Bah Humbug!

Valentines day is classed along with Christmas and New Year in my book and I say BAH HUMBUG to the lot of them!

Well that is until some lovely boy sends me flowers and or a card. This year I have nothing (although the post hadn’t been when I left home) so I will be in a fairly quiet mood all day long until I get home later tonight with a spark of hope in my heart that there might be something there for me. When there isn’t I shall be taking myself straight to bed to end the day as a bad lot!

My bad mood is exacerbated this year by my ‘single girl’s best friend’ (the electric blanket) - dying on me last night and the fact that the boy I live with has asked me not to come home too early as he is having a romantic meal in. Oh and Bad Mannered Boy claimed to adore me over the weekend. These are not the actions, or rather non actions, of a devoted boy…..

V-Day in the Life of Sister Louise

My Chatterbox couldn’t get a reservation at any of the restaurants to which he wanted to take me, so in the event, V-Day came a day early and we went to Hunan on the Pimlico Rd last night...

http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Restaurant/Hunan/8dc3/

It’s the sort of place where you try and wedge a napkin under the table leg to stop it wobbling and three waiters come to your rescue to do it for you. It’s rather like a large dinner party, in that there is no menu, you tell the chef what you don’t eat and a little of everything you do eat, lands on your table shortly afterwards…it was fun…and thoughtful as Chatterbox knows I have a fear of Menu decisions.

A card has just arrived from ‘My Secret Admirer’. Having been told to look out for the post however, he’s really my ‘Not So Secret Admirer’. But I can live with that.

Happy Valentine’s Day!! Tell us about yours!!

Manners

As a girl (surely I am still a girl – nearing 28 doesn’t make me a woman does it?!) struggling in the dating wilderness, I find that lack of manners are the worst thing to deal with. When I say manners I am not referring to the way a man holds his knife and fork or whether he holds doors open for me, in fact the door thing always makes me slightly awkward. No, I am referring more to time keeping and communications.

I respect all dating rules at the start of a relationship. For example, I am all too aware of the three day rule and that it can even, at a push, extend to five days. It’s a code that I can’t quite dispense with, (despite all the talk about not playing games) but sometimes men overstep the mark from following the rules of the game, to just plain old bad manners – which I just cannot abide! I know I sound like someone’s Grandmother, maybe even my own, but if I am waiting for a man to call when he said he would and he doesn’t, it drives me to distraction!

I think of myself as quite a self sufficient girl. When I am going out with someone I don’t expect to see or hear from them every day. Contact every other day and maybe seeing each other twice a week - or less, is fine. I also think I’m quite sensible about phone calls. I never call twice in a row and I apply the same restraint to texting. But if a man says he is going to do something, then I expect him to do it!

I am currently bemoaning the lack of manners in a man who I have finally started dating after years of flirty friendship. Apart from the fact that texts remain unanswered for days on end, he is constantly firming up arrangements really late. The other weekend, we arranged over the phone to go to dinner on Tuesday - we would firm up details nearer the time. Come Tuesday afternoon, I texted him and suggested a mutually convenient place to meet at eight o’clock. By seven o’clock I still hadn’t heard anything and my anger levels were beginning to simmer slightly. At seven thirty he finally texted to say he’d be there at eight. So I had to race around and get ready (boiling angry at this point). To top it off, he was then an hour late, leaving me alone in a pub. He texted to say he was running late just as I was about to leave the pub, giving me no option but to sit around and wait for him - charming! However, the evening was fantastic after that. We got on really well and when I mentioned that I would be meeting up with a mutual friend of ours, he asked if he could come along too. I said I would let him know what the plans were and duly texted him the day before to invite him. He never even replied. I heard from him two days after the event asking how it went and inviting me out that Saturday. I was so angry that I didn’t answer.

My thinking is that if a man behaves in this way he is just not keen. However, when I didn’t answer his texts I was then bombarded by texts from him. When I eventually agreed to go out with him again, he did the same thing as the last time and didn’t let me know what was going on until an hour before. Naturally, being a proud sort, I told him that as I hadn’t heard from him I had made other plans and then went home for a bath! I have now decided that this man is a waste of my time but the fact remains that whether I like someone or not I would never behave in this way. If I say I am going to do something I do it, or call someone in good time to say I can’t. Is this not simple manners?

Maybe it is the fact that my last boyfriend was equally ill–mannered that makes me particularly irritated by all this. He was constantly not turning up, or turning up hours late only to be severely put out when his dinner had gone in the bin or I had gone out. So, am I suffering from once bitten twice shy manners militancy or are manners in men really in steep decline?

Ice Ice Baby

My colleague has an injury, a damaged coccyx from tumbling down the stairs after one too many vinos. This morning, I found a rather dramatic way of putting her and the rest of the office out of their general misery. I shall recount in present time for effect.

At 9am, I receive a parcel from one of my clients. After tearing through the outer brown cardboard, I am presented with a large white box, sealed all the way round with brown gaffer tape. "How exciting!" I think and eagerly take a letter knife to the lid, levering it open to find a box full of ice. Brief thoughts of anthrax and terrorist activity pass through my mind, but I decide that I don't really fit the demographic profile of a "prime target" and therefore, the prize buried under this huge mound of ice, must be worth digging for. But how to get to it? The ice is so cold to the touch that it burns my fingers, so I plod over to the sink, tip the lot in and start running the hot tap… retrieving the treat - a tiny tub of ice-cream - from the bottom of the box before returning to my desk.

Believing my task to be satisfactorily completed, I am somewhat alarmed five minutes later when a fog starts to creep over the kitchen wall partition and leaves a trail like morning mist under my feet as it continues stealthily towards the back of the open plan office and under the MDs feet. At the same time, the office manager starts shrieking from behind the partition - the kitchen sink and pipes have frozen and she is frantically digging the ice back into the box with a spoon. Mental note. This is dry ice and apparently not the same as the stuff that one puts in their gin and tonic with a wedge of lime. It is made of Co2. I look up "dry ice" disposal methods on the internet…"keep in container and leave to sublimate…” (too late!) "don’t touch..." (how do we get it out of the sink then?) and "don't inhale... concentration in excess of 1.5% carbon dioxide may cause death. At higher concentrations, displaces oxygen in air below levels necessary to support life". I look through the haze enveloping the office, envision imprisonment for manslaughter of colleagues and decide that perhaps we should open a window.

"Signs/Symptoms Of Overexposure: At concentrations >1.5%: Hyperventilation/headaches/ dyspnoea/perspiration. At 6-10%: Headaches/dyspnoea/perspiration/tremors/visual disturbances. >10%: Unconsciousness w/out warning. Cryogenic burns".

My colleague says she can't breathe properly. I tell her (hopefully) that maybe it's like the gas they give to women in labour and that it will dull the pain from her damaged coccyx.

Am currently wrestling between the urge to play this at top volume in the office ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp-is6S_b_g or keep the necessary low profile.

All together now... "Ice, Ice..."

What's Knocking at Your Door?

There are things in life that we don’t talk about much, not to our best friends, our sisters, brothers, boyfriend, no one. We might touch on them occasionally when our tongues are loosened by alcohol and our façade is momentarily fractured, but generally we avoid discussion of them. I’m talking about secrets, oddities, weaknesses, fears... they form the rich tapestry of life, they make it interesting. They are the basis for a million blogs. The receptionist that shared a bath with the Managing Director, the troublesome eczema that’s really caused by obsessive hand washing, the infectious jollity of the girl who in reality gets a helping hand from ‘happy’ pills because she’s thought about topping herself one too many times. We know these scenarios exist, because they set tongues wagging and spread in hushed whispers across offices, homes, neighbourhoods, friends and families.

And these are just the physical manifestations of fear - worries that we’re on the right path, loving the right man, in the right job, being the right sort of person. The voices in our heads that tap, tap, tap away, pulling us in different directions, challenging us to check that we’re doing everything in our life that we should be doing.

I like my new boyfriend but every now and then, in a rewind, flashback moment, I think I’ll love KP for the rest of my life. I fight it every time the play button defects to rewind…I keep on pressing fast forward, fast forward please ...next frame, next scenario, move on. I fear not ever being able to move forward totally. To be one of those sad people…that you hear the carer in the old people’s home commenting on… “Oh yes, she’s on her own you know…never married or had children…I heard she had her heart broken once and never found anyone else”…

Tap…tap…tap….

Sisters Are Doing It To Themselves

Last Saturday night, I was out on the town with a few girlfriends and was faced with a typical teenage girl scenario which, seems to have continued well into our 20s and 30s – 'A' (let’s call her Jane) fancies 'B' (lets call him John) but doesn’t get a look in because 'C' (Jen) spends all night flirting with him and stealing his attention for herself. Except it’s more complicated than it was when we were teenagers - because Jen is married! When I was a shy teenage girl, extremely frustrated by this kind of behaviour in my friends, I had no idea that I would still have to endure it in adulthood. I assumed by this age that we’d all be married and looking after three or four children which hasn’t turned out to plan (thank goodness!) but evidently, from Saturday night’s events, being married doesn’t prevent this behaviour. We will always have insecurities no matter how old or ‘settled’ we are, and flirting with our friends’ man of choice or using some other method of winning a man’s affections over a friend, seems to be the best way to boost a girl's confidence. I’m not saying that we’re all fighting each other to win a man, or that we all secretly hate each other, as I don’t believe that in the slightest. I love my friends to bits and am equally certain that they feel the same (in fact I think my boyfriend is more jealous of my close female friendships than he is of other men!) I just think that maybe, after a little alcohol and male attention, girls can behave in a way that doesn’t help the general cause!

I have spent most of my life as the reliable single friend. You know the one? The one you can rely on to be single forever. I am always there as a shoulder to cry on when my friends have been dumped, I can be relied on for a night out on the pull, or a late night chin wag re. how hard it is to find a man even though we are such amazing girls!! So although my friends are happy that I have finally found myself a boyfriend, I know there is a bit of disappointment that I’m no longer dependably single! And I know I am absolutely capable of this resentment myself. I hate it when my best friends get boyfriends. Or that horrible feeling you get when they’re out on a date and you’re secretly hoping it doesn’t work out so they don’t suddenly disappear into blissful relationshipdom and abandon you!

So what is the answer to this dilemma? I can sit here and tell you that I think it should stop. We should no longer harbour any resentment towards our friends for finding men and leaving us; that Jen should stop flirting with John and do everything she can to support Jane. But it’s not that easy. We’re upset when our friends find men because we value their friendship so much we don’t want to lose it. And we’re jealous because, of course it is hard to see someone so close to you find the very thing that you are desperately searching for yourself. But then, when your very best friends find men, do they really leave you? I know mine are still there to talk when I’m upset about X not replying to my last text message for 48 minutes and does this mean he’s not interested etc. etc. In fact they enjoy the involvement in these trivial single incidents, as they themselves are a little upset to have given all that up for the secure, but less exciting life as part of a couple. I don’t know if there’s ever anything you can do to stop Jen flirting with John, but perhaps this is just a sign that married life isn’t the ideal state that we are all hoping for. These insecurities and need for attention will still be there, so perhaps we should accept them and cut Jen (who I have given rather a hard time here) a little slack!

The Perfect Partnership

There's someone I know my age who as a blue eyed, blonde haired, beautiful baby, a great job and, I had heard, a fantastic marriage. I admit to being slightly envious of her. Last night she told me that more than anything, she wants to spend the rest of her life with someone in a faithful, wonderful partnership, with beautiful children. She's just not sure that she picked the right person to do it with. So what do you do when you already have a child and the dream of being someone's life partner suddenly seems just that - a dream? Because she could leave, but then her family is already fractured. It's a difficult balance to achieve isn't it? There are those of us who hold out for Mr Right but then the boat leaves without us... there are those that take the plunge early but worry it was too early. And then once in a while a couple gets it just right. We all want to be that couple but it would seem that only the rare few will make it.

He Really Is That Into Me.

I take my men to the best places. Back in October, Blue Moon and I ventured forth to the Fulham car pound. Tonight, my Chatterbox and I went in search of the Park Lane car pound. It was quite a mission. Standing outside the Grovesnor hotel, I had to ring the car pound hotline to enquire where exactly on Park Lane I might find my old faithful. The instructions were vague but I was warned not to venture forth alone into what is a huge, dank, underground car park below Hyde Park. Good job I brought Chatterbox along for the ride then ey? And the hotline wasn’t kidding. We walked down never ending, gloomily lit corridors – that really wouldn’t have been amiss in the film “The Shining”. This, I imagine is exactly the place that rapists and murderers might strike. The temptation would just be too great. Think of all the unsuspecting and naïve South West London girls with a penchant for parking in the wrong place at the wrong time, who would never guess that not only would Westminster council thieve one's car but would also deliver it to the equivalent of hell on earth and then tell one to come and get it. Oh yes, it can’t have taken long for the local nutters to work that out. So if I had to venture down these corridors alone, I expect I would be slightly hysterical. As it was, my 6ft 3” Chatterbox gallantly escorted me, even giving me a piggy back over a rather peculiar puddle that came out of nowhere and would have ruined my blue suede shoes.

On the bright side, it was an opportunity if nothing else, to do a bit more chatting which continued, over dinner ( in what felt like heaven after our ordeal) in his cosy local pub in Notting Hill …my car parked outside, this time, with rather more care.

The upshot is this…I had just assumed that Chatterbox was a rather different kettle of fish to Mr Comfort and Blue Moon… he is straight up with me, he always wants to see me, meeting my mother was a minor event, we have weekends away booked two months in advance and he called me his girlfriend before I had even suggested that I might stay the night. So, I reasoned, he was just a different sort of guy to his predecessors. But apparently not. For tonight I learnt that when he met me, he was actually involved in two casual relationships and he had absolutely no interest in making either of them his girlfriend. After our first date, he simply cleared them out of his little black book and delivered them to the relics of distant memory. “But you’re not like that” I muttered at him - confused. “I’m not like that with you” he concluded.

So in other words, he’s quite capable of being just like Mr Comfort and Blue Moon but for whatever reason, with me, he’s not. Which, (seeing as Sister Bridget has already revealed our digestion of self-help books) reminds me of a book called “He’s just not that into you”.

I’ve been hanging onto Blue Moon for so long…analysing every minor suggestion that there might be room for status elevation and all along it was a complete and utter waste of time for he simply was…just not that into me.

And no, I don’t have a fear that Chatterbox will suddenly do a runner. Because anyone that escorts you through hell on earth, carries you over a big puddle, offers to pay half your car pound fine even though it’s clearly not their fault and then takes you to dinner to cheer you up… really is that into you.

Discombobulated

We've had a few complaints recently about the lack of update on 'Sisters'. In December the silly season just took over and in London the silly season really is quite ridiculous. With office parties, friends’ parties and more parties with my charity panto buddies, the days just flew by in a haze of drunken nights and hellish hangovers. But I expect that the real reason for our lack of attention is that Sister Bridget and I have been otherwise engaged. We have each been busy with the nearest thing you could call ‘having a boyfriend'. And I haven’t known what to write, because leaving my single status behind, is like ripping a security blanket off a small child. I am dazed, walking around in a sea of contradictions, my Libran scales are swaying dangerously off balance and whatever I write could be completely wrong tomorrow. I am, to use my new favourite word, discombobulated.

We met on the internet, which apparently is no longer solely the hunting ground of the slightly silvery haired, slightly smutty, married man seeking sex. In fact 3.5 million of the 6 million singletons in the UK are doing it. That’s one hell of a party. So I suppose it was inevitable that eventually someone would pop into my inbox that would cause me to pause mid-mouthful of toast, click eagerly on the ‘profile’ button and devour every word his friend had written about him - thrice.

At this point he had just added me to his ‘favourites’ but not actually contacted me. I reciprocated by dropping him into mine and I waited. With no response forthcoming after a week, I contacted him. We had lift off. His first email made me laugh out loud, the first phone call lasted an hour, the first date until 2am on a school night! I am permanently exhausted because we both suffer from verbal diarrhoea which means we do not stop chit-chatting until the early hours of the morning whether in person or on the phone. In the past, my dating routine has involved spotting someone in a bar; ticking a few boxes… fit √, fit √, fit √, slamming a few margaritas down my neck and then batting my eyelashes. It’s based purely on a primeval instinct. Internet dating is much more of a scientific art. Had his first email not been intelligent, witty and obscure he would not have lasted. In internet dating, a simple “Alright love, fancy a drink?” gets swiftly deposited in the recycle bin… never to be recycled. So our personalities match…and the rest…well it’s different, rather than a roaring log fire, it’s a small flame starting to dance.

Our apparent ease with chatting and our combined passion of red wine has meant that I have committed every faux pas possible in dating rules. I don’t remember much of Sunday…but I know that our joint achievement includes being asked to leave a restaurant three times because we were, ahem, slightly tipsy and he tells me that my sole achievements that day are telling him I love him (cringe) and worse telling him that I’m not sure I believe in marriage anymore but that if he wants to propose in two years time I’ll consider it… (oh yes – good huh?!). My other indiscretions are pretty much unmentionable, albeit to say that as he has yet to frequent my bed, it is probably best not to discuss with him the merits of the Platinum Rabbit.

In conclusion however, I have to say that no-one has ever known so much about me at such an early stage in a relationship and yet still seem, well, pretty into me really. I have a head full of confusing thoughts; and I’m missing my single status security blanket…but for some reason, I think it might be time to try life without it.

Heathcliffe, it’s me… Your Girlfriend! Where the Hell have you been? Your dinner’s gone cold!

Almost since I was old enough to read, I have been an avid fan of romantic literary classics. I’ve spent years dreaming of the great hero and passionate love affair I’m hoping to one day experience. People often tell you that the love of your life is just around the corner (if that’s true this is either one of the world’s largest corners, or with my appalling sense of direction I’ve typically gone the wrong way!) but I’m still waiting for my Heathcliffe or Darcy to appear – preferably coming out of a lake looking amazingly sexy and inquiring most politely after the health of my family!

Truthfully; Mr Darcy, with all his good breeding and high social standing, doesn’t do it for me in quite the same way as the rough and rugged Heathcliffe. So much of a man he’s almost beyond human, and so mysterious he doesn’t even have a first name. I wonder if it’s this dream of finding such a hero, that has stopped me so far from finding my perfect partner. Everyday activities such as shopping with ex-boyfriends, have often become a cause for arguments or frustration. How romantic does it feel when you’re hoping for sympathy after a hard day at work and get ignored? Or you catch your man checking out the legs on the girl with a short skirt at the table next to you when you’re out for dinner? But when did Cathy and Heathcliffe ever go to Sainsbury’s to do the week shopping? When did Heathcliffe ever drive her to work and get mad with her terrible map reading skills when they went off course? Exactly – Never! They never did anything beyond running around on the moors in a fit of passion, and weren’t even both alive for the majority of their love affair!!

And if I’m really honest, I don’t even think I possess any of the qualities of Catherine Earnshaw or Elizabeth Bennett that would even attract such a man should I ever be lucky enough to come across one. In reality, I’m probably more similar to Lydia Bennett than I am Eliza (See my drunken phone story Not for the Faint Hearted to confirm this!) I admit, I do share Cathy’s big frizzy hair, (which no doubt she’d also correct if only she lived in today’s glorious times of ghds!) but running around on the moors all day would probably tire me out after a while. Romantic as it sounds, more than likely I’d get a bit cold and hungry, and ask if we couldn’t just go home and have a nice cup of tea!

I’ll never regret reading these great literary masterpieces, but having lived my whole adult life expecting this unrealistic portrayal of love to exist, I’m not sure their effect on me has necessarily been healthy! Jane Austen, with all her wonderfully conjured up heroes, never married. I’m not saying we should settle with a Mr Collins or a drippy Edgar Linton, but perhaps a Colonel Fitzwilliam or a Hareton Earnshaw wouldn’t be so bad – or even that boy in sales who you’ve had your eye on for a while?! I’m hoping at least one of these realistic heroes will be around the corner soon, and if it’s not quite romantic enough – we can still pick up Wuthering Heights and dream from time to time!

My Deceptive Friend

Descending wearily down the steps from the tube last night, sober despite the midnight hour - because I’d come from work, I become aware of a woman asking another woman if she’s OK. “I’m fine,” comes the strangulated reply and then…more angrily “apart from the fact my husband’s f*cking another woman”. The others look shocked, nod and walk away. Remembering many a time on a platform in tears (albeit for different reasons), I offer her a lift anywhere she wants to go, but she’s not far from home. “He’s gone on that dating site ‘My Single Friend’” she continues…I flinch…I have a profile on this site, my friend nominated me, it’s not smutty like the other sites…everyone in London is doing it…even the married sort, it would seem. I want to ask her for coffee, anything so she’s not alone but I don’t want to interfere. “You’ll get through this,” I offer pathetically, before slinking away to my car. I watch her pull out her mobile phone before I drive away. I’m never one to judge infidelity, I sit on the fence as to whether humans were meant to stay faithful to one person for long periods of time or not. I agree the ideal is loyalty to one true love but I don’t know whether it’s realistic. I do however, think that fluidly and perhaps guiltily falling into an affair, is a totally different thing to purposefully pimping oneself out on an internet site that is meant for those people who have yet to find their first partner, let alone a second. So this man is deceiving his very pretty, barely past 30yr old wife. But he’s also deceiving me and other singletons in what should be a fun, alternative route to finding a mate. At times like these, I wish they’d bring back corporal punishment…I feel that castration would be an effective cure for his deception.

Not for the faint hearted

I know that getting ridiculously drunk is neither big nor clever and by no means do I intend this blog to become a forum in which to try and outdo each other with even more outrageous drunken stories; However I was given a bit of a wake-up call after a particularly drunken office party last weekend and think it’s a lesson worth sharing.

Every year at the beginning of November one of our clients puts on a big lunch flowing with wine and champagne. As I am fully aware how these events tend to turn out, this year I alternated between wine and water and by about 4.00pm (I know that doesn’t sound too impressive but bear in mind the party started at 1.00pm!), I am still very much in control of my faculties and I start to notice that my friends are becoming increasingly merry and even my hardened drinker boss is making me look sober. Feeling slightly uncomfortable with this unusual scenario, I know only one way to rectify things: I quickly discard my sensible glass of water and begin to thoroughly enjoy myself. This was my first mistake.

I must admit the next section of this story is not entirely autobiographical as my memory fails me from this point onwards. I have, however, done the best I could do to piece the brief flashbacks together into some sort of coherent story.

It’s now about 8.30 and most people have left (including all the important people from work thank goodness). I am at the bar having a rather inappropriate conversation with the bouncer when I realise it’s time to go home.

And this is when I get one of those fabulous ideas you only ever get when you’re drunk. I know! I’ll phone so and so from last year who dumped me/ignored me/was in love with me… So I phone an ex-flame who has shown no interest in me for the last 5 months. I’m not sure exactly how this conversation went, but I think it was something like this:

Me: Hi.
Him: Hello, who’s this?
Me: ME.
Him: Huh?
Me: (probably in my squeakiest, most high pitched, drunken, screech), YOU DON’T KNOW WHO I AM?!!!
Him: Oh. Now I know.
Me: (Realising I actually have no idea why I phoned and that I have nothing to say to this man I remain silent).
Him: Was there anything you wanted?
Me: No.
Him: Ok then bye.
Me: Huh?!

Great! Having commited the faux pas of all faux pas...I’m now on the train struggling with a far worse dilemma. Not being sick!!
A kindly woman (I assume she’s kindly but as I mentioned earlier the details of this part aren’t very clear) asks me if I think I ought to get off the train if I’m not feeling well. I agree, get off at Queenstown road, puke (sorry, I did warn you) and re-alight the next train. The rest of the night is pretty uneventful, I get home, go to bed and wake up the next morning feeling just a tad under the weather.

I’m supposed to be going back to mum and dad’s the next day, so I go to call them to let them know I’ll be slightly later than planned. Except my phone isn’t in my bag, or my coat pocket, or in the discarded heap of clothes sprawled all over my bedroom floor…

Once I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have indeed lost my phone on another night out, explained to mum and dad that I’ll soon be on my way but can’t call because yet again my phone’s been stolen from my bag (I know, I know, terrible thieves in London!) I’m about to leave the house when my mum rings me back. She’s received a call from a lady who found my phone.
She told my mum I had to get off the train to be sick, and I left my phone and my glove on the train.
Mum: How did she know you were going to be sick?
Me: I er told her I wasn’t feeling well.
Mum: She sounded foreign, where was she from?
Me: (Absolutely no idea there even was a woman let alone acknowledged her nationality) Uh, France?
Mum: (Clearly not amused with my irresponsible behaviour and vague attempts to redeem myself), well she’s handed it in to Richmond station. I have her number so you can phone her to say thank you.
As grateful and relieved as I am that the lady was kind enough to hand my phone in, it’s through gritted teeth that I phone her to say ‘thank you’ when what I really want to say is: Why on earth did you have to tell my mother?!!!

Breaking the Pattern

Mr Right Now (http://sistersinthecity.blogspot.com/2006/09/right-for-now-or-right-forever.html) and I have been discussing our ‘relationship’ and have reached an understanding that it's not really going anywhere. This is mainly down to the fact that I don’t see us together in the future, nor do I seem to know what I actually do want. Everything’s very amicable, we’re great friends; we both know this needs to end, but neither of us wants to be the one to end it.

Finally, Mr RN, takes the plunge and decides we should break up. Instead of deciding this myself, I have forced him to do it, and instead of making this easier for him, I turn myself into the victim and resort to crying so that he has to comfort me.

I know my tears are weak and my need for comfort unfair, but it seems that I only know how to play the role of the dumpee and not the dumper. Once It’s officially over, I suddenly become far more keen and need to see him all the time. I’ve lost my security blanket and don’t like the possibility of him meeting another girl.

Then it dawns on me: I wasted five years in this situation with a previous ex-boyfriend – calling him, leaning on him for support, not quite letting him go, and forcing him to be the strong one to end it even though it was my feelings preventing us from being together.

And here I am again.

It would be so easy to follow this pattern, to replace my old security blanket that I relied on for so long with this lovely man who offers so much comfort, friendship and support. But now I know what I’m doing and how unfair I’m being, I think it’s time to break this pattern and set him free.

Power Trip

I have spent the past few weeks in nervous anticipation of my first business trip abroad. Having bored all my friends to tears, practising my speeches on them and constantly seeking reassurance – the feeling of dread had escalated to a point where I would do anything to get out of going.

Fortunately, in hindsight, none of my wishes to break my leg or gain some terrible temporary disease to prevent me from going were granted, and I found myself leaving my comfortable flat in Putney at the ungodly hour of 6.00am for a plane to Frankfurt.

Of course, in a situation where I was already nervous, stressed and pushed for time, the plane was 1½ half hours delayed, leaving me no time to go to the hotel and make myself presentable. Instead I had to resort to a quick make-up job in the airport toilets, throwing on my un-ironed dress and jumping into a taxi heading straight for, in my opinion, the end of my career!

Perhaps it was a mixture of relief at these things never being quite so terrifying as we expect them to be, all my hard preparation paying off and feeling great in my sexy red power dress, but not only did I find the trip bearable – I actually enjoyed it. Particularly sitting in the bar afterwards with my friends, sipping champagne (compliments of the company of course!) and laughing about the day’s events.

On the plane home the next day, after a blissful night's sleep in the hotel and a delicious continental breakfast, I felt a certain glow and sense of professional achievement. The best part of the trip was to follow when I realised one of my life time goals; the man at the airport holding my name card waiting to take me home – finally I’ve become a grown-up!!

Bruised But Not Broken!

I got my car broken into this morning. And I’m feeling rather smug about it. Because even though my VW, green, golf is a little elderly now and obviously doesn’t have the sophisticated security measures of it’s SW6 neighbours – Jeeps, Mercedes, the odd Beamer…. I HAVE AN IMMOBILSER you w*nkers!!! Take that!!! Think you can joy ride off around Fulham – think again! They’d obviously had a good try because my steering wheel was jammed, but a little TLC and it was just tickety boo once again!

So following their immense failure in joy riding off into the winter rain, they’d then had a look to see if they could salvage their pride by nicking off with some valuable personal belongings. My car is not the tidiest, cleanest thing on the block, but they had obviously decided that there must be SOMETHING of value amongst the huge heap of junk. So they’d had a good sift through some old tissues, empty water bottles, a Top Shop bag, a petrol can, some sweetie wrappers, a pair of muddy wellies, a couple of tatty jumpers, a letter to my ex that I’d never sent, a piccy of me and my dad in a photo booth when I was seven and a wig left over from a fancy dress party. NOTHING worth tuppence ha’penny! So onto the CDs…Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Eva Cassidy and Shakira…all still happily present and accounted for – what a huge advantage it is to have music taste that everyone else thinks is terrible!

Not even the CD player was pinched – maybe they tried it out…and thought it wasn’t working…you have to give it a gentle nudge to make it work you see. So all in all, I have a bust lock and a new dent in the passenger side door…it’s nothing that my car and I can’t live with.

But I would have been gutted if they’d stolen it. Monetary value it has not – but it has oodles of sentimental value…for I bought it just after KP left. It had 127,000 miles on the clock and the retired granddad from whom I bought it, dropped the price to £200 because he thought I was struggling with the clutch on my test drive. (I just have a lazy clutch foot.) It was a horrible time but when the going got tough…my car got me going. It got me to work across Richmond Park when I couldn’t face the train through my hazy break-up tears. It took me to my family and best friends at the drop of a hat when I couldn’t face a lonely weekend in London. It took me on a liberating 800 mile roadtrip around the Devon and Cornwall coast, with the windows down and the music blaring and through all that, it hasn’t broken down on me once - not once has it let me down.

It had a dent in it when I bought it and since then it’s had it’s wipers snapped off by vandals, been towed away from outside my house by those criminals from Fulham council and from it’s latest adventures, it is now sporting a bigger dent in the passenger seat door. So I guess that you could conclude that my car and I are both a little bruised and battered around the edges from our trials and tribulations…but we are so NOT broken!!!

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

What do you write in the leaving card of the office player who once lured you into his games and taught you the hard way how he gained his reputation?

I am sitting at my desk pondering over this question a year after our brief affair. No longer am I emotionally scarred by his behaviour, but there is still a dent in my pride from having let myself be fooled by such a rogue.

Since I heard of his imminent departure, I have given this matter a lot of thought, and come up with the following options:

Breezy:
'Good luck in your new job, I'm sure you'll have a great time'

Hard Arse Bitch:
'F*ck off you prick!'

Apathetic:
'Best wishes in your new career'

Pathetic:
'I can't believe you're leaving. I'm going to miss you so much. I think you've lost my mobile number, it's ... Do Keep in touch xxx'

Having decided that breezy was too nice, hard arse bitch too bitter, apathetic too cold and pathetic too desperate, I gave up on the card and sent him the following email:

'A whole new office full of unsuspecting women...

Good luck!'

Toxic Attraction

Maybe, just maybe - it’s me. Why for example did I say no to the sober and successful accountant, who actually against stereotype, also happened to be laugh-out- loud funny, a fantastic kisser and who stated very early on that he rarely dabbled in the purely casual as what he really wanted was permancy – a lifetime love or love for a lifetime. As I try wherever possible to tell the truth if it’s me doing the letting down, I told him over dinner (that he insisted on paying for despite my dragging him half way across London to meet me, already slightly inebriated, in my after work pub), that I had met someone else, someone grieving because he had just lost his dad and that I liked this other guy - Blue Moon (http://sistersinthecity.blogspot.com/2006/08/once-in-blue-moon.html) too much to want to date anyone else. He thought for a moment and then asked “Are you sure you really like this guy and it’s not just that you recognise he’s lost from his loss – as are you from yours - and that maybe, just maybe you think that somehow you’ll find the right path together?” In red wine cockiness, I determined decidedly that this was most definitely not the case and that I appreciated he was looking out for me but that I just simply really liked this guy. He nodded and we finished our meal amicably and without so much as a hint of dejectedness, he kissed me goodbye and coolly never initiated contact again, although he politely answers when I call him, as I have done from time-to-time. And you know, eight months on, maybe, just maybe he was right. Eight months on I’m still seeing Blue Moon, that is I see him when he wants to see me and when he doesn’t, I tell myself, no bother, he just needs his own space right now and I concentrate my thoughts on other tortured souls who might Major in perhaps Drug Addiction or Alcoholism or failing that, Minor in Dishonesty or Nonchalance. I attract it. Or maybe, just maybe I’m attracted to it?

Why Broken Hearts Hurt

Why broken hearts hurt... A new study suggests the psychological hurt of a break-up is just as real as a physical injury. Two areas of the brain that respond to physical pain also become activated when a person is dealing with social pain, such as being dumped. The researchers believe that the pain of being rejected may have evolved as a motivating force that led humans to seek out social interaction, which is crucial for the survival of most mammals.
(Laura Schaefer - http://http://msnuk.match.com/matchscene/article.aspx?articleid=6431&TrackingID=511021&BannerID=558924)

So break up pain has evolved so that the lonely and broken hearted will desperately seek out another's bed to take away the hurt...thus ensuring the survival of the species. Personally, I couldn't have given a hoot about the survival of the wretched species when I was in break-up hell. I'd have probably thought it a good thing we all stopped copulating so that no other poor bugger had to endure the pain of abandonment. And as for it being just as real as a physical injury...tell us something we don't know - it's like a disease! No appetite, dizziness, nightmares, forgetfulness, chest pain, stomach pain, panic attacks. Give me a broken arm and a six week plaster cast anyday. A broken heart aint so easy to mend.

Margarita Tears

So tonight dissolved into a stream of salty, sad, tears. I didn't really want to go out anyway. I had been persuaded to come out for dinner by the man that I had dated after my celibate seven month 'getting over KP phase' - let's call him Mr Comfort. We dated from last September to this February, sporadically. I spent the first two months fighting the relationship out of deluded loyalty to KP and then I gave in...to hugs and comfort and feeling wanted again. Except, he never really wanted me. Six weeks after we met, he tore his Achilles tendon and my female instincts kicked in. This man needs me he can't shop, drive, go to work, live. I'll do his shopping, I'll pick him up from the airport, I'll look after him, feed him, be with him. All the female nesting instincts that had been banished to dormancy by KP's sudden departure became useful again. No need to tend the weeds in the garden or make the rented, shared, household resemble a couple's honeymoon home...this guy needs me. And he did for a while. Whilst he was on crutches, and he couldn't see his friends and he felt helpless, depressed and lonely. And then...quite simply, I wasn't 'the one'...in fact in six months, I wasn't even the girlfriend. And so to tonight...what brought on the sad, salty, tears? Well, a friend of his commented last Christmas, that I 'had to be careful', that Mr Comfort was not all he seemed. And a year on, I'm well aware that he is not all he seems...that there was, besides me, a Lara and a Sara and a Polly and god only knows who else. But Mr Comfort and I have become familiar with the ridiculousness of our relationship, the fact that I know what he gets up to and yet we still manage to maintain a close but mainly non-physical affair. However, tonight, I went out to dinner with Mr Comfort and this friend who had warned me all those moons ago against our relationship. And I brought the friend's Christmas comment up...in a jovial 'should have listened to you' sort of way...and when there was a quiet moment, the friend suddenly said into my ear, "you shouldn't have said that - you were bang out of order. Mr Comfort and I are close friends, we've had a brilliant summer sailing together and what you've just revealed jeopardises our friendship." Maybe it was the margaritas streaming through my blood...I don't know. But I couldn't hold back the salty tears. I wanted to irrationally scream..."do you know what I did for this guy?" "Have you any idea that I did everything for him when he needed me to even though I knew that ultimately I didn't mean enough to him?" But instead I went to the girls' loos and cried. And the other girl at the dinner...my friend, came and found me, weeping for everything I've lost and everything I haven't found. His words hit at the very heart of my loneliness and inability to find someone that will love me just for me and who will want to have my children and allow me to nurture and cherish and do all the things that my female instinct wants to do but can't. Because I'm just a single London city girl, finding that her lifetime dreams...can not easily be fulfilled.

25yr old, Blue Eyed...Dud!

So I saw him for three evenings out of four before I escaped to Paris. I know, maybe a case of too much too soon but it seemed right. And then, well…he just didn’t call…or text...or email. So many communication choices at his disposal in our exciting technological age, but he couldn’t work out how to use any of them. Thus the 25 yr old, blue eyed stud, turned out to be a bit of a dud!