They’re really not that into us

Aren’t you sick of people saying one thing and doing the exact opposite? We hate it in our politicians, our spouses, our banks, and we hate it in our public institutions. With that in mind, I'm going to start naming names by pointing out one specific institution that doesn't say what it means and mean what it says.

That would be COFA.

Does COFA think we’re too stupid to see what's really going on?

They invite residents to a series of swishy-la-la-kissy-kissy community meetings and reassure us that we don’t have to worry our purdy little heads over their big redevelopment, because all their construction access is going to come from the non-residential side of the campus.

There’s coffee and biscuits, even a few nice sarnies. Just one big COFA neighbourhood love-in really.

Then suddenly, on demolition’s eve, we’re told it was all some kind of group hallucination. They never said any such thing. Being simple village people with tin foil lining our hats, we must have imagined all the documentation contained in their development application, all the promises made at those schmoozy meetings.

And at that moment the epiphany strikes – they’re really not that into us.

Of course, COFA comes up with all these pathetically transparent excuses. You know, the kind that slack builders use to squirm out of finishing the half-done bathroom: “my-wife-got-run-over-by-the-lawnmower-and-her-head-fell-off-so-we-had-to-go-lie-still-on-a-beach-in-Bali,” and the like.

And you know what it feels like? Well, you feel like you’ve just been dorked. Like you’re one of those poor sods who got taken by the bogus Nigerian Minister of Finance who would surely give you and your chosen charity squizillions if you’d just pass on your bank details.

You feel sort of ‘poked’, and not in a good way.

Perhaps the UNSW might call this some sort of inherent contradiction between the basic building blocks in the interface between non-market productive relationships.

Since we’re inconsequential village folk, we just call it telling porkies.