Opening Lines: Social media creates rivalries with strangers

Rival — the word comes from the Latin rivus, or a stream. Presumably keen rivalries began between people who shared a stream. One man’s fish-source is another man’s tannery drain.

Rivalry can often be one-sided. The person you’ve been competing with may not even know they’re your rival. It is after all 20 years since you saw them last and they’ve no doubt forgotten they once slagged off your runners in PE. (This is a hypothetical example of course. I was fine with what you said about my runners).

Rivals are no harm of course. Competition is essential for survival as it encourages us to perform better. Animals compete. Hyenas snarl at each other over bits of wildebeest. Stags clash antlers in the forest over who gets to be stuck in a rut. The winning stag gets to see his genes continue on. The loser goes around telling his friends “them does weren’t all great shakes anyway”. But in the animal kingdom, competitiveness is a matter of life and death; each bout is over quickly and forgotten. A jilted stag isn’t spending ages clicking next on an album of 120 wedding snaps of John and Joan Deer. A hungry hyena doesn’t have to see a dining-selfie of his rivals, maws-deep in the haunch of their still-breathing victim. Being a hyena he can at least laugh about it, keep calm and carrion.