so there's always one right?

one dickhead i mean...there isn't there, or is it just me?

so i'm at an ICF coaching conference in paris and it's good but hard going - i speak a wee bit of french and by wee, i mean very little, but i try my hardest as i'm keen not to offend the parisiens...i'll come to them later...as paris is truly one of my favourite places on the planet....

so i digress...i was talking about dickheads! well yesterday evening's opening i ended up sitting next to a great lady named julie (originally from minnesota but now married to a dutchman and living in the netherlands), a scot named marianne who lives in brighton and next to her was neil, an englishman, who from the get go had an attitude...

it's funny, as a coach and therapist, i often get a 'feeling' about someone long before there is any real evidence to support the feeling - well lastnight despite my jetlag (which has been WAY worse today) and feeling a bit like a fish out of water (i am one of only 3 aussies here, and there are not many native english speakers even though the official conference language is english), i got a sense about him - i had seen them (the scot and him know each other) in the drinks queue, tried to strike up a conversation, he didn't seem overly interested....so how bizarre when i turn around and see that he's just 2 seats down from me - i said hi, this time introduced myself and made light of how funny he should be sitting near to me...he didn't find this funny at all...

soooo the evening wears on, it's clear he doesn't really want to get to know anyone other than who he already knows - this is fine with me - fuck knows, i don't need to know yet another snobby brit...later on the program included some 'happy yoga' - not many people's thing judging from the crowd's reaction but he left the room and when he came back i asked him simply if 'happy yoga not for the brits?'....he clearly misunderstood my jibe at the happy yoga woman (i too wasn't overly into what she was trying to have us do)...so he gives me the look (you know the one you used to get from your mum when you were a kid and you did something wrong) and says 'how judgemental'....

i had to laugh, really...what a dickhead! so imagine my surprise when i run into marianne today at the morning tea break ( i missed the first, and apparently best, session of the day due to not being able to drag myself out of bed at what would have been 1.30am new york time) and we got talking, she asked how i was, i said good and that i hoped i hadn't offended neil as he seemed to misunderstand my little jibe...she said and i quote 'oh don't worry about him, he seems to piss a lot of people off and is quite arrogant'....she also said that 'with him, it's always about him'...which got me to wondering just how that might impact his ability to be a good coach....

so i guess really i had the last laugh....

so really it is true, there really is always one....the question that i find myself asking is, how come they have to sit near me?