For some of us, our lives are guided – and hemmed in – by one overwhelming imperative: we must never let people down.
Not just a few friends and family members, but pretty much anyone who wants anything of us. Perhaps someone wants to see us again for supper. We kept them entertained and now they want more.
The problem is that we really don’t much like them – but we go anyway, because how could we not, next time and probably the twenty times after that. We give money to people we don’t trust, we stay up too late at parties we hate, we wind up on holiday with characters we have little in common with. We would feel a sense of obligation to someone…
