There are some people who you’ll meet in your life and just naturally get on with. The instant you meet, an invisible rapport holds you together like glue and you find yourself talking and laughing past the night and into the morning. And every time you meet after that it is the same. No apprehension, just that zing. Once you’ve met these people, you find yourself unable to imagine your life without them in it and besides you don’t want to think about it because a life without them is just too unbearable a thought to entertain. Call them what you will these ‘clickers’, these cosmic twins, these soul mates, but just try and live without them. Try behaving like a normal, pragmatic adult because it’s nigh on impossible and instead you end up acting like an impetuous teenager with absolute no resolve and no control. An addict coming down, searching for his next hit, you constantly strive to fan the flame that rages whenever the two of you are together, for fear of it extinguishing itself. And you go to extreme lengths to keep in touch, making super human efforts because if you don’t you might lose them.

Compare these clickers to the slow burners in your life; the dependable, affectionate friends with whom you are on an even keel. The ones who make just as much effort as you do and who will drop everything to meet you when you need a hand or just fancy an impromptu drink. These slow burners bring with them a sense of calm, the feeling that you’re all right and in control. That you can rely on them for laughs or hugs or help. Yet for some reason, you don’t try as hard with these friends because you’re investing all your emotional cash on the clickers, and so you take them for granted.

And so “I think of how the person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member” and I wonder how it is that I’ve managed to accumulate such a big collection of clickers. And how on earth my ever-dependable slow burners have put up with me all this time. Am I really such a weak-willed person, or is this just human nature?

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