I was in a twenty-year relationship that I think I am happy is suddenly, at last, over. I am still good looking, fit, and at the pinnacle of my career as a Vice-secrétaire général of an NGO in Geneva. However, my soi disant Happy Few friend set is now icing me out and I have no clue how to find new friends, let alone a new paramour. And I don't have the means to maintain the lifestyle that I shared with my independently wealthy French-Lebanese ex-partner. I'm staying with an old friend now, a school-teacher, in his cramped apartment. I figured it's better to have company than rush into the modest rental I can now afford.
The extra drama is that I've been disinvited to my usual table at the Monaco Red Cross Gala on July 19. I still have my ticket but it's been made clear that I won't be welcomed by people I have considered my dear friends for over 2 decades, and in a few cases, longer.
OK, it's a party for ancient wax works, but it's been part of my usual summer routine for years, and the event still flies with the Geneva set who are important in my work. Usually we spent a week at another friend's house in Cap Ferrat for the Gala, then after, several days in Saint Trop for shits and giggles before heading to Gunilla's in Marbella or Sahir Erozan's in Bodrum. Yet now I haven't heard a peep from any of these former hosts.
It all started at the F1 Monte Carlo at the end of May, in the Ferrari hospitality tent. Naturally Jay Kay from Jamiroquai was there, as he's a car collector and racing aficionado. He happens to be an old social and party acquaintance of mine from my younger, wilder days, predating my fancy set. I was at the F1 with my partner and several of my friends (former friends). Someone suggested a nite cap at Jimmy'z, and Jay Kay and I were chatting up a couple of very beautiful working girls and boys, and then we were invited to a yacht and Jay Kay and I invited the hookers and whores along. Jay Kay thought it would be a hoot. But on the tinder the tone of the evening had already shifted, it got tense and louche at the same time, and soon people were aghast when my now ex- SLEPT with a gorgeous macho Moroccan with a real bruiser of a kickboxer face. Needless to say words were exchanged by everyone to everyone, scandal-scandal and harrumphing, and the upshot was by the dinner the next evening, I was blamed for the entire sordid affair for inviting the Riff Raf. And yet I had kept my dick in my trousers! And by Monday my relationship had imploded.
My ex has made it known that I have been judged déclassé. I wouldn't know because the others haven't spoken to me or responded to my texts. The irony of me, the vulgar one. I'm mostly a do gooder, mostly a clean lifestyle and I work full time in a real job, not like most of these (former!) friends of mine.
La Cerise sur le Gâteau? Jamiroquai are the performers at the Gala next month, and Jay Kay, MY FRIEND, is at their table, from which I've been exiled.
Long story short - any advice or insight you could share I'd appreciate. I'm sure some of you have faced similar dramas.