The King compareth his own famously swift approach to companionship with a city too polite to simply ask for one
Good eventide once more, mine own subjects of this modern age! I have this week been reading of a most curious affliction sweeping thy great city of London, and I confess, as a man who never once in his life struggled to make an acquaintance, I find myself utterly bewildered.
Of the Grave Difficulty of Simply Asking
It seems, good people, that grown men and women of thy London cannot bring themselves to ask another soul plainly, “Wilt thou be my friend?” Nay, they must instead say “we should get a drink,” a phrase which, I am reliably informed, meaneth nothing whatsoever and is understood by all parties to mean nothing whatsoever, and yet is said constantly regardless. In my court, when I wished a man’s company, I simply commanded his presence. Admittedly this method occasionally ended in a beheading, but at the least there was never any confusion about whether we were truly going to have that drink.
Of Geography as the Great Destroyer of Bonds
I am told two Londoners may adore one another entirely, yet if one dwelleth in a place called Wimbledon and the other in a place called Hackney, the friendship is, in practice, finished entirely. Finished! I once maintained correspondence and considerable affection with a wife I had banished to an entirely different castle, and even that arrangement fared better than modern London’s tolerance for a friend who liveth merely across a river.
Of the Terrifying New Custom of the “Friendship Date”
Hearken to this, for it is my favourite jest of the entire tale: two adults now meet purposefully, as strangers, specifically to determine whether they might become friends, and this encounter unfolds exactly as a courtship doth, complete with the terrible question at its end, “shall we do this again,” to which neither party ever knows who must speak first. I married six times, good people, six, and I promise thee every single one of those courtships involved less anxious deliberation than what modern London apparently endures simply to acquire a companion for the pub.
Of the Group Message That Replaceth the Actual Group
I am told there exists now a scroll, visible upon a small glowing tablet, upon which eight friends may exchange pleasantries for eleven months entire without once occupying the same room together. Someone eventually proposeth supper. Three small pictures of an upturned thumb appear upon the scroll. The supper, I am reliably informed, never actually occurs. In my day, if I wished eight men to dine with me, I simply had eight places set, and if any man failed to appear, the consequences were significant and swiftly delivered.
Of the King’s Own Method, For Comparison
I never once struggled with this particular affliction, though I confess my own method carried certain structural advantages modern London may lack, namely a throne, an army, and the general understanding that declining my company was considered treason. When I wished a companion, I did not send an ambiguous message hoping to be understood. I simply declared a feast and watched who arrived swiftly and who arrived not at all, the latter group receiving my fullest attention thereafter.
Of My Final Royal Verdict on This Whole Sorry Business
Yet for all my mockery, good people, I confess a certain sympathy. Even a king who commanded armies and founded an entire Church out of sheer stubbornness found companionship a genuinely difficult business by the end, surrounded by courtiers who agreed with everything I said and told me nothing true. Perhaps modern London’s struggle is not so foreign to a king’s own experience after all. My advice, freely given: simply ask the fellow for a pint, and mean it when you say it, and do try not to require six calendars and a parliamentary act merely to enjoy each other’s company on a Tuesday. Full particulars of this tale, and the source from which I drew mine own royal mockery, live still at prat.uk.