Peter Moore - Reticence: A great British quality or failure

Once I was busy going to friends’ weddings and christenings but now, as I get older, there are less weddings and christenings and rather more funerals. It can be depressing.

What I have also noticed is that people I knew well and I considered good friends I hardly knew at all. In the eulogies I hear things I wish I had known earlier.

Often my imposter syndrome kicks in. Why have I done so little compared to others? They may have had several successful careers or amazing hobbies. I feel guilty. 

At school I played rhythm guitar in a group, although today we would be called a band. I also played my acoustic guitar accompanying a folk duo. Spoiler alert – I wasn’t very good. The singer in our group and the folk duo remained a close friend. I was even best man at his wedding. Sadly he died a couple of years ago. At his funeral I heard that he had kept up his singing and had a fine voice. He sang solos in a local choir. I had no idea that a member of our group was actually talented. If he had a half decent guitar player accompanying him he might have had a career in music. He did end up as a very successful chemical engineer so probably did not regret his career choice. 

Is my ignorance of my friend’s success until it is too late a reflection of British self-deprecation?  One friend worked in America and found a marked cultural difference. If anyone said how well their children were doing at school my British friend played it down. The Americans were horrified. When anyone praised their kids they responded by saying “yea, he’s brilliant. He is going to be a lawyer or doctor”. But perhaps they do know more about everyone else’s success and do not have to wait until the funeral. 

When he made a tongue in cheek comment with a straight face everyone took him seriously. Do we use humour to avoid talking about ourselves? 

How much do I know about my friends and family? My father died when I was 19. During the war, he was evacuated from Dunkirk and later fought in Burma. He was seriously ill leading to a heart valve problem which is why he died young. I wish I could have discussed it with him, although it is unlikely that he would have wanted to talk about Burma. Many veterans did not. 

I am beginning to realise that, when I chat to friends, we talk about everything except ourselves. If one of my friends started saying, “Look at all the successes in my life. Did you know everything that I have done in my career” it would look bizarre. We would either take the Mickey or our eyes would glaze over. Boasting about success is not very British. 

Not only do we avoid talking about personal success or failure, we avoid talking about ourselves in any depth. For men the most common discussion is football or rugby. I would be unlikely to pour my heart out to a friend.  This is an area where women are far better than men. 

Sometimes missing other people’s emotions can be serious. When I was a junior doctor one of my colleagues was unhappy about her career choice. She had been pushed into medicine by ambitious parents but told me that she really wanted something else. She envied the secretaries but felt that a doctor could not suddenly stop her whole career and become a secretary. We all listened and gave reassuring advice until I heard the shattering news. She committed suicide. How did a group of junior doctors trained to listen to patients miss the fact that she was so severely depressed?  

If we all wrote our eulogies now and shared them around, we would cringe.  Perhaps I should just accept that there are many aspects of my friends’ lives I will not know until after they have gone?   It’s what they would have wanted.