Late night at the water hole

I tend to make a point of not getting too close to the athletes I coach. It's always good to maintain some distance: not least because it gives you a) a sense of authority and b) a much cleaner conscience when you have to bite the bullet and do what's good for the team, not good for somebody's ego, or for their work ethic.

The other thing is that it stops them thinking of you as a friend. Don't get me wrong, I've had some good friends amongst those I've coached. But.... well men tend to be ok. They tend not to want to talk about their feelings much anyway. But girls... It's a fairly common occurrence following a big drunken celebration dinner to get someone whose thought process I suspect goes along the following path:

• I am so sad and full of relationship woe
• I want advice
• FinalsBlogger has always given me good advice
• FinalsBlogger seems very authoratitive (yes dear, about sport)
• I will ask FinalsBlogger for advice

Now this makes me sound like a heartless degenerate, which isn't the case. As it happens I do think I give good advice, and I will talk somebody down from a crisis. But it does strike me as slightly bizarre occasionally that young women gravitate to me with their relationship troubles. Especially when, in some scenarios, my first instinct is to shout Dump him! Dump him! and find the guy for the purposes of making it quite clear to him how much of a piece of worthless scum he is.

If it wasn't already clear, this made up a large part of my evening last night.

I also woke up with a rare and special hangover today (rare and special because I just don't get hungover, far too sensible about toast and gallons of water before bed: not because it was a hangover with sparkles).