\/p>\n
Radical Rhymes is a professional artist working with a range of media – predominantly animal\/human portraits and landscapes – including, most recently, hand painted furniture. You can see his work on Instagram Radicalrhymes1969 or on Twitter @RhymesRadical.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n