Find, fuck, feel, forget it…

I’d like to tell a story, a small vignette about the dirtier side of life, and about how blind one can be and how easily fooled, even though one believes everything around them is in order.

In 2006, I was working at a financial stock analysis firm, where you didn't have to look far to see something illegal or something that clashed with perhaps still-existing moral norms. I could talk about the world of net 93,000 forints (which everyone knows about but no one mentions) and the rest being paid under the table, and generally about how in Hungary today, no contracts are made without bribes and private, tax-free agreements hammered out in one-on-one meetings. But I don't want to talk about that now; instead, I want to talk about the hidden lives of dear colleagues, the lives they lead day after day once they leave home. Husbands, fiancés, men in serious, long-term relationships, wives, mothers of multiple children, girlfriends – that is, us, who are on the hamster wheel 8-12 hours a day, 5 times a week, for an average of 210 days a year. People you spend more time with than your parents or friends, people whose faces you have to look at for most of your life, and women you spend far more time with than your girlfriend. This is true, regardless of where and how long you work, because the corporate structure, the types of people, and the situations are constant. This blog is written for the upper-middle class, and I hope it's not read much below that level. That's why what I'm writing here is specifically tailored to office and corporate life, and it's most true for this environment, but I have no doubt that it plays out similarly everywhere.

If one is lucky, they don't end up in a large multinational corporation where their soul truly belongs to the company, but rather get a job at a well-functioning private company with a maximum of 40-60 employees. Many things speak in favor of private companies; one of them is the private nature of so-called company parties. A lot happens at company parties, especially Christmas ones. It's not uncommon for a new receptionist to give a blowjob to a man considered a model father, or for a newly appointed investment fund manager colleague to sleep with a respectable family mother. Company parties act like a peculiar drug on people, because just think about it: our workplace is the most regulated part of our lives, where we spend a lot of time, and where fear and uncertainty are always in the air. When we leave this environment, but still see the same people, doused with unlimited alcohol, we get a chemical concoction that just needs a spark, and our hormonal Taliban will detonate. The waves of such a detonation usually affect our instincts the most, capable of sweeping away all social rules and our proudly proclaimed principles. Barriers break, and taboos fall, making us say words we can't utter from 8 AM to 6 PM, and do things we think about every single day. Like when the sales girl bends down for a bottle of mineral water on the bottom shelf, or simply sits down at the opposite desk in her suggestively short mini-skirt. Men in a sea of quality suits, with a stable background and existential security, which, as we know, most affects female instincts, and I don't need to elaborate on the effect of twenty-something fairies and well-maintained thirty-something women on men, especially not when a harridan awaits us at home every single damn day. These suppressed desires burst out of us at company parties, and the biggest taboos fall, and walls collapse that should never have...

These parties are funny, because for me, the whole thing is a huge contradiction. Who would want to look at the insidious faces of the same people they see every day in their free time? And it's a sure bet that at least 70% of colleagues get on your nerves. Because there's a predictable social order among people working in the same place, which can be summarized briefly as the guaranteed appearance of certain types, best depicted in the series The Office. Personally, my favorites are the women who haven't been laid in at least 10 years, resembling school librarians. No makeup, cardigan, simple hair, sour face. By the way, I understand these people. I mean, those who are in serious relationships, perhaps married, and do something stupid from time to time, because they also need to feel alive sometimes, even if only for hours or minutes. Being in a relationship eventually castrates the man and thoroughly shakes the woman's confidence in one of the most important areas: her femininity. A woman needs to feel attractive, to feel that there's still a man who wants her, because she wants to feel everything that only being with a man can give her, truly feeling like a woman. With the passage of time and years, she will feel this less and less, because after a while, the mutual desire fades, passionate sex and shared activities become less frequent. I've seen many truly capable and spirited guys bleed out on the field of relationships, because I believe that if a man lives in a relationship with a woman for an extended period, that man first gives up his dreams, then his individuality, and having pledged loyalty, he also loses the practice of the most ancient instinct – that of being the alpha male who can conquer as many women as possible, and through which he feels he is a dominant figure. You can protest against this, and you can argue with these ideas, saying it's not 1850, but let's never forget one thing. You can't go against basic instincts for long.

One time, the aforementioned corporate meeting took place at a gallery on Hajós Street, where, as usual, the same cliques formed that we were already used to back at the office. Women over 35 on the left, hating the good-looking women under 30, and although I never know what these women talk about, the phrase "look at that stinking little whore, how she's flaunting herself" is said at least 4 times a minute, for Christ's sake. In another clique, the top executives, with their yapping, promotion-seeking minions within earshot, naturally in a separate room, carefully hidden from the light, were the IT guys. So, everything happens just like in the office, neatly divided into groups of 3-7 people, only here there's some crossover after the sixth Unicum. I usually mark midnight as the time when the most interesting formations begin to appear, and men and women start talking to each other whom we couldn't have imagined even knew each other's names before. We had a 43-year-old woman who, it was known, if she took off her shoes and started dancing, it meant there was an opportunity, and whoever went to her first would take her home. I personally know of four people who did this. At the last party, her shoes came off again, but no one huddled around her anymore. She's still alone, as far as I know. No kids, even fewer boyfriends, so she bought a dog, you know, the usual story.

Back to the company party, two people who really shouldn't have gotten together did so at one of these corporate jamborees. From now on, they are Peti and Kata. Roughly speaking, Peti was an accountant at the company, his wedding was weeks before the party, and his wife was 3 months pregnant. Kata, whom to this day I don't know how she ended up at the party, because she had been fired two months earlier under unclear circumstances. She's at CIB now, if I'm not mistaken, but about her, she was a very good-looking woman despite being married for 7 years and having had two children. Now, this beautiful and legitimate couple got together at the party, but of course, no one knew about it... Only me... But how the hell did I find out?

One day, a few weeks after the party, Peti comes up to me and asks for a favor, and says that what he's about to tell me should be kept confidential. Right then I knew there was crap in the punch bowl, and I was about to be dragged into something shitty. At first, I thought he'd found a loophole in the system on how to defraud the company, and that I was needed for it, but unfortunately, it wasn't about that. He asked me to book a double room under my name at one of the Budapest hotels from Friday to Sunday. I stared at him like a fish and asked why he needed me for this. The little sneak was evasive and didn't want to explain, so I told him, "Listen, my friend. You're asking me to use my card, give my details for a 3-day stay at a Budapest hotel. Okay, that's perfectly fine, but you tell me immediately what you're doing there, because if you're planning something illegal, I wouldn't appreciate having the room reservation in my name." At this point, he broke down and told me he was going there with Kata for the weekend because they simply couldn't arrange their time together, and they didn't want to have to give their details anywhere. One word led to another, and among other things, I learned that he was lying to his pregnant wife at home, telling her he was going on a 3-day business trip to Vienna. But imagine this: packing a suitcase, leaving home with bags and everything, and going to screw that woman who, by the way, has two children at home, and she's playing a similar charade with her husband at home, obviously with her own packed suitcases. And why did he need me for this? Because with the card charge, it would be hard to explain what the hell they were doing at the Hotel Aquincum during the time they were supposed to be at a conference in Vienna. No trace, a perfect crime, three days of intense screwing. They did this every two months with my assistance, but they perfected this whole scam to such an extent that when they were done, the guy would go into the Mozart shop on Deák Ferenc Square and buy souvenir Austrian chocolates there, which he'd take home, like, "Here, my love, from Vienna with much love." Why there? Because it's not labeled in Hungarian... These are wonderful things, and no one at home suspects anything, or it's simply too painful to face it, I don't know.

Your husband is screwing someone else, your girlfriend is sucking someone else's dick, and a few hours later you get a goodnight kiss from them. Of course, many things can be behind infidelities and the dirtiest deceptions, and often no reason is needed, but I believe that infidelity is never the fault of the one who cheats, but rather the fault of the one who was cheated on, because they created circumstances around themselves, or shaped things in such a way that the thought of cheating crossed the other's mind. I don't know which path is right, but I see this whole relationship thing as a dead-end street. It simply can't work long-term. There's the critical second and seventh year, but even in between, the constant messing around continues. I won't start elaborating, because we live the same lives with the same problems, so you know what I'm talking about. There's no woman who can't be seduced, no matter how much she loves her boyfriend, because it's only a matter of time and persistence when you get a woman. There will always be a short skirt that ignites the imagination, and there will always be a guy who convinces you that he can give you what will make you feel special. Oh, you trust the other person. For once, ask your "partner" to check in on Facebook when you don't know where they are or where they might be...

Many people live in a non-existent world, behind facades. Don't let the false words of your immediate surroundings be your guide, because they only say what you want to hear, and this is true for everything. They don't hurt you because they "love" you, they don't tell you to "protect" you. If I say secrets that you are the last to know, because it's about you, because you suffer in the story, does the situation sound familiar? Or I'll go further, because which guy would dare to tell his girlfriend, "Listen, get it together, damn it, do you really have no self-criticism, how the hell do you look?" Just as a girl wouldn't tell her boyfriend, "You should have studied, you stinking peasant, and then we wouldn't have to live in poverty here while you do such a proletarian job."

"Did I get fat? No, you didn't. Does my beer belly bother you, and that I haven't seen my dick since 2003? You know I like bears." The lie factory works both ways. This is good for everything except inspiring you to move forward in life. The problems swept under the rug are not seen, but they are still there, and sooner or later we will stumble over them and fall flat on our faces. They make you believe you are good and talented. I don't know you, but I'm saying without seeing that who you are now sadly greets who you could truly be, because you settle for relative well-being. There is always better, always more, and this applies to your body, your quality of life, your relationships, and your work. Learn to fight for a higher quality of life, never settle for partial successes and insignificant results that are available to anyone. Did you graduate? Who cares? 4 billion people have done the same. Would that make you stand out from the crowd? Are you crying because of mediocrity? You'd have to achieve that first, my friend.

I'm not exactly sure where I was going with this anymore, but there's still one more question at the end...