James' Big Following

James' big following is a phenomenon that began during the GCSE years of Valentines High School whereby a number of people grew strange and often quite literal attachments to James' every move. Various theories and explanations for the cause of this have been put forward, but owing to the growing number of people that did this, it is indeed still a phenomenon that is both unexplained and significant.

Neil

Year 10 came to be a time of both social and educational integration of pupils from all sides of the year group. James and Zain were already becoming closely acquainted with a small circle of Raphael's friends that included a Tamil/Italian guy called Neil.

It was clear friendship was blossoming with Neil as they would frequent the swimming pool of Barkingside together and venture to Neil's house nearby for some chocolate fingers and playing video games. It was at this time that Neil had introduced James to the RPG classic 'Skyrim'.

The friendship would however take an uncomfortable turn that summer, many of James' school mates had noticed that Neil had become extremely close, frequently announcing how they were the bestest of friends and would kill for each other. Whilst James remained naive to this, a noticeable example would have been the time that James walked through Valentines Park on his way to the bus stop. Neil decided to follow despite living in the opposite direction, citing "best friends walk each other home" - James pacing ahead to free himself of this parasite left Neil trailing 10 feet or so behind. James decided to test whether the rumours were true and did a full circle on purpose, walking back towards school, Neil of course repeated the same loop exactly where James's footsteps had previously walked and continued to follow James.

Eronpal

It was around the same period of time as the Neil saga, that Eronpal, another friend from the same social circle had allied very closely with James. Even going as far as to scrutinise Neil for becoming too attached to James. The ordeal with Neil had been only a bittersweet introduction for James on what was to come, Eronpal would later be described by Raphael as 'James-Obsessed'.

Frequent scenarios would often involve Eronpal waiting afterschool for up to an hour or so for James to finish his detention or drama exam rehearsal. There he would stand by his lonesome at the classroom window looking in and often waggling his tongue across his plump chin like a pervert, despite only living 10 minutes from school! Once finished, Eronpal proceeded to demand that James walk home with Eronpal where they could chat about their school day. James would question why Eronpal would wait for him for so long - Eronpal often claimed he would be bored on his (short 10 minute) walk home...

That would only be the tip of the ice-berg, once they had finally parted ways, James would hop on his bus and within moments receive a message on his BBM from Eronpal - "Hi" or "Hey wuu2?". Growing frequently frustrated, James would not understand the need for a message so soon or a least a message that was so pointless considering they were together only moments earlier.

The pinnacle of this awkward friendship would be the deal the two of them had struck that once they complete secondary school, to jet off to Los Angeles and set up a nightclub known as 'Sounds' with the signature S. Eronpal was convinced that it was their destiny.

Karanveer

Towards the end of the saga of Neil and Eronpal and approaching the end of year 11. Karanveer had been a known individual by James since Year 7 when they had shared a room together on the Isle of Wight trip. Karanveer appeared to be a nice dude, happy to chat and they soon agreed to share numbers.

James appeared to have fell into the trap once again, within that very same weekend, a phone call, not a message this time had popped onto James's mobile phone screen. James stared at the screen but did not answer - "Hey man, how are you? :)". James, who had now grown wise but remained as kind reluctantly replied "Hey dude, I'm good, how are you doing? :)". Perhaps the most generic but most venomous beginning of yet another fairly uncomfortable friendship.

Karanveer most famously would have the habit to call James instead of messaging as the previous followers did, at one point during the summer of 2012, it was Karanveer calling James once a day for up to several weeks. James still wonders what new topics they could have spoken about, but Karanveer persisted, often repeating conversations about their 18th birthdays and going out clubbing for the first time.

Karanveer, unlike the others remains a close friend of James. They tend to frequent the pub together once a month, fortunately the phone calls have become less frequent but Karanveers maintains a strict schedule of having a phone conversation every Sunday evening.