Sept, 9th 2014
I’ve been travelling alone and not alone. In couple or with half strangers. With groups of friends and even with my whole family. So, I self-award the right to tell mankind how to go about finding the perfect partner and the perfect travel companion and who and what to avoid.
1 – The ‘funny guy’.
Sympathy is an overrated stuff. All the more so, in people who see it as a priority in the idea of themselves that they want to give to the world. The person who never misses an opportunity to make a ‘funny joke’, when at my side becomes a person who is likely to receive a punch (physical or metaphorical) at every step of the way. He/she will not allow travelmates to finish a speech without interrupting them with funny phrases (accompanied by self-laugh). He/she will probably say inappropriate things on passers because ‘who cares, nobody understands me’.
Maybe it’s a legacy of some traumatic school trips, but’d I kill for much less than this.
2 – Mind the ‘cat’
If the funny guy is no good for me, I’m comfortable with that kind of independent travelers that do whatever they want without the need of being accompained.They will tell you without great proclamations, that if you go with them in the museum they want to visit or to the beach that they chose, they’ll be happy and, if you don’t, they’ll be good as well. In some cases they will have the intellectual honesty to tell you they want to be alone for a few hours.
Many people may thimk this attitude is snobbish and unpleasant, but do not be fooled. This type of person accepts, in travel time, the moments of freedom of others, often knows how to be tolerant and will not blame you for any travel drawback.
This is not selfish people, but just … cattish.
3 – It’s a matter of wine
Consideration born by a conversation with a friend that could choose his life mate by the hand t in the act of holding a cup of wine.
Me, I simply believe that a person who drinks without toasting, who toasts without looking into your eyes, who pours to him/her self and not to others, shouldn’t have my same destination. Maybe he/she’s the nicest person in the world, but it is not careful. Perhaps is generous and end of the evening will pay for all and could in some ways be the companion of a lifetime (not mine, for sure …). But not of a journey, which is made of small shared moments.
4 – Fussy or not fussy, this is the question…
Let’s open the debate. There are those who need to organize EVERYTHING. Immediately. Destinations, tours, museums to see. Strange but true, I don’t believe they are the manifestation of evil. If such a person agrees to travel with someone who barely remembers what color is her suitcase and how to open it, as happens to many of us wandering girls, maybe that person is more reckless than what we believe.
And, let’s face it, sometimes this kind of travelmate is what we need to bring back our skin and ensure that the latter is not invaded by flea of some Uzbek jail.
It’s up to us to help our friends to look up from the guide and see a flight of a Falcon suddenly passing over us.
5 – Your double.
If you decided not to leave alone, maybe it’s because there is something more interesting than this elusive ‘yourself’ to meet. Someone too similar to us teaches us not, it gives us less alternatives to the way we do things.
Therefore your ‘double’, halves the journey
What is, in your opinion, the TravelMate to avoid?
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