Location

Pompei

How to deal with that day of travelling when nobody likes each other

Travelling with friends
Icarus, crash-landed in the ancient Roman forum of Pompei, telling us it’s inadvisable to get too close to the sun.  Sculptures by Igor Mitoraj.

For good reason, travelling alone is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, it can, on occasion, seem preferable to travelling with a friend.

Travelling with a friend can stir up a whole set of small irritations that in normal circumstances would pass unnoticed. Imagine spending every waking, and non-waking moment with someone, more time than if you were in a relationship, every little friction intensifies. Happy interdependence heats up, until you realise you’re bound together and can’t escape. Or at least can’t escape without breaking an unspoken contract.

You entwine your plans around each other, because you love each other, and only later wonder why in this travel – which is supposed to be freeing – you feel trapped. Aren’t you having fun?

I’ve travelled alone, but not everybody has. Alone, with nobody else to please, I’m capable of walking around the central streets of a city for half an hour trying to decide where to have coffee and a croissant for breakfast (Modena). And that’s without anyone else to appease. That’s just taking in my desires for the right looking croissants, happy clientele, serving staff who smile. Coffee that smells good. A week of such behaviour and even my most loving friends are going to be going batty.

Expect the friction

DeepThought and the Circumvesuviana

In Italy, on the first Sunday of the month there’s free entry to the tourist sites of Pompei, Herculaneum and the scattered villas that Mt. Vesuvius buried with its volcanic spread of AD. 89.

DeepThought and I had been going crazy visiting places and seeing things. Neither of us are concerned by a 40-minute walk here or there, so we’d also done a lot of walking. Mostly searching for an elusive pizza restaurant with a chimney, but that’s another story (and all my fault).

Sunday morning, I overslept. We disagreed on the urgency of lunch. At the train station, acting out of habit, we got on the wrong train. On realising, we then got off the train, took another train back and then a third train to get to where we’d wanted to be. Finally at the station we were heading to, we became uncertain as to whether we were at the right station. There were no obvious signs to the mysterious villas, and this being lunch time on a Sunday there was nothing open and nobody about.

We started walking in a direction. The threat offered by the grey sky was no bluff. Only I had a coat. We began again, walking in a different direction. Changed our minds, and finally ended up at a cross roads where a small sign pointed down the road to a villa.

Since it was the first Sunday of November, in the ticket office there was a visitor book that one had to sign. I signed my name in all the boxes, recording DeepThought’s home city as a squiggle of my own name.

At Pompei, the rain would have been miserable, but although the villa wasn’t architecturally as exciting as anything we’d seen in the previous few days, it was at least mostly covered. This was something to be grateful for.

After viewing that villa, we walked along the road to the next villa (taking another wrong turn along the way). There was no path. And it was so late when we finally arrived that the villa was closed. Quiet.

Ravenous, I bought and consumed a large packet of chocolate brioche from an open supermarket.

Sicily and the loud house

It’s not such a different story from what happened only a month later, when, confined in a house with two Sicilian’s and not enough space I found myself angering at the slightest provocation. It felt like an impossible situation but it was simply a matter of too much all at once.

Sometimes it’s just not so easy to be having fun.

“But we’ve been friends forever.”

Sadly, it doesn’t matter how well intentioned the other person is. Neither Maria asking if I was alright, telling me that my happiness really mattered to her, nor DeepThought gritting his teeth and behaving with supreme English gentleman’s reserve was enough. It happens every time I travel with anyone.

And it’s not just me.

When I pull up my chair in a café or bar, and start listening to people who have travelled a lot, everyone seems to have stories to tell about travelling with friends. Home friends, that put up with our not being there and don’t let our never-ending supply of photos of sunny beaches grate on them too much, especially while they’re in the office on a Monday morning, are valued and precious creatures. These are people who know us by more than first impressions. And that mix of history and knowledge makes for an intimacy and belonging that lonely travellers long for.

And yet, everyone seems to have cautionary tales of mixing close friends and travel. I’ve witnessed enough exchanges of horror stories where one person ends up leaving the other in South Africa or India alone. Or two people have a spat and a breakdown in the supermarket, on a hostel floor, or in the middle of some tourist’s photo of the Arc De Triumph

Don’t waste your time blaming, plan space

I’m going to irritate anyone travelling with me.

I’m going to get crabby at some point as I wear out if they have too much time without a decent and whole chunk of solitary space to recover and rejuvenate. The least I can do is be upfront about it and encourage whomever I’m with to call me out on any sharp or snide comments that escape. It’s not personal.

Sometimes it seems like a waste of good time that you could spend together, to have days apart, to visit coffee shops alone, or endeavour to accomplish a lone 10km run. But space is what makes getting along possible. If I don’t read a book, write my diary and go for a walk or a run I’m insufferable.

I used to feel bad about not always being attentive. But now I know that in the long run, escaping a while is a kindness.

In the Bay of Naples, with DeepThought, when we arrived back at our apartment, I hid in the kitchen and cooked. Cooking is a great solace. An apartment offers more space than a hostel or hotel.

What to do if being alone scares you

Budapest. I’ve pushed Midget for days, forcing her beyond her comfort zone. Her feet ache from the walking I’ve made her do.

Budapest is big. It’s heavy and it’s dirty. The stunning buildings scream the richness of Vienna but look like Miss Havisham is in charge of the housework. Midget, quite frankly, had reached a point of enough.

So, she curled up on the bed and read a book.

And I went outside, not so far because when she’s feeling uncertain about things it’s not worth worrying her about where I might be. But I went outside, leaving her alone in our apartment, and I sat on a bench which she could have seen if she’d peered out her window, and I sat and sketched the parliament building.

And when she’d finished her book, she was ready to play again.

Don’t let intense emotions surprise you

“Which of us was crying?”

“I think it must have been me.”

“By the coffee shop by the metro station.”

“Yeah that’s right.” Understanding pause. “So where shall we go next?”

It’s just an acknowledgement of reality. You can’t keep up an illusion or pretence of perfection, which is itself a precious freedom. Travel isn’t about just exploring the scenery. It’s as much internal as external. When you travel with a friend you’re taking them on that journey with you. You’re going to have intense moments, deep conversations and as cliché as it is, you’ll change.

Laugh about how you’re going to get it wrong

So, if I were to give one piece of advice to any friends travelling together, it would be this, laugh at how you’re going to irritate the hell out of each other.

As one friend joked, on a particularly vexing afternoon: “At least being stuck with me is good practice for when you have children.”