We recently decided to convene in a bar not far from Old Street. Co-incidentally, my friend's colleague and good friend (let's call him Neil) was at the same bar. We invited him and a few of his cohorts to join us. The evening was going well, we'd ordered a few drinks, complained about our respective roles (including 2 Investment Bankers worried about job security, another consultant protesting his incessant travelling to regions of the UK that time forgot) and bemoaned our current situations, longing for a return to the relatively carefree life at Uni, all interspersed with various jibes and good-natured taunts.
After a few hours (and a few of Neil's group had left) there were only a handful of us left and the tone had quietened somewhat. The conversation (naturally?) turned to sex and details of our latest conquests (I, being the gentleman that I am omitted details of my continued dealings with HR Beauty). There was the usual bravado regarding the speed with which women would fall at our feet and the "servicing" we gave them at our respective residences. It was at this point that Neil leant in and said, "The weirdest thing happened to me a few weeks back. I was with this girl that I've been seeing for a few months. I'd been out drinking with some friends, but arranged to stay at her place for the night. I wasn't wasted, but far from sober. I got back to hers and started going at it. However, this is where it gets weird, almost immediately; all I could thing of was finance". I gave him a look of disbelief and said "how do you mean, finance?” He said, "You know, finance, EBITDA, DCF, valuations, models, Excel. It totally put me off".
We roared with laughter. Realising he wouldn't be getting words of comfort/sympathy from us, he tried to save face. "I've been working crazy hours on my new project. It's an FS project and I've had to pick up the concepts lightening quick".
The excuse was inadequate. A friend of mine retorted "Bullshit mate, we're you even able to keep it up? Excel sheets, models and EBITDA aren't the kind of things that get me aroused or keep my little soldier awake".
What followed was over in half a second, but that was long enough to recognize it. Neil paused. His next words were drowned in our laughter. He tried his best to deny any hints that his manhood could fail him because of EBITDA figures, but we weren't buying it.
Neil is now known as "floppy EBIT".
