I often get the finer details of this story confused with Narcissus. For now, however, I have a clear head. I am going to see a play about a king who ruled in ancient times in Greece but it’s been modernised to move into the present day. That sounds fine and the actors are good. It should be interesting, at least.

There is a catch. The man I am going with is known secretly to his friends as “Oedipus” because of his very close attachment to his mother.

When he first asked me to accompany him, I thought he was joking. I thought he’d somehow discovered our nickname for him and was getting his own back.

He wasn’t. He was quite serious and had read great reviews of it, admired the actress in it and was very much looking forward to seeing it.

What do you say to that? I kept a straight face, said I was too, and wondered how I’d manage on the day.

You’ll probably have heard the name, Oedipus, the baby who, a prophet predicts, will grow up to kill his father, marry his mother and have children with her. It’s a grim story. His father does everything he can to avoid it all happening, but it still does. The moral of the story indicates that, no matter how hard you try, you can’t avoid your own destiny. I’m still on the fence about that. I believe in choices.

I’ve not come across any Oedipus-style stories in (my) real life, so I don’t need to dwell on ways to avoid it. What I have seen a  fair bit of, is adult boys – and girls – finding it hard to separate emotionally from a parent.

Freud provided the link between the Oedipus tale and what he saw in some of his patients who were trapped within this seemingly emotionally unbreakable bond. Ultimately, unless something changed, it prevented the patient from moving forward in their own life.

The idea is that, to have a fulfilling and reasonably contented life of your own, you need to build it yourself and make it happen. That means growing up, meeting someone you feel you can love and commit to and with whom you wish to bring up a family. (I accept that other lifestyle choices are available but I’m referring to a person who might have come to see me looking for that particular one.) And yet it’s sometimes very hard to make the break with the past.

The hope is that the ”ideal” parent will give their children the love and support that will let them fly off on their own. Or – think birds – if they have a chick that is a reluctant flyer, they might give them a gentle nudge to help them leave the nest and learn to fly solo.

But what happens when parents keep a stronger hold of their children than maybe they should? What if they’re so unknowingly invested in their role that they cannot bear to let go. Or what if the little person pays too much heed to those delicious expressions such as: “What would mummy do without her little helper?” or “Daddy’s little girl, whoever’s going to love you like I do?”

Such comments are of the moment; to be absorbed, enjoyed and barely remembered as the child takes the route to adulthood. It’s when they’re not that the problems can start.

My theatre companion was made Mother’s Little Helper when he was about 10. He had no awareness of what was happening and still doesn’t. Neither, I suspect, did his mother who was disappointed in her marriage. I don’t for a moment believe she did  this deliberately but it seemed as though she’d found a way to replace her disappointing husband with a marvellous son she’d made in the image of the man that she’d have liked in the first place. We’re not talking romantically here, just emotionally.

My friend never married – he got close to it once or twice, but it didn’t quite happened. He’s not spoken about it but I get the sense his mother had never entirely approved. With no significant other about, Mum would go on holiday with her boy and, when her husband – the boy’s father – died, she spent more and more time with this man, now grown well into middle age. I did sense resentment at times but I don’t think he had the strength to pull away. By that stage anyhow, there was no one about really to be drawn towards.

I remember the odd couple going to see the James Bond film in which M is dying and where the pair seem to cautiously acknowledge the deep bond between them. I think we, the audience, were right to connect that how Bond felt about the loss of M, was because she represented his own mother figure.  Not so my friend who thought the whole thing was ridiculous and far too psychological. “We didn’t enjoy it at all, did we Mother?” he asked.

I observed mother and son, a perfect mirror image of each other (maybe that’s where the confusion with the story of Narcissist came from) as they nodded in agreement while both completely failing to recognise the meaning in the film’s ending.They weren’t touched at all, almost quite the reverse, and didn’t see any connection between the content of the film and their own relationship. It was part comedy, mainly tragedy.

She’s gone now and he’s having to find other people with whom to go to the theatre. I’m lucky, I suppose. But I’m also sad he never got to have a “best beloved” of his own age. That would have been so much better.