Ibex Syndrome

I can't believe that I've never mentioned this but I suffer from a condition known as Ibex Syndrome. It is a truly debilitating sickness that can have devastating effects on personal relationships and seriously impair one's capacity to function in everyday society.

The best way to describe Ibex Syndrome is by way of an example that will also explain the origin of its name*:

I was in a restaurant and just as my friends and I were being shown to our table a young woman approached me and said, "I know this sounds like a weird question but if you could be any animal, what animal would you be?"

"An ibex," I replied without missing a beat.

"What the hell's an ibex," said the young woman to her friends as I wandered off, triumphant at having trumped her supposedly "weird" gambit with a suitably obscure response.

About twenty-seven seconds later it occurred to me that a very nice and attractive woman had singled me out in a packed London restaurant full of eligible bachelors and I had completely failed to capitalise on the opportunity to get friendly with her.

This, then, is Ibex Syndrome: the irresistible compulsion to sacrifice acceptance, popularity and even the possibility of romance for the sake of cracking a smartarse gag, the wilfully surreal or offensive genius of which is evident to nobody but you.

This is also known as the Groucho Marx Effect.

You may laugh but Ibex Syndrome can destroy lives or at least seriously hinder one's chances of making friends and getting laid. Honestly, there should be a charity or something, a telephone helpline perhaps, for the poor victims of this heinous condition who cannot help but render themselves unfit for interaction with their fellow humans.

* The term Ibex Syndrome having been coined by my friend, Sonja The Belly-Dancer, upon hearing this tale of woe.