This was published 1 year ago
My tropical holiday is striking a bum note with my friends
By Danny Katz
When informing others of my upcoming tropical holiday, most of my friends exude passive hostility, with comments like, “Lucky you” or “I wish I could escape my responsibilities”. How can I avoid triggering my jealousy-inclined friends?
M.W., Warragul, Vic
Credit: Simon Letch
A: Unfortunately, you’ve become a victim of the Traveller/Non-Traveller Schism. When someone is travelling to an amazingly exotic location and the rest of us aren’t travelling any further than the vet to pick up ointment for the dog’s impacted anal glands, it’s a painful reminder of our uninteresting, untravelly lives.
This is why your friends feel jealous: they’re thinking about you enjoying your tropical holiday and filling your days with sunshine and stimulation, while they’ll be winter-cold and nighttime-bored and stuck at work playing lap-lacrosse with two plastic spoons and a cough lozenge. They’re thinking about you trying fancy foodstuffs, drinking boozy beverages and immersing yourself in luxurious deliciousness, while they’ll be eating spag bol for five nights straight with a treat of white chocolate that was brown chocolate before it oxidised six months ago. They’re thinking about you lounging at the swim-up bar in a resort pool, having your feet massaged by a hunky underwater pedicurist named Putu, while the sexiest thing they’ll be doing all week is watching Nigella Lawson on TV greasing her ramekins.
Travellers always make Non-Travellers feel crappy about their lives, taunting us with their thrilling, Putu-pedicuring adventures. To avoid this, don’t make a big deal about your upcoming tropical holidays. Don’t post too many pics or updates while you’re away. And don’t tell endless travel stories when you get back, unless those travel stories are about missed flights, stolen passports, cyclonic weather or hotel gastro outbreaks. Non-Travellers love hearing Travellers’ gastro stories. We want to know every agonising, humiliating, toilet-weeping detail.
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