"The Waiting Room"

There is a place where luck and the fates cannot save you. It is a place where natural cunning and innate intelligence must be put to the ultimate test. Where even the most street-wise will come face-to-face with his or her own mortality.

A Stage Play written and directed by Wole Oguntokun.

Starring Jumoke Lahdi Bello, Ijeoma Grace Agu, Gbenga Adekanmbi and Precious Anyanwu.Dates: Sunday Dec 5, 12 and 26.

&

"Wat's Dis All ABout?"

(An adaptation of the South African Classic - "Woza Albert")

Starring Similoluwa Hassan and Toyin Oshinaike

Date: Sunday December 19

Written and Directed by Toyin Oshinaike .

All shows at 3pm and 6pm every Sunday in December.

Tickets - N2500

Will I ever blog again?; The Berliner and other Nigerian stories.

It's gotten really strange. From being known for compulsive writing, I barely put a word on ...ehr...cyberspace now.

What does one blame?

The column in the Guardian that is so good to/for me but demands a thousand words weekly?

A busier work/play schedule?

STARCOMMS intrernet access or the lack of it? (This is a good one to lay the blame on. The Starcomms board should be lined up and flogged. N15,950 a month for no access is just nasty but they keep advertising and the Standards Organization in this country or whatever outfit should monitor this travesty lies comatose. By the way, Zain/Airtel/Econet/Vodacom/Buddie/Celtel is guilty of it too)

Well, I'll give consistent writing a shot once again seeing I'm some distance from Starcomms now and the internet's like lightning here.

I was leaving Berlin a few days ago when the airline attendant who was German told me my name wasn't on the passenger manifest. I told her to check properly and she got up, went to a telephone and sniggered into it in her, I assume, thick Bavarian accent, "Oluwole Oguntokun". She said it thrice, finding amusement in my name with her colleague at the other end of the line. I looked at her, 6am in the morning and said to her hearing and those of her colleagues around her, "That's the way your name sounds to me as well". She didn't get it at first so I repeated it. I saw she came to the phone a gentler person.

So much for a new century. The world is still riddled with bigots.

The 4th Annual Season of Wole Soyinka

The Official Launch of the Ola Rotimi Foundation.

Grey Focus - Starring Curtis John Miller and Yemi Blaq. Directed by Imeh Esen.

Showing at Silverbird Cinemas - Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt from Friday the 20th of August.

Theatre@Terra presents "Who's Afraid Of Wole Soyinka?"

Oga, a military ruler has decided to remain in power by becoming the nation's next civilian president. He schemes and plots with fellow soldiers, get-rich-quick opportunists, perfidious politicians, musicians and sportsmen, eliminating all opposition in his way.

"Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?" is a humorous satire that chronicles some of the darkest periods in Nigeria's history.

Written & Produced by Wole Oguntokun

Directed by Sola Roberts Iwaotan

Every Sunday in June at 3pm and 6pm.

Venue: Terra Kulture, Tiamiyu Savage St, Victoria Island.

Tickets: N2500

Western Europe and North America have crumbling economies, despotic leaders and unstable governments. Africa has always been the land of plenty, a stable prosperous continent, and Lagos, its most attractive city. Darren Campbell, a white male born and raised in the United Kingdom seeks his fortune in Lagos as an illegal immigrant.

Written and Directed by Wole Oguntokun

Venue - Terra Kulture
Every Sunday in May
3pm & 6pm
Tickets-N2500

Four men, a Warder and his wife in a Maximum Security Prison...

Prison Chronicles starring Carol King, Kenneth Uphopho, Sola Roberts Iwaotan, Gbenga Adekanmbi, Precious Anyanwu and Kanayo Larry Okani.

Written and Directed by Wole Oguntokun.

Every Sunday in April in the Theatre@Terra.

3pm & 6pm.

N2500

Carol Adoghe King, Prison Chronicles, Wole Oguntokun

Wole Oguntokun is directing Aime Cesaire's "A Season in the Congo" for the Lagos State Government sponsored "Black Heritage Festival" - April 3rd - 9th.

Up and about in 'Gidi. The picture of the "reddish" car was taken in England.

It was birthday time for the stellar actor Bimbo Manuel and the cast and crew of the Ultimate Face-Off -The V Monologues v. The Tarzan Monologues took a break from rehearsals to celebrate with him.

The Girl Whisperer

as published by the Sunday Guardian

of 14th March 2010

Archie and Veronica

If you have a hard time comprehending why there are two names as my column title, you missed out on an experience that was a major part of the childhoods of many people all over the world. It was the comic simply known as “Archie” featuring a young man of the same name and his friends. They were all students of the same school, Riverdale High, lived in the same small town and wore bright, colourful, smart clothes, styles which I tried to copy several times when I was in my early teens but never quite succeeded in. As an adult now, it strikes me that the clothes “designer” for those comics was adult and the style pre-meditated, not anything easily accessible from the junk I possessed then.

There was a love triangle in the comic book series with Archie having a permanent crush on the dark-haired, rich beauty, Veronica Lodge and not realizing how much Betty, her friend, cared for him. Betty was a blond-haired girl of about the same age, no less good looking than Veronica and my personal favourite. (For all those who take issue with her hair colour, feel free to substitute blond with Ghana- Weave)At that time, all I wanted to do was meet a caring girl like Betty and live life happily ever after. As I write now, it strikes me that was probably the desire of the creator of the comic book series as well.

They had a company of friends too, Jughead who loved food, was rake-thin but could eat hamburgers like others eat very light biscuits. Moose, hulking in strength and who would do anything to protect his lovely girl, Midge, from the attention that other men might give. There was Big Ethel, who had a crush on jug-head, she was probably the least good-looking in the Riverdale community (it was a community where everyone was stunning) and Dixon (?) I think, the egg-head who was a whiz in the sciences. I almost forgot Reggie, Archie’s arch-rival (excuse the pun) for the affections of Veronica. I was never able to comprehend why Archie just never gave up on Veronica, leaving her to Reggie and starting a sunny life with Betty Cooper. I suppose that is the way life really is. We never really appreciate affection when it comes too easily, preferring the one we have to cut swathes in jungles for or climb rocky, precarious hills to reach. Veronica was not a simpleton, neither was Reggie malevolent in his smugness but I always thought they suited each other and that Archie was better off with Betty.

Many of us have over-looked the most amazing people because they gave themselves too readily to us. It’s an amazing thing about life and sad to say, speaks volumes of the level of development of a man, for instance, who thinks less of a girl because she was the first to express her affection. By the way, “Girl” for the Whisperer covers any female from ages thirteen to ninety. There are many women who are... well, advanced in age but are still involved in, or seek loving relationships. This is legitimate. Your life does not come to a screeching halt because you have children or they go on to have their own children. There are thirty-six year old grandmothers for those who care to know.

So on to the Betty Coopers that abound in so many lives and whom we do not care to give a second look because they expressed the way they felt about us before we spoke. I do not think less of any female who expresses the way she feels about a man before he indicates his intentions. Some men border on being obtuse and like wheel-barrows need to be pushed to a point where they will come to the realization that the lovely person whose company they had always found so enjoyable might have a thing for them. This has happened to the Whisperer many times before.

Now, no one is compelled to start a relationship with another merely because the other party expressed an interest in a relationship or in keeping the relationship “exclusive”. You might not like the person “that way” but if you do, it should not be to the girl’s advantage that she raised the matter first. The Whisperer’s submission is that you do not lose respect for the person who dared tell you she “liked” you. It is a fact of life, people caring for each other, and the man who feels uneasy about being told this should submit himself to therapy. People like people. And sometimes we have an uncontrollable urge to tell them so before we lose the moment. Carpe Diem. I think I spent my entire life looking for Betty Cooper and I must have found her several times in different people when I was in my teens. People are so beautiful at that age, untainted by life’s vagaries and bitter experiences.

For many reasons, Veronica Lodge is never short of the attention of men. She comes from a wealthy background, is self-assured and used to having her wishes met at every turn. She is also not as openly affectionate as one might desire. Unrequited love does it for many people. Not so for the Whisperer. You had better be loving me at the same time. Life is short and I no longer have the time for people who give love as if it is a currency that you cannot spend.

The self-effacing Betty Cooper will always run into trouble. Sometimes you should stand up for what you want, for what you believe in. Ask for the moon and get it, is what i have heard. When we do not speak up, things tend to pass us by. The Whisperer loves women, it is the only reason this column has gone on for three years. It is not an untoward interest in the opposite gender (well, not always) but a wholesome love for the female form. For the way their minds work, for their beauty, their intelligence and their capabilities.

The world would be a more beautiful place if all communities were like Riverdale, but that is an impossible task. I will try my best to make my immediate surroundings a place of calmness, a place of beauty, and hope that others try to do the same with their spaces too.

It really is a wonderful world, when we allow it to be.


Wole Oguntokun

The V. Monologues v. The Tarzan Monologues - The Ultimate Face-Off, Wole Oguntokun, Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, Hafsat Abiola-Costello

Broadcasting Legend Adesua Onyenokwe, Wole Oguntokun and Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction Winner Chimamanda Adichie take time out for pictures after the 6pm maiden performance of the V Monologues v. The Tarzan Monologues. Professor Wole Soyinka was in attendance at the 3pm show.

The Ultimate Face-Off - Chimamanda Adichie and Wole Oguntokun iron out issues after the premiere of the V Monologues v The Tarzan Monologues.

Ego, Adunni and Bimbo Manuel stop for a chat before rehearsals at laspapi's offices a.k.a. The Play Station

Rehearsals. Ireti Doyle, Carol King and Kate Henshaw strut their stuff.

Kate Henshaw-Nuttall takes on the responsibility of "Mama Put" after the premiere of the Face-Off @ Terra. Night time- March 7, 2010

The Peter Pan Factor

The Girl Whisperer

as published in the Sunday Guardian

of February 14, 2010

In many ways, I believe I bear a resemblance to the Walt Disney character, Peter Pan, based on the play, “The boy who wouldn’t grow up” written by J.M. Barrie. Peter Pan lived in Never Land with his friend, Tinker Bell, could fly where he wanted, time did not exist for him and he battled pirates all day long. Many men lived this life of adventure as children. Their tragedy is that adulthood comes and they no longer are able to find “Never Land”. I heard Kevin Costner on television say once, ‘when a man loses the child in him, he loses everything’.

An old secondary school mate came into my offices one day and saw a play-station console but couldn’t believe it was for me. I did not disabuse his mind. I suppose there are some of us who believe that because adulthood brings added responsibilities, we should live our lives like people who never found pleasure in looking at the clean sand at the ocean’s edge. For me, the world must always remain a place of beauty, a place where joys are strong and as simple as you can make them. I have not forgotten how to laugh even though I pay bills now and sometimes stare with hostility in confrontations with the tax men of this state government.

I told my friend, Adeola the Pharmacist, a few months ago how I felt about being Peter Pan. It is a unique place to be. The Whisperer still reads comic books, loves to play Wii and Play Station and plays actual football every Friday night in Ikoyi. By the way, if as a woman, you have ever said the reason you love a man is because he makes you laugh, you have a bit of Tinker Bell in you.

I do no talk of childish men in this article but of men who have not lost the child in them. I stare in wonder at little children when I see them; the incoherent babble they make that has so much meaning to their own ears, the spontaneous laughter that comes at seeing a bubble rise in the air, sheer happiness at life itself. You see two eight year-old boys walking along a road in deep conversation, one’s arm around the other’s shoulder. What is the conversation about? The stock exchange? A missing politician? No, they talk about life itself and its greatest pleasures- things such as loyalty, truth, honesty, genuine friendship. Children do not stab each other in the back; if they are your friends, they do not make snide remarks when you leave the room. They genuinely and totally believe in you, believe in love and in the world’s goodness. There are no attempts to second-guess you, no bid to intercept a move or some act of perfidy they might suspect. A child tells it like it is. “Adults” should too, and not hide treachery behind “diplomacy”. There are women who say the trouble with some men is that they refuse to grow up. If growing up means I forget how to laugh and become full of guile, I’ll leave “adulthood” to you.

Where did the inspiration for a Peter Pan article come from? The Whisperer is a playwright as well and produces plays weekly on Victoria Island. That itself is an indication of a Peter Pan state of mind. However, I write today because of a female (when have I not?). I lost contact with this one a long time ago but had written about her many times in the past. I liked to describe her as still waters, a female with such a calming effect on me, it appeared almost unnatural. However, she seemed to disappear off the face of the earth, vanishing completely without the faintest trace. I looked for her with ancient tools (word of mouth) and space-age tools (the internet) but not even google could show me where she was.

One day out of the blue, she sent mail to me. You must remember that nations had been built and destroyed in the time we had not seen each other, but that day, I put on my laptop and there she was asking how I’d been. We got talking (she was married and appeared quite happy in her situation) and we agreed that we’d meet for a coffee the next time I stopped by the country she now lived in. A couple of weeks ago, I went in pursuit of theatre lighting equipment to the United Kingdom and gave her a call to say I was around. We then fixed a day we would both be free to meet. That day, even though Manchester United and Arsenal were playing a football match, I knew nothing could stop me walking by “the still waters” and at least taking a glass of orange juice in some pub to catch up on old times.

What struck this Peter Pan when I met her was that she was no longer the twenty-two year old woman I remembered. She was a grown woman and mother and even as we sat over drinks, I could not quite fathom it. In retrospect and with “adult eyes”, you might ask, “What did you expect?” Would she have stayed the same forever? She had stayed the same actually, only she looked, well, older than a twenty-two year old. I suppose somewhere deep in all our minds is the deep-rooted belief that we have not changed since we were twenty-one or twenty-two and therein lies the danger of being a Peter Pan. Even though one must not lose the essence of youth which is the greatest elixir you may ever find, we must always remember to synchronise the passage of time with our situation. We must remember that our true natures might stay the same but our physicality changes. My friend that I met with again was still a very-good looking woman but she wasn’t Tinker Bell who never grew up, age-wise.

The people we love, sooner or later, will have grey hair, add a few pounds to their body weight, and be less active than you once remembered them to be. This is the truth about life but you can have the last laugh when as Peter Pan or Tinker Bell, you hold dear the memories you once shared, and you continue to love as time goes by.



laspapi@yahoo.com

Its unprecedented. February & March in the Theatre@Terra.

The Tarzan Monologues every Sunday in February.

The V. Monologues v. The Tarzan Monologues every Suday in March.

Directed by Wole Oguntokun

Time - 3pm and 6pm

Venue- Terra Kulture

Tickets - N2500

A Day in Gidi

Pic 1 - Disposing of the Waste Disposal Van - Lagos (Monday the 15th).Pic 2- The heatwave in Lagos forces a shower break. Pic 3 - Abuja's driving school. Pic 4 -Kola 'Kolabo' Krakue says farewell to Astro Turf after the game on Friday the 12th of February. He is now out of the country. Pic 5 - A sign outside St Dominic's Church on Herbert Macaulay Road, Yaba.

There is a place where luck and the fates cannot save you. It is a place where natural cunning and innate intelligence must be put to the ultimate test. Where even the most street-wise will come face-to-face with his or her own mortality.

It is The Waiting Room. And in all those seated there, only one will walk out alive.

Written and Directed by Wole Oguntokun
Venue: Theatre@Terra (Terra Kulture), Victoria Island
Dates: Every Sunday in January
Time: 3pm and 6pm
Tickets: N2500

PRESS RELEASE:
FARAFINA TRUST EDITORS’ WORKSHOP

Farafina Trust will be holding a three day editors’ workshop in Lagos, Nigeria, from March 15th till 17th 2010. Funded by TrustAfrica, Dakar, Senegal. The workshop will be facilitated by the former Senior Editor, Jonathan Cape, Random House Group, UK, Ellah Allfrey . Ellah is now a deputy editor at Granta. And one of the judges of Caine Prize.

Titles edited by Ellah Allfrey while at Random House include, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, Gods behaving Badly by Marie Phillips, and After Daybreak by Ben Shephard. She also edited Segun Afolabi’s A Life Elsewhere, Patrick Wilmot’s Seeing Double, Biyi Bamdele’s Burma Boy and a host of others.
Participation is limited to editors currently working in publishing houses in Nigeria Kenya and Uganda, who apply and are accepted.

To apply, send an e-mail to farafinatrust@kachifo.com

Your e-mail subject should read “Editors’ Workshop Application”

The body of the e-mail should contain the following:
1. Your personal CV
2. Information on your organization and the work you do
3. A brief paragraph about what you expect from the course

All material must be pasted or written in the body of the e-mail. Please do not include any attachments in your e-mail.

Applications with attachments will be automatically disqualified.

Deadline for submission is February 8, 2010. Only those accepted to the workshop will be notified by March 1, 2010.

Okey Adichie (07034981099)
Program Officer

The Girl Whisperer
as published by
The Sunday Guardian

Mortal Blows

The Whisperer is back in town after a holiday that allowed him look at the world again with fresh perspective. He did not go to a perfect place; just one in which, well, things happened differently. On my first day back in my country, I went to that place of starry-eyed internet providers with a branch office on Bode Thomas street, Surulere, to renew my subscription. I met with service so appalling from three different members of staff of the place, I knew the only reason they survived was because there is so little competition in their area of business. I had just returned to this service providers who make me pay monthly, ten times what those in the place I had just visited pay, and that other place has ten times the speed of access. I do not exaggerate. The only people who were showed courtesy as I sought to pay this exploitative sum for primordial services were the uniformed security guards and the very pregnant female who handled customer enquiries. Apparently no one else felt they needed to be polite to customers. Still, with that kind of service, the time will come when the mortal blow they have dealt their relationship with their clients will show how hard an effect it has taken. Yes, the Whisperer is still talking about relationships, even if it is between telephone companies and the paying public that sustains them.

So off I went, getting used to driving again after several weeks of clambering on trains and buses. My next stop was Victoria Island, to pay the cable company and then have my car washed at the end of the street close to Kuramo Beach. As I watched the fellow washing a 4 by 4 with one and half buckets of water and a plastic cup meant for drinking, I knew I was back in the land of drama. I was not disappointed when about four feet from me I watched a scenario so surreal, it could not have happened elsewhere apart from my land. A drunken cook, who the day before apparently “borrowed” his “master’s” mobile phone, came to drink the liquid fire they call alcohol sold at the beach, met up with a fellow he claimed to be his “brother” and then consorted with a prostitute introduced to him by this “brother”. By the time the liaison was over, the prostitute was richer not only by the money paid her, but also by the phone she had lifted off the cook. Now let me describe this cook to you- He was about five feet and three inches tall, very fair in complexion in a way that pays no compliments to very fair people, had a white t-shirt on that had a faint spattering of blood and had no shoes on. His “brother” was a fellow about six feet tall, dark as the sun in total eclipse and they called him “Osaz”. Osaz who was as drunk as a skunk as was the cook on the flammable stuff that passes for drink in that area, was screaming at his “brother”, the cook claiming he knew nothing of the missing phone. The interrogator was a quiet-looking well-dressed man; too well dressed for the area where we stood and who insisted the phone had to re-materialize. Osaz continued to express his defiance only a few feet from me, everyone else yelling as well, and from nowhere, the well-dressed man produced a pistol. Yes, that kind that perforates people if you stand in the general direction it is pointing. By this time, there were about twenty people gathered who were some of the most-evil looking people I had seen in a long while. The villains in the movies, “City of God” and the banned “District 9” had nothing on these ones. These scarred people with dead eyes watched the unfolding scenario calmly, and when the gun was produced, I noticed I was the only one who flinched amongst those gathered. All in a day’s work for these gentlemen. The fellow performing a miracle by washing my car with air instead of water didn’t even look to see what was happening though he could have touched the main actors with his sponge if he had stretched. Osaz stepped aside to save his teeth from turning to rubble when the phone-seeking gun producer tried to swipe him across the mouth with the butt of the pistol. For some reason, the main parties turned to me and began to report themselves. I tried to be calm as I listened. According to the gun man (who apparently was a sergeant in the Nigerian Police attached to the owner of the stolen phone), the owner of the phone had sent him to retrieve his stolen property that had passed into the hands of an unidentified lady-of-the-beach. The sergeant told me of the stupendous wealth of the phone owner and how he owned “almost three aeroplanes”. “Stinkingly (sic) rich”, he described him as he told me of the man’s businesses and where his offices were situated. I still cannot figure out why I was chosen to be a member of the jury in the proceedings. It might have had something to do with my cavalier-style hat but the long and short of it was that the phone was retrieved after threats, cajoling and the same gun pointed at the lady who had lightened the cook off the burden he carried.

But back to “mortal blows”. We all know of people we have loved despite all their shortcomings and limitations. There are many people we have given our hearts to, whom in truth, did not deserve the honour. Yet for reasons we have not always been able to justify, we have pressed on, loving unconditionally. Many would have asked us, “Are you just plain stupid? Can’t you see what he is doing to you? How he/she is taking advantage off you?” However, we are able to accept the person’s imperfections, which is as divine as love can get, I reckon.

We soldier on bravely, loving in spite of it all, gritting our teeth and accepting that love is not always perfect. The person we are with cannot believe his/her luck, being able to get away with sheer murder in situations other partners would have long walked away from. However, as is the case in human relations, the partner who has been able to get away with everything, forgets himself/herself and continues to push, until a mortal blow is dealt the relationship. The mortal blow is the one blow no relationship can come back from, no matter the amount of pleading by the party that has done wrong, or how hard the wronged party tries to forgive and forget. It is literally the straw that breaks the camel’s back and it is a line you cross without realising it. One day, the party that has accepted all the rubbish for so long simply cannot take anymore. You do not know how you get there, you just find yourself in that place where you know you do not have the capacity to be insulted any longer. It might take months or even years. But it will happen if one party takes the other for granted. It might be infidelity or abuse and I do not talk of physical abuse (no one should wait in that situation) but of the emotional degradations that attempt to decrease your self-worth. I write of that partner who does not give the respect that should be your right, who pushes until you have nowhere to turn and you finally look him or her in the eye and say “no more”.

I write this for those who have taken advantage of the love they have found and have abused it, imagining it will stay forever. Love will go if you do not nurture it and you will stare in astonishment when you see you have nothing where once you were Lord of everything.

We all have a tendency to forget ourselves when we find a good thing; and to think love is a right. Having another love you is a privilege and we must never forget this. For those of us who have dealt repeated blows on the relationships we have and have taken morbid delight in the resilience it has shown, a time will come when cracks and fissures will appear. And you will be unable to paint them over.

The Girl Whisperer
as published by
The Sunday Guardian

The Privilege

The Whisperer has had several adventures over the past few days. One of these was a plane trip to Europe that suddenly detoured and chose to fly to the Republic of Benin. No, it was not as a result of a hijack. That airline named after people who have had no intimacy with the opposite gender was my carrier and decided to fill up its fuel tanks in that neighbouring country because Nigeria was facing a fuel crisis for the umpteenth time. So the pilot announced the detour and assured us it would last for about forty-five minutes and away to Cotonou we went. Apparently the airstrip we landed in was unused to air planes of the size we were in as it took forever to fill up the tanks and then the issue of payment came up. The authorities at this “airport” refused to accept credit cards or any of the usual means of payment the airline used in regular airports. They insisted on cash, not pounds or Euros but American dollars. When the pilot and his crew magically produced the cash requested, the Beninois authorities refused it because they said the money bore those little security stamps Nigerian money lenders are so fond of putting on the notes to show genuineness. Apparently, once Nigerians touch notes, something happens to the money.

Some passenger carrying cash “lent” unmarked notes to the airline and then came the issue of the calculation of the sum demanded and its equivalent in dollars. How did I know all this? An exasperated pilot kept announcing to us all how things were going. Once in a while, he would finish with the half serious-half pun utterance -”The wheels of progress grind slowly in West Africa”. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this.

After about four and half hours, in which we were not allowed to get off the plane, even though we were only fifteen minutes away from Lagos, and in which we were trapped in close quarters with squabbling kids and their irritable mothers, but in which thankfully the air conditioners stayed on, the plane took off from Benin, Europe-bound, at the time it should have been landing in Britain. The proximity of the passengers led to debates and name-calling among the passengers. People were torn as whom to blame- The Beninois airport authorities who had found their day in the sun and had stood for more than four hours between us and freedom? The embattled Nigerian government which could not supply aviation fuel to air planes? Or the airline that had been forced to show innovation by flying to a neighbouring country?

The time in limbo gave me time to reflect on happenings and one of these brought the title of my piece- The Privilege. The problem with this world, as I read somewhere, is not that we ask for too much but we are ready to settle for too little. The day we realise we are worthy of whatever good comes to us and that evil happenings and misfortunes are not as a result of some “karma” for something we did in another life, we'll have a flying start ahead of the rest of the pack.

You must see whomsoever you have a relationship with or intend to have one with, as someone you are bestowing a privilege on. The privilege of knowing you, of having first call on your time and emotions, of being allowed to spend time in your presence and the like. Same way you must understand it is a privilege that person is bestowing on you. How did I come about this philosophy? I received mail from a young woman who said she was interested in the theatre (some of you might know the Whisperer is a somewhat busy theatre producer as well) and I offered her a chance to see a rehearsal. I thought all was well with the world until I received one of the most annoying letters that have come my way in recent times. This female I had forgotten since our meeting, sent in an article she had written and wanted me to give an opinion on (which is as normal a request as a writer can get). The problem I had was with the addendum, in which she said she had a crush on the Whisperer which was now no more but we could be friends and she hoped there would be no hard feelings.

I answered her telling her she had been presumptuous in thinking that the fact she had a crush on the whisperer meant it would have resulted in a relationship if the crush had stayed. I thought it was amazing she had concluded that her liking me was enough to fuel a relationship if she so decided.

You do not assume because you feel like a relationship, every one else will jump in line to await your command. For those who do not see even their friendships as privileges, it is about time. If you do not place value on yourself, no one else will. Firstly, don't apologise for being intelligent, smart, good-looking, witty or any of the other pluses you might have. Do not demean yourself, or force your light to burn less bright because you are afraid you might eclipse the person you are with. What is the point of being in a relationship you are afraid to be yourself in? Let your confidence border on (but not quite be) megalomania. Be yourself, be real, and walk with your head high.

I consider my friendship a privilege, the same way I consider the friendships of those who are close to me, privileges. When you are allowed into the lives of others, you are privileged to do so. Do not sell yourself short in this regard and do not settle for less.

As the year careens towards its final month, remember you have a right to be here too and there is nothing the matter with blowing your own horn from time to time.