Archive for February, 2007

A friend in time saves nine (mistakes)

February 26, 2007 · Filed under Confusion, Dating, Friends, Girl to boy dictionary, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Relationships

A couple of days ago I was on the phone having a long chat with a female friend of mine who I’ve not had the pleasure of speaking to for a good couple of months. I caught her up on developments in my life (that took a while as you can imagine, thank goodness she rang me) right up to my new relationship and all of the details about how that was going. So she kindly decided to hit me with this bombshell:

“You’re not ready for that yet. For a complicated relationship, I mean. You need something a bit… simpler.”

To which my reply was “what do you mean by complicated?”

She said “Well… you’re just lonely. What you need is some sex, cuddles and someone to veg out on the sofa with twice a week. Oh, I don’t mean one-night-stands, you need a hassle-free relationship for a month or two. That’d sort you right out. Then you’d be ready.”

“Ready for what, precisely?” I replied trying to figure out where she was going with this whilst having an eerie feeling I knew exactly where she was going.

“Oh, you know, for the whole love, moving in, having babies thing. You’re rebounding, you feel lonely and normal enough to want a girl’s company but you are not ready to make a true commitment: particularly a complicated one. You’ve only been able to hold yourself together for the last month or so, let alone make decisions of that magnitude. You’re doing too much too quickly, you need to slow down. You’re not ready.”

“I’m not ready?” I replied with perhaps a touch too much sarcasm, “I feel ready.”

“Trust me. I’m your girlie with no vested interest: you’d be making a serious mistake going for a complex serious relationship at this time. You’ll hurt someone and that someone is probably going to be you. You sure you got enough in reserve yet to deal with that?”

Compromise time. I needed to think this all over, so I rashly promised “I’ll ring my Mum, run it by her and see what she says.”

“If you present it exactly like you did to me, I’ll bet you 50 euros payable next time you’re over that she’ll agree with me completely. 50 euros…” She paused briefly before continuing “… I’ve known you for a long time, so I’ll bet a further 50 euros that you’ll take the bet and lose.”

Of course, I took both the bets (don’t I ever learn?)

I was sitting on the sofa, thinking about what she’d said and the more I thought about it, the more sense it seemed to make. It was time to ring Mum. The phone rang. It was Mum. How do mothers just know when you need to speak to them? Oh, I understand what a coincidence is, but still – it did appear to be perfect timing: almost to the second.

I kept my promise to my female friend: I presented the facts (as I understood them) to my Mum in exactly the same way as I had to her. And Mum’s answer?

Her answer means I’m 100 euros down next time I’m on the continent. Either that, or I can spend the next five years avoiding Germany until she’s forgotten, but she didn’t forget the other bet with her that I lost either (despite the currency change: she helpfully converted Deutsche Marks to Euros for me in a handy e-mail reminder), so I’m probably screwed unless the Euro collapses. You’ve probably guessed that I’d be lost without female friends, they’re as close as I’ll ever get to having a girl-to-boy dictionary of my own.

The second opinion put my brain into ‘Spock mode’ where it calmly analyses the situation in a reasonably detached fashion. I even made a list of pros and cons to help visualise what was happening. Nope, they’re right, I’m wrong. I’ve missed being able to step back and view the big picture: it is a skill that I believe is all part of that great thing that we call “wisdom”. I lost this skill for several months, and even now it needed two separate opinions from outsiders before my mind was capable of putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 4 rather rather than 69.

Sometimes when you’re in a situation it is hard to step back. If you’re emotionally weaker than you normally are, it’s even harder. By speaking to someone I’d not spoken to for a long while and feeling good enough to be able to talk sensibly I received a gift that I would potentially have missed for weeks: a valid fresh perspective.

To be honest, all the evidence was already there given I’ve written this, this, this and this in the past weeks, I just failed to put it all together coherently.

——

I’m me again; that’s the scary bit on the road-to-recovery over with. I can afford to walk rather than run and besides which, you see a lot more when you’re walking because you have time to look around you. Time to stop and smell the roses.

Wood. Trees. Can’t see one for the other sometimes. Perhaps I need glasses.

Leave a comment »

Assumption in the wrong hands

February 24, 2007 · Filed under Confusion, Life, Love, Mind, Relationships

After talking about the curse of being able to read someone’s mind, I’ve thought of a curse that is much worse – and one that we can all do. Guess what someone’s thinking. Make assumptions. What’s the old saying? Assume makes an ass out of ‘u’ and me. The mind is an incredible generalisation engine (i.e., it’s an expert on assumptions). This is a good thing and a bad thing.

It is this incredible ability to generalise that ensures you can sit in chairs you’ve never seen before because you recognise the general concept of a chair. It’s this same skill that lets your mind build a complete picture, a belief, a feeling or a thought out of practically no information whatsoever. It just helpfully fills in the gaps spun together with whatever mood you are feeling and creates a complete story. And if you’re feeling a bit lonely or sad, then guess what kind of story you’re going to get? Yup. A sad love story.

Generally, I’m an optimist. My mind tends to look at the optimistic outcomes to situations, and thus I fill the gaps accordingly and help bring about my own happiness. But occasionally during times of particular emotional upheaval or just the odd day like today, I temporarily get a “pessimist’s society” one-day pass. Then my bad, bad mind does the rest and I’m convinced that every decision that I have made in the last week or so with regards to relationships and dating is fundamentally flawed. To make it worse, the two friends who were going to be here tonight had to cancel because of travel difficulties so I find myself with myself, wine, a word-processor and my blog – and we all know where that leads.

Of course, I’m smart enough to know that my general state of mind is the portion of my mind that is filling in the gaps, so I have a good night’s sleep and feel happier tomorrow life will suddenly seem a little more positive. These are precisely the ups and downs that are smoothed out with a good relationship: right now, I could do with company.

The mind is a dangerous machine in the wrong hands.

I think I just put the wrong hands on today.

Leave a comment »

Ever wanted to read someone’s mind?

February 22, 2007 · Filed under Life, Mind, Relationships

I’ll bet you have. Be it at work, or in a relationship, I’ll put money — cold hard money (non-sequentially serial numbered, used 20 dollar bills if that helps) — on the fact that there have been numerous moments in your life when you really, really wish you could have known what someone was really thinking as opposed to what they were saying.

But let’s consider for a moment, what would it be like to be able to read someone’s mind? And would you really want to? Would it be a curse, or a blessing? Suddenly, your life would be like the film Liar Liar in reverse: you’d hear the words from someone, but you’d know what they really thought before the brain-to-mouth translation hardware kicked in. Personally, that strikes me as a curse, not a blessing. My mind is a private place and my thoughts are mine – as a person, I get to choose what I share with others.

Let’s just look at just a handful of the thoughts I’ve had today about people that I’m delighted that they were not aware of: I’ve clocked several very cute bottoms, I’ve stared at a couple of fantastic cleavages, I’ve thought several people were being idiots but kept it to myself and I’ve had “impure” thoughts about two members of the opposite sex (a complete mental undressing and position analysis in the case of one).

My brain has a specific department that filters thoughts into several categories: those that must never be said, those that can be said with adjustments and those that can be said verbatim without alteration. I’ve known people who simply don’t have this department; and it doesn’t allow for much wisdom to be accumulated as you’re always too busy saying words without thinking of the consequences of those words: no listen, no learn.

The only place any of us have true privacy is in our own minds.

Treasure it. Think something naughty now — safe in the knowledge that no-one can ever know what you thought. Go on, treat yourself…

Comments (3) »

Saying goodbye to people you didn’t even know

February 22, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Girl to boy dictionary, Internet Dating, Life, Love, Relationships

So as I said the other day, I’ve set my profile to invisible on the internet dating site since I’m no longer sure that I am single any more.

This has made the last two days mighty odd: I have had to say goodbye to people I didn’t even get to know properly – and I’ve found myself regretting not getting to know some of them a touch more. By some, I don’t mean a huge number – I mean two. Apparently, over 50 people added me to their favourites list and I had conversations with waaaay less than half of those, some of which lasted one message, some of which lasted several. One of which ended in a phone number – and I’m dating her (I think! Early days, but so far, so good :-)). I said goodbye and thank-you to everyone I was talking to because for better or worse, I believe it is polite and the “right thing” to do. Some of them got a few lines, some of them got a vast letter. It was the two who received a vast letter that have been hard to let go of.

For some odd reason that I’m pretty sure a therapist would have a field day over, this has troubled me. I didn’t have to say goodbye to any of them, technically. I mean, they didn’t know I was dating someone again and it’s not as if I’ve passed the “threshold of no return” (sex, if you want a translation), so surely I could have flirted with them all a bit more and seen what happens? Isn’t that the point of internet dating? But no. I’ve got this conscience thing (goddammit) that tells me that they ought to know the truth – regardless of whether it’s going to work out for me or not; but therein lies the complexity. I’d love to get to know the other two more, but it would be for all of the wrong reasons of which the two most obvious are:

  1. I’d be comparing. Did I choose wisely with the date I made, or should I have chosen differently?
  2. Surely I could just be friends? I could say “let’s just chat as friends” until I’m blue in the face, but the above negates any plausibility in that – hell, even I don’t believe I could do it. I’ve had (and still have) friendship-only relationships with females (yes, it can be possible, gents), but it strikes me that a dating site is the wrong place to start such a friendship, after all, it’s a dating site, not a meet-some-friends site.

So where is my Miss Right? Am I dating her now? Did I walk by her today without knowing? Is she thousands of miles away from me right now? Have I just let her slip through my fingertips on the dating site? Life is full of questions and the funny thing is, the simpler the question is to phrase and the fewer words it uses, the harder it appears to answer.

So come on ladies – what would you have expected a man to do in this situation? Think of this as helping me with my girl-to-boy dictionary.

One of these days, I’ll write a book all about love – if only to illustrate just how little I understand about it. It’d be a cracker – 75,000 words just to say “nope, I don’t get it, do you?”. Anyone got a suggestion for the title?

Leave a comment »

What is important to you?

February 21, 2007 · Filed under Confusion, Dating, Life, Love, Relationships

And I mean really important. Not the little things like “having a nice day” but the big, whopping vast things like not growing old alone, or having children. I figure that by the time I finally pop my clogs, I’ll have spent approximately a quarter of my life working, a shade over half the remaining three quarters sleeping and the rest is mine. That means that 37.5% of my life will be mine to do with what I wish. If I make it until my 90s or even further (come on medical science, I need you) then that becomes a tad more; but certain decisions can’t be made at that stage. Who would want an 80 year old father?

Clearly since a good chunk of my life will be spent at work, I might as well enjoy that too (and I do, so that’s OK); but it’s my time I’m worried about. It’s my options I don’t want to see closed. Tonight’s feature presentation is about me, all me and nothing but me. I call this my selfish hour: you should have one too – I recommend wine, some Doritos and a variety of delicious dips as the surrounding accessories. If you smoke as I (sadly) do, empty your ashtray in preparation. You will also need a sheet of paper (maybe more, it depends on just how selfish you can be!) and a pen. Now write down the things that really, really mean something to you: the stuff that makes life worth living. Whilst you’re at it, knock out any of the “big questions” that you can’t answer yet. Come back when you’re done.

How big was your list?

Mine was fucking huge. Some of them I have (like a roof over my head, good friends and a career that I enjoy and find intellectually stimulating), some of them I don’t (love, someone to grow old with) and some of them I still don’t have the answer to. These are the “big questions” I mentioned above and to give you an example, one of mine was “Do I want children?”

So, do I want children?

Er… um… well, you’ve kinda put me on the spot here… you see, well… um… you know, I mean… I think… um… that’s a tough question… er… but, yes, but… no, and well… ask me again tomorrow.

And since tomorrow never comes because it’s always today, I’m secure in the knowledge that now isn’t the time I have to answer that. For me, no matter how many times I re-edit the list, the big thing is to grow old with someone who loves me and who I love in comfort and the big question is that of children. How do you keep a question like that open when you’re looking for the former? If your partner wants it, you may feel pressured into answering something you’re not ready to answer. If your partner does not want it then, well, that’s a question that has been answered for you: you’ve lost the choice.

I’ve tried to have children with a partner only once in my life, and needless to say, nothing happened (either I’m firing blanks, or we just didn’t do it often enough or try for long enough) and believe me, whilst I was trying, I wanted children bad.

Maybe it is one of those decisions that just needs to make itself (condom failure, forgot to take the pill, used the ‘random good fortune’ method of contraception, thought that pulling out in the nick of time would do it, etc.). It would be nice to have children. I’d get an excuse to play with train-sets and Lego again (which will be distressing if she’s a she rather than being a he, but there you go) and see the world through a child’s eyes again. Watch someone’s mind and personality develop from nothing into someone who could start a blog (not sure if my mother would be proud of these writings, though).

Besides which, I can fight off a cold in 24 hours. my weight remains a constant right-where-it-should-be regardless of what rubbish I pour down my throat, I am fit an healthy regardless of my lack of exercise — my DNA has advantages, you know.

Anyway, I’ll throw this open to comments and questions from my audience of two, karalina and dregina :-)

Comments (4) »

Technically, I am no longer single

February 21, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Life, Love, Relationships

Or at least I believe that to be the case – if you kiss someone (passionately) on two separate occasions more than 24 hours apart, then there is something there. Needless to say, for the benefit of my reader or two, my Internet Date was a roaring success. There were no major surprises: we both looked like our pictures said we did and we both had the interests that we’d claimed we had. Somehow, that seems like a good start.

We clicked. You know, in that “actually, I really fancy you” sort of way and it turns out that it was entirely mutual: relatively rare, very cool. This provides me with a smorgasbord of feelings ranging from excitement and eager anticipation through to a whole stack of concerns. I’m concerned if I’m doing the right thing. I’m concerned if I run the risk of hurting someone. I’m concerned that I’m getting involved too quickly. I’m concerned that only a couple of months back I’d have literally thrown my ex-girlfriend back into the house if she’d have changed her mind. It all seems quite quick, really.

To be utterly honest with you, all those concerns paled into insignificance in comparison to how happy I felt. It was like a huge amount of self-confidence had come back and I had met someone who could, potentially, turn out to be “the one”. Obviously I can’t possibly know that at this stage, but when you get to my age if there isn’t at least that possibility then it’s really just not worth the investment of time and emotion. Anyway, then she asked me if I was “ready for this”.

Well, I answered yes of course. Without hesitation.

Now, a few days later, I’ve started to think about my answer.

It’s a well known ‘fact’ that men only have enough blood to run either their brain or their sex organs, but not enough to run both at the same time. Now, exactly which part of my brain is the bit that’s washing me in “happy chemicals”? Is it the common-sense, yes-you-really-are-over-your-ex bit that got me into all my long-term relationships in the first place or is it the you-could-have-some-great-sex department? Now if it turned out to be the latter, I would be very disappointed in myself because as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the thing I worry most about is leaping in at Mach 10 into a serious relationship without stopping to think. Can I trust my brain yet?

I’m going to see where this all goes but perhaps I ought to stick the brakes on a bit; if it is going to turn out to be special, then there is time. Must… resist… urges…

I did the right thing on the dating site – hid my profile and told everyone I was seeing someone. I can’t date different women on different nights and I seem to only be able to direct my attention to one person at a time.

Arrrrg… why can’t life be simple.

Still, at least I’m smiling. :-)

Leave a comment »

Internet Dating: Oh my, oh my

February 17, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Internet Dating, Life, Relationships

Well, I just don’t know where to start. It all seems a little strange and odd and I’m going to have a darn good pop at explaining why (for the benefit of my reader or three :-)). Firstly, the girls get a lot of attention and not all of it is very nice. I can’t help but think that a large chunk of the blokes are just “fishing” for sex rather than a relationship. This means that as a “sincere customer” (if I can be allowed to describe myself that way) people seem to pay attention and think “Hmmm, is this guy for real?”. At least I can string a sentence together, and didn’t lie one little bit in my profile, so needless to say I’m getting some attention: and quite a lot of it trying to work out if there is something sneaky about me that I’ve not accidentally revealed yet (no, girls, there isn’t).

Anyway, it’s at this point in the story where I get all confused.

Call me old fashioned, but I’m used to flirting with and chatting up one woman at a time. If I went to a bar and simultaneously tried to start a relationship with ten girls at once, how long would it be until one of them slapped me? 1 second? 10 seconds? Would I be beaten senseless? I’m used to directing my attention towards one person at a time and here I find myself dealing with lots of people at once and feeling guilty about it. Now that I’ve found someone to have a date with, I feel like the right thing to do is to put everyone else in a “holding pattern” until I know where this one is going. Oh, and I don’t mean ignoring people, I just mean talking with them rather than turning the flirt-o-meter right up to its 11 setting.

I realise, however, that if I do this one-at-a-time then I’m going to be Internet Dating for an awful long time. Maybe this is why speed dating doesn’t appeal to me, it’s the parallelism that seems weird – flirting with lots of people at once and none of them knowing who else you’re flirting with or what you’re saying. It feels like a multi-affair without the sex. So, yet again, I find myself wishing I could just lighten up and work with it rather than against it.

Still, time is one thing that I do have along with at least some dignity (for the time being, anyway…)

Anyway, date-night tonight. I’d better attempt to make myself resemble a human being: and perhaps just one small whisky before I go out to calm the nerves *shakes nervously*

Comments (1) »

And finally… The Grammar Police

February 15, 2007 · Filed under And finally, Chat, Dating, Drunken Ramblings, Rants, Relationships

An interesting thing has happened in the last twenty years. Maybe it’s just me getting older and seeing a generation gap from the other side, but I’d say that the quality of sentences and grammar has dropped dramatically. Now, I make no ‘ivory towers’ claim here to be perfect — I’m sure some of you can point out the odd comma I’ve screwed up, a verb or tense I’ve used incorrectly or just a poorly constructed sentence or three. But there are some things I object to: and I blame mobile phones. Text speak. Or “txt spk” (it makes me shudder). Ok, on a mobile phone, you’ve got at least an excuse to say “how r u”. If you, like me, can’t figure out predictive T9 or whatever it’s called then you’re going to abbreviate the odd thing or two.

But when you’ve got a whole keyboard in front of you complete with buttons for letters, numbers AND punctuation, surely you should use them? Here’s a sure-fire way to stop any form of internet conversation with me:

“wot r u like lol lol lol”

Er, and the correct response is what? “ROFL?” “Rofflecopters?” “Cheers, bye?”. Laziness in communication creates misunderstandings. Misunderstandings rarely stand out as the great points in history where things got dramatically better all of a sudden.

Words. Sentences. Grammar. Punctuation. These things and more are things I look for when I meet someone new. I just know this is all going to sound wrong, but if we’re going to have a relationship, then we’re going to be communicating on a level well above “lol a/s/l ROFL!”. Somehow that isn’t going to cut it for humour, politics and general discussion about life, the universe and everything.

I think we should have a new national holiday: “Construct a complete sentence day”: everyone’s goal is to send a text message from their phone that consists of only complete sentences including all of the punctuation (especially the apostrophes). That day shall be tomorrow.

Oh, and I have a date at the weekend :-)

Now, no LOLs folks, but I may excuse the odd ROFL.

Comments (4) »

Signs a boy fancies you

February 14, 2007 · Filed under Chat, Dating, Drunken Ramblings, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Relationships

The title is an actual search term someone used that found my blog. Don’t know if it was any help, given my complete inability to figure out when a girl fancies me. I’m therefore not sure if I can be any help at all – but I’ll give it a shot from my perspective. I recognise that this is bolting the door after the horse has buggered off with regards to the person who searched, but still, it makes an interesting discussion point given how much wine I’ve drunk.

Let’s assume that we’re in a bar. Obviously, the process for me involves several steps. The first of which involves the visual appearance. I’ve given some of my impressions as to what attracts me at “first glance” but that’s the initial ticket (cute smile, friendly face, cute bottom = good). Usually, I’d then try for an “extended glance” — try and catch your eye contact and hold it for longer than would be normal for just “looking around”. Several discrete looks later I’m trying to establish if you’re looking at me in the same way: holding the glances for longer than is strictly necessary. This is my first give-up point, if there is such a phrase – so if you’re playing hard to get by ignoring me, I’m waaaay to simple to understand that game, I’ll just think I’m annoying you and take nine steps back.

Depending on how much I’ve drunk, one of two things is now going to happen: the shy option or the bold option. If I’m still sober, then I’ll attempt the “synchronised toilet trip/drinks refill” classic – you go to the bar, I go to the bar. Or, I try and bump into you either on the way to or from the facilities. Either way, I get to verify whether our extended stares can turn into a conversation. The bold option is to go right up to you and introduce myself at flirt-factor 5, Mr Sulu (and step on it). For some odd reason I’ve never adequately come up for an explanation for, this is easier abroad than in my own country.

The conversation is stage 2: intellectual match. Now, my ability to do this effectively clearly depends on the amount I’ve had to drunk, but regardless, I can tell the difference between “idle chit-chat that’s going no-where” and “an intellectual connection”. If we go for the latter, then I will start making a super-special effort; especially if eye contact is good. I’ve learnt from lessons over a decade ago that I’m pretty poor at spotting when the fairer sex fancies me, but I at least did learn something from that experience: so I know a few things I can look for (it’s still usually a complete surprise when it happens).

So we’re talking. This now gives me an excuse to slide over to your table to say hello, perhaps include you in the next round, and generally see how things go. Either way, it’s a case of exploring in random directions and seeing what happens: it has been a long, long time since I’ve done all this and it looks increasingly likely that it’ll all be coming back to me real soon. If we end up swapping phone numbers or e-mail addresses (and yours turns out to be real rather than fake :-), then, well, who knows?

So girls: it is extended eye contact combined with the sneaky top-to-bottom body-scan that will clue you in to the first signs that he thinks you’re kinda cute, but honestly, you are much more in control of these situations than the male is :-)

Perhaps things would indeed be simpler if we could just go back to the old times as karalina kidded the other day: Me Tarzan, you Jane, let’s fuck. (or, better still, let’s see it the other way around girls :-))

Comments (4) »

I feel good

February 14, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Drunken Ramblings, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Love, Relationships

What a strange evening. After going through Christmas and New Year feeling sad and lonely, the only other day I feared was today – Valentine’s Day. And yet I’m fine. Absolutely fine. I decided early on that I’d crack open a nice bottle of wine, chit-chat to people on the phone and MSN and generally relax. And you know what? That’s exactly what I’m doing and I’m smiling and feeling exceptionally up-beat. I’ve no idea why – I feared this ‘milestone’ greatly; a valentine’s day alone, how sad is that?

How strange. I guess it means that I have indeed fallen out of love with my ex, which I’m quite surprised about, frankly. After so many years together, I expected it to take so much longer. Fortunately, I took my friend’s and family’s advice and went to Italy. I still can’t describe the difference that trip made to my life — I quite literally came back a different man. From crying my way from England to Italy, to grinning my way back to London all in the space of a week. Incredible. Sometimes, your brain just needs a royal kick in the arse in order to make it start operating normally again.

Still: being able to fall out of love with someone so quickly was alarming and did make me think. What situation was present in her mind all that time ago that allowed that to happen for her? I refuse to dwell on it beyond making the observation, but it does add evidence to the ‘relationships are a work in progress’ pile: you gotta keep working at it, gotta communicate effectively and gotta know how to deal with the inevitable ups and downs (or conflicts, as Tim put it yesterday).

I’ve got much to do tonight. The Internet Dating is going surprisingly well, at this rate, I’ll actually have a date within the next week. How weird is that? I have to admit, I am both nervous, excited and kinda quivering about the whole thing — new experiences, and all that.

Oh, and as a completely irrelevant aside, a friend of mine is a commercial airline pilot and he keeps saying “given what makes you laugh, you really ought to get the CD of David Gunson’s What goes up must come down. Anyway, as part of my “enhance thine CD collection to avoid embarrassment” program, I ordered it at the same time as a pile of music (all of which did indeed turn up today – thank-you Amazon!). Anyway, it’s quite old, but it is definitely worth a listen if you have a few quid to spare and have a British sense of humour, (whatever that is) in that there are a lot of “in jokes” for those of us who happen to be English :-) Anyway, I must thank my friend – and ask for a free flight at the same time (it has never worked before, but hell, you don’t get if you don’t ask, eh?)

Have a fine Valentine’s Day, wherever you are.

Leave a comment »

Valentine’s day: In case you hadn’t noticed…

February 13, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Girl to boy dictionary, Internet Dating, Relationships

… is tomorrow. Unless a miracle of incomprehensible proportions magically materialises out of thin-air on my doorstep in the next 24 hours, I’m going to be by myself. So just as a reminder for all you blokes out there, doing cute and lovely things isn’t just a one-day-affair :-)

I’ve decided to do the boring thing and spend the evening in with a bottle of fizzy wine (no, not champagne, that would be wasted on one!) and cheer myself up with the internet armed with MSN (you know where to find me :-)) and some of the music I ordered (which according to the nice chaps at Amazon, should turn up tomorrow: It had better, or I’m going to be real short of material).

Still, I have interesting news on the internet dating front. It appears to actually work!. So far, I’ve been contacted by a couple of people and even had one brief message-to-message exchange with one. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted, but it’s kinda exciting to be talking to new people… and… oh my word… the possibility of dating again after all these years!

Goodness… I’m all tingly with anticipation… and I’ve not finished writing my girl to boy dictionary yet!

Either way, it has been a good day. Perhaps I won’t be needing one of these after all.

Life is good. Cheers!

Leave a comment »

Girl to boy dictionary: The art of the subject change

February 12, 2007 · Filed under Confusion, Girl to boy dictionary, Girlfriends, Love, Rants, Relationships

”It has been said that a million monkeys with a million keyboards would, in time, produce the collective works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the internet, we know that is not true.”
– Robert Wilensky, from a speech at a 1996 conference

Someone had better pass me a banana… This blog of my mind’s strange content has been pouring onto the internet now for slightly over a week. I still have no idea if anyone other than karalina actually reads it. So please do say “hello, I do” if you do, even if it’s just a simple “hello”.

Anyway, today’s monkey-typing is brought to you by the colour “rose” and the number 1 (as in one bottle and one glass), so I expect my later post to be somewhat less comprehendible. Today is another girl-to-boy dictionary day. Oh, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I had a very strange relationship with a girl who we’ll call “Miss X” for the sake of this conversation.

I shall illustrate what our turbulent relationship was like with a typical example:

Me: Babe, sorry to be a pain, but it’s not really fair for you to invite all your friends over to my house without telling me, especially when we don’t live together.

Her: I’m fed up with the mess around here. Also, why don’t you return my calls to you when you’re at work?

Me: Er, well, I’m busy… I…

Her: And two weeks ago, we were at out and I was tired. I was dropping hints all night that I wanted to go and you ignored me.

Me: Well… I, I didn’t notice… You could have said something.

Her: Are you blind or something? I couldn’t have made it clearer if I’d screamed it in your face. And when I asked if you’d pick me up from work last week, you said no. I was so angry.

Me: But… you said that if I was still working it was ok? I didn’t realise it was so important.

Her: That’s the problem. You never realise what’s important.

Me: Sorry, babe. I’ll make an effort in future.

Her: And none of your friends like me.

Me: (Usually speechless at this point….)

Didya spot what happened? In one deft slight of hand, two week’s worth of her gripes came out, eliminated my very reasonable request completely and I ended up saying sorry for things that, well, really I didn’t need to say sorry for. What will she take away from that conversation? Not to invite her friends over without asking, or perhaps that she got a few things off her chest and sorted me out nice?

Well, here’s something about men (excuse the generalisation). We’re not the fantastic mental multi-taskers that you girls are. Furthermore, as I’ve said before, stuff that’s a few week’s old we can barely remember, let alone debate sensibly. Fine, if you need to think about it for a day or two, do so. It was wrong of Miss X to lie like a predator waiting for me to take one accidental step into the open plains before pouncing with a huge batch of utterly unrelated issues that she had. Everything was always about satisfying her – it was truly a relationship of one.

You’ll be amazed to hear that this went on for some time. Oh, I got better at turning the subject back round to the point, but that turned a comfortable conversation into an argument every time and that I was highly uncomfortable with. Oh, and we’re talking door-slamming glass throwing arguments, too, which scare the living daylights out of a softie like me. There were times that I was genuinely scared.

As a peacemaker, I am often the first to cave in the interests of a happy life. I know that this is wrong, chalk it onto my list of “personality defects”. I prefer discussion and debate over arguments: because arguments have winners and losers big-time, and after a few caves here and there, it was all too easy for her to get the impression that she was, in fact, always right. To this day, I’m sure that she’s convinced that she left me rather than the other way around.

With relationships, I believe that it’s not about winning and losing, it’s about the “greater good” – being happy, warm and comfortable with each other and that is not gonna happen if you’re at each other’s throats on a 24/7 basis. My mother once always had this piece of wisdom: “never go to bed on an argument”, advice that Miss X could have really benefited from. In the closing days of that relationship I was convinced she was lying in bed plotting and planning a new detailed set of rock-solid reasons as to why I was a poor excuse for a human being along with a brand spanking new list of things that I had to change about myself.

Love only really flies if you love everything about each other; and that includes the flaws – otherwise, how can you even consider the idea of spending the rest of your lives together? Oh, fine, yes – if not changing the bog roll bugs you or leaving my coffee mugs all over the house is becoming an irritation, tell me: I can deal with that. Those are simple things – but if I slip up, or forget a few times I expect gentle reminders not a verbal slap in the face.

I’m me. I’m always going to be me. I can tweak, but I cannot become a totally different person. It always (and still does) seem weird to me that she loved me for who I could become rather than who I was. And it was that, and that alone that eventually gave me the courage to say goodbye to her despite the fact that I loved her (oh, and the sex was so good too!).

How was that, for a monkey? Ooooo ooooo ooooo!

Comments (2) »

« Previous entries
Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.