Man-talk talked by two men talking in a place.

Ensconced in a comfortable chair, a drink sharing a table with my quietly drumming fingers, my face covered in an opaque layer of understanding and slightly frowning concern, I nod slowly and look across the same small table at Pete-mate. We were in a quiet pub last Saturday evening and as I watched Pete-mate’s earnestness soften, melt and dribble into the mould of self-loathing and guilt I silently prayed, ‘please don’t, just don’t Pete-mate, stop talking now or you’re going to blub, just stop talking please, like now would be good’.

I have known a few people who have expelled their entire myriad of emotions by overflowing quite regularly, and in women it’s heart rending of course, but easier to understand and cope with, sometimes it’s as simple as just 'ahhh'. But blokes? It’s difficult, almost tricky, I suppose I should be okay with it by now, it is 2010, but I’m not really. I think it’s probably my own fault that I ever have to witness such rawness, I insist on over-sympathising and you know how that works, it’s the worst thing to do with someone who is feeling vulnerable and emotional. I just can’t be the one to buck them up with a brisk slap round the face with a coldly sensible advice-fish; instead, I wallow right down beside them in their widening fetid pool of self-pity, and carelessly keep splashing them.

Wise sort of people are always gleefully prophesying that it, meaning anything vaguely enjoyable I presume, will all end in tears. Sometimes they’re wrong. I’ve had a relationship that all began with tears and just continued from there in a generally wet way, she saw everything through a pair of reddened eyes until the inevitable break-up where she didn’t cry at all. The arid irony, not even a faintly misty welling-up of relief.

Two Men Talking in a Tavern by Jean Charles Meissonier, son of the more famous Jean-Louis Ernest, shows how the evening should have been enjoyed in a more conventional way: jovial, wearing some tassels (a must) and everyone leaning at uncomfortable angles as if we’re on a boat. I’ve always appreciated Pete-mate’s simple straightforward bloke-approach to conversation and it generally follows a pattern: Melbourne, his job, Melbourne, the economy and how it affects him, Melbourne, politics and how it affects him, and sometimes Melbourne.

Being a social chameleon and a lazy one at that, if he wants to talk about the best place to have a meal in a certain south Australian city, the name of which escapes me at the moment, then I’m right there for him. But this quiet, heartfelt outpouring was something I hadn’t expected and wasn‘t prepared for, but here it was anyway, this time Pete-mate scuffed away the line we had clearly drawn for ourselves, and trampled all over our virgin ground-beyond. It was once such an un-blurred line, I think we can, and will, redraw it, just as distinct but moved forward by about twenty years. I’m not sure I’m completely happy about it, but who else can I blame other than myself, I could have told him, “Pete-mate, unless we start talking about cars within the next 30 seconds I’m going home.“

I didn’t of course, I just sat there, all acknowledging and ear-like, an unconventionally un-bearded campfire councillor at a man-retreat in some well-hugged woods, repeating ad infinitum and nauseam, “let it out, that’s it, let it all out.” Everything he wouldn’t say to his wife was let out, and from the same bag some revelations escaped, one called Sharon, that I still find difficult to assimilate, I was shaken, but I am as easily shaken as a wet lettuce leaf.

If you’ve read any of the previous things here, you’ll know. But if you haven‘t, Pete-mate is married to my sister-in-law, an absolute angel, and since their return to this country there’s been some fraughtness, which has been simmering under the surface, she is the younger sister of my wife, who I am distanced from, we have two children that keep us locked together, but not together, sister-in-law has no such children and Pete-mate has been somewhat wayward in the past, and from what he told me over a drink, still is apparently, she didn’t want to stay in Australia where they went to save their marriage in the first place, he did, she didn’t want him to, but he followed her back here anyway, hoping that things would improve between them, but now he wants to go back, she won’t, sister-in-law, who really is an absolute angel, has spoken too candidly to me over lunch, I wish she hadn’t, but she did, which shocked me hugely (again), I find some of what she said hard to believe, now that I know about Sharon, especially concerning a certain snake without a rattle, as far as I know she hasn’t told Mrs Stimp, who might or might not be surprised or even care if she was told anyway, Pete-mate is in a quandary, sister-in-law is at a crossroads, and in a nutshell, I am an innocent bysitter caught up in a tangled web of interactive information sharing and user-participation.

On a more savoury and uplifting note, the possibly excruciating one-man-sitting-in-a -pub-with-another-man-who-is-actually-crying situation was narrowly averted by Pete-mate rapidly turning sadness to anger and then to detachment and finally arriving with a fanfare and tumultuous applause at this week‘s upcoming test match. There was some harsh language along the way, but we got there eventually, panic over, well-done Pete-mate that was a close one. I was so relieved I bought him not only another drink but also a nice bag of crisps, good old cheese and onion; I wasn’t going to take the chance of it all kicking off again with a packet of those soured dream and chive flavoured prompts.