Short Chat

He was suddenly popped up online yesterday evening. It has been a very long time since we last talked. I was hesitant to talk to him, because I had to do other things as well at home, but I wanted to know how he is doing and how is his family is doing. His English improved since last time, but he kept on sending short messages through the chatting program. He told me that his family is in Syria, they are attending a wedding of a relative who married a girl from Iraq and because of fear from the unstable situation in Iraq, they decided to organize the wedding in Syria. So my friend is alone at home.

When I asked him about his work and everything, he started cursing!! cursing his reality, cursing his life, cursing everything! Anyone can figure out that the guy is depressed, maybe because he misses his family, but I decided to discuss with him the reasons for his depression. He said "life is like slow death in northern Europe, because of the daily routine" He added "I don't have life, I am just f$%%^#$ "... "Go to work, go back home, study, taking care of family, wife...etc"... I felt frustration, even with the the way he was sending his short messages. I used to know him as a very hard working boy, he used to tear himself up of studying to get high grades in school. Such quality makes a person obsessive when dealing with some issues, especially if it related to future, career, position, status. In spite of that, I asked him if he should take a vacation and just be away for some time. He was vague with his answer, he only told me that he takes vacation like any other person, and that he was in Eastern Europe last year, and sent me a picture of him and his wife from that vacation.

However, there was something else going on with him. He is not only frustrated or depressed: distraction. Suddenly and while we were talking about a subject, he just sent me a link from youtube about some young woman in shorts and a t-shirt doing some crazy dancing while standing on a wooden table in a public place. I thought he was looking for self-amusement and that he wanted to share that with me.

It didn't last longer than few more minutes to tell him that I had to go and asked him to take care for himself. I promised him to be online very soon so we would talk for longer time.

Was he telling me the truth about routine as the main reason behind his feeling?