I Don’t Care

From yesterday’s Times:-

I was walking back home from the cafe with my habitual cup of coffee in hand.  The route is so familiar, every idiosyncrasy of pavement beneath my feet, the neighbourly faces I pass, the silver van bullishly parked by the estate agent’s.  The only variables are the position of the big bins outside the hairdresser’s, the odd puddle after apocalyptic rain and the latest dog turds.  But two days ago there was a new variable and it was a thought in my head.  Not only do I no longer care about Surprise Twinkle, but that whole episode has made me realise that, from now on, I am no longer going to care full stop.  Not about family and friends and work or the state of the world, I don’t mean that.  I shall always care about them.  I am no longer going to care so much about being on my own and, more importantly, about men who don’t care about me.

I thought, you know what?  I don’t even care if Telephone Number has a girlfriend.

A few years ago I met a wonderful man who asked for my telephone number.  He did so in such a way that it never occurred to me he might not actually use it.  Uncharacteristic confidence.  I should have known better.  A week passed, then ten days, twelve months, and no call.  I minded for quite a while.  Why so sexily ask for a woman’s number if there’s no intention of ringing her?  Don’t mess with a plankton’s head!

Unexpectedly, I am seeing him soon.  We have been asked to the same small party.  And, I admit, a little bit of old me thinks, wouldn’t it be great if we got on as well as we did before? If the spark was still there? If he had recovered from his post-divorce rawness and the timing was now right?  If he asked for my number and actually picked up the phone this time?  And we went on a date, found we got on really well and my outstanding patience was at last rewarded?

But, negotiating the new puddles and current dog turds, latte in hand, I also thought: he will have a gorgeous, pouting girlfriend, of course he will – remember the Ten Minute Window, and it’s been two whole years so he probably has several – and yet will I really care?

And the answer is no.  I have decided, after the ST fiasco, not to.  To rise above everything.  To gain strength from my autonomy and to maintain dignity whatever is thrown at me.  How?  By not giving a toss.

It is the New Me.  Who knows how long it might last?

 

Shocker Date with a Married Man

Just because I have to go to everything and get out there et bloody cetera, I went to a gig last week (Police Dog Hogan, incidentally: BRILLIANT).  The place was heaving with mates and several (female) friends told me  how fantastic and young I was looking (none of the men said as much, natch, but that is what female friends do; we all do it to each other, looking after each other’s emotional welfare.  I don’t care if it’s all a load of bollocks, it feels nice).  I had a lovely time but there wasn’t a husband to be had, of course, just a lot of other people’s.  Never mind.  I loved the music and enjoyed seeing dozens of old muckers and keeping tabs on loads of people I knew in my youth.  I only ever see them at these sort of things, but it’s reassuring in a way, as if one’s past still exists somehow and is still pleased to see one, even if one only taps into it rarely.

On the drive home, my plankton companion and I bemoaned the fact neither of us had a man with whom to go to the theatre, let alone all the rest.  Even forgetting the idea of a fully-paid-up lover, it would at this disappointing juncture be consoling even to have what my mother’s generation called a “walker”.  Can’t even get one of those!  My friend had seen an old (still bachelor) boyfriend at the gig and they had had a lovely drunken chat and she had mentioned going to the theatre with him and he had responded positively but she knew it would never happen because he is such a commitment-phobe that he can’t even keep an email communication going for longer than a three or four way sally before he goes silent, let alone the thought of a companionable trip to the West End with an old mate.  As for me, I cannot think of one male friend to go to the movies or theatre with.  They are all married and it might be crossing a line to ask, close though we are.  The few single ones whom I have known for years but with whom nothing is ever going to happen because neither of us fancy each other, may think I fancy them if I suddenly rang them out of the blue and suggested a sort of date even if I didn’t mean it to be a date.

Then, in the funny way life is, I received a text the very next day from a man from my past who took me out to lunch a few months ago and told me about his marriage which isn’t perfect because his wife wishes to have an affair and he wishes she didn’t.  He loves her; has always been faithful to her.  The text was asking me to the theatre and thirty seconds later another text came rushing through saying he had two tickets but his wife was away and she was the one who suggested me as his date for the evening…  I rang him and told him he needn’t have bothered with the second text as I knew fine well he wasn’t suggesting anything untoward.

“I just thought,” he said, “I had better make it absolutely clear what I was about, just in case you thought…”   I admired his openness and we laughed.  I said, if only I was the sort of woman to go after married men, I’d probably be having a lot more “fun”!  But alas it is not in my make up; it’s not what I do; and, I am not being pious or anything, well, maybe a bit, but I just don’t believe in it.  Quite apart from it being immoral (that’s maybe the pious bit?), it’s a hiding to surround-sound misery.

So we are clear on that then, and I have a date with a married man with whom I am going to the theatre and dinner this week, but it’s not a date-date, obv.

I haven’t got a single one of those and from where I am standing, it feels as if I never will.

There again, life has a funny way of working out.

ST Deleted

From yesterday’s Times:-

After the mealy-mouthed text from Surprise Twinkle, friends rightly told me to press the Delete button.  I managed it rather admirably, I thought.  Of course, I carried on thinking about him a bit.  I wondered what the whole episode had been about and, in a low-key sort of way, was vaguely haunted by the mystery: so keen, and then so not-so-keen.  The pain went and I was left with the dregs of curiosity and deflation.  I took it as read that I would never hear from him again and I was beginning the disappointing business of picking myself up and getting on with life, as plankton always must.

Three weeks of convincing silence later, I was with a friend in the cafe, minding my own business, and – ping! – his name came up on my smartphone.  Excitement of course, but time had made inroads into its healing process and the excitement was suitably contained.  Then I read the email and it was so lacking in consequence that I thought it must have come instead from Long Shot, that past master of unengaged communication.  But no, it was definitely from ST.  Such different men, and yet cheek by jowl on the spectrum of emotional constipation.  Three weeks later, and I receive just two tiny sentences: how was I and an update on a minor frustration of his.  The sum total of nine words.

Why?  Either push that boat out and run to a complete line – even two, eh? – which incorporates some felicity or merriment or wit or unthreatening suggestion that we might get together again in some capacity – even a cup of coffee, for God’s sake.  Or bloody well just leave me alone to push on in peace.  But don’t give me this uptight nothingness, so lily-livered it doesn’t even propose straight-forward friendship in any inviting way, let alone a sexual relationship.  I have more flirtatious banter from the sweet young fellow at the cafe who makes my latte each day.  I read ST’s apology for a missive again, and was totally flummoxed by what could have possibly been going through his head?

Clearly, those paltry words did not merit any sort of analysis.  Still, I half-heartedly texted back the following day, friendly but not suggesting a get-together.  No response!  So doggedly predictable.  But he is going away so, genuinely no longer caring enough to fret over the rightness or wrongness of it, and for an experiment, I eventually rang to say goodbye.

So glad I did!  He was so underwhelming, it turned me almost right off him.  Even I, the Original Plankton, thought I deserve better than this.

And it takes quite a lot for me to feel that way.

Fancy Dress

I went to a seriously fuck off party a few nights ago.

It was fancy dress.  I fucking hate fancy dress.  Well, I had never actually been to a fancy dress party but I am deeply prejudiced and phobic about them all the same.  It is my right.  I am almost 48 and so allowed to be bolshie.  For weeks after the invitation arrived, I had palpitations every time I thought of having to get into some BO-imbued costume from some dreary, down-at-heel hire shop, fork out a million quid and look like a prat.  But the party itself was being given by very, very good old friends whom I adore, and whose friends are specially lovely, warm and cheerful and always give every appearance of being happy to see me.  So I wanted to go very much.  I’d just have to stop being such a wuss about embracing the fucking themed look.

In the event, I managed, the day before, to score a rather wonderful dress and wig (which made me itch as if infested with nits but looked fab) and found myself, arriving alone at the host’s imposing front door, very much getting into the spirit of the thing.  I suppose my beef with fancy fucking dress has always been that it is invariably so tacky.  But as I crossed the threshold into Versailles and found myself mingling amongst the assembled courtiers, I was transported by the splendour.  The house had been so transformed that everyone just gasped and laughed with joy.  The modern kitchen had been kitted out with ceiling to floor red velvet  hangings dotted with various “portraits” and, every unit and pot and pan hidden, it was no longer a modern kitchen at all but an elegant inner sanctum in Louis xv1′s private apartments.

No one let the side down.  Everyone – even the pre-party churlish moaners like me – was there in their  powdered wigs and beauty spots and startling cleavages.  (One of my friends even fished her car keys out of hers!).  The fair few footmen were handsome and smiling and helpful and didn’t put a foot wrong. The hostess looked more beautiful than on her wedding day and said she had put me next to the most attractive man in the room – “Sorry, married, darling, but heaven”.  He and I had a gratifyingly deep conversation about men and women and marriage etc over the coruscatingly delicious dinner.  On my other side was an old (male) friend and we talked openly, honestly and cheerfully about life as a plankton (though I didn’t use that give-away word, natch).  The old friend was suitably polite and told me he couldn’t understand why on earth I was having such difficulties, that he’d always thought I was gorgeous, but he managed to say this without giving rise in me to any threatening feeling that he had ideas about being unfaithful to his wife (also a friend).  He pitched it perfectly – not remotely creepy but flatteringly sincere enough to make a plankton feel good for once, and for me want to hug him.

I had THE BEST time even though it was fancy dress (I had an unlikely conversion: maybe partly because it WAS fancy dress!) and though I liked many a guest there enormously, I didn’t fancy any one in particular.  So it was I felt relaxed and happy.  Alone, of course, but there were enough friends there that the solitary, hateful in-between times didn’t loom too miserably, if at all.

I stayed till 1.00am; didn’t even realise the time.  Found a place to hide and change back into the 21st century metropolis, slipped down the stairs and out of the door unnoticed into the dark and the rain and drove home, miraculously not wanting for all the world to slit my wrists.

Surprise Twinkle, eat your poncy-arsed heart out!

Capitulation

From yesterday’s Times:-

It feels like a nail down a blackboard to admit this, but I bloody capitulated, didn’t I, and contacted Surprise Twinkle.

It’s not in the DNA to do such a thing, but I am old, time is short, it’s not a crime, and the breeziness of my tone hardly constituted stalking.  I sent the message several days after our afternoon “date” when meeting up again had been happily discussed.  After the “date”, I had sent a thank you text because he had paid for the lunch and cinema tickets.  It is uncool to say thank you and I should have restrained any natural manners and instead gone for entitled and brazen silence like a successful girl would have done.  So, failure at the first fence.  He replied, rather damning our afternoon, in my book, with formal politeness and faint praise.

I was laid pathetically low by the fact that his reply hadn’t suggested a next meeting.  There was a context – a domestic vacuum and various troubles unrelated to ST – and I didn’t sleep or eat for ten days and went down to 7 stone 10.  (Not a good look at my age; stomach like a deflated balloon).  Lay about in a teenage heap reading novels and feeling a certain self-conscious, garret-like desolation. If I didn’t compose 100 texts in my mind, I composed 200.  Then less than a week after the “date”, I finally ate something more substantial than a cup of coffee and clarity came to me.  I thought, Bugger it, and winged off beautiful composition no. 201.

Even an episode of Homeland couldn’t deflect me from the resounding silence which hurled back at me for several hours by way of torturous response.  But then the eventual PING! came, so full of promise… and in reality so utterly wanting.  Every syllable laid like a perfectly formed turd and imbued with a thanks but no thanks; a don’t call me, I’ll call you; a have a nice life, but not with me anywhere near.  Of course, he didn’t put it quite like that – he is cleverer and kind of kinder – but he might as well have done for all the couched transparency of the message.  His square inch of text was novel-full of rejection.

In the context – vacuum, other troubles – I was crushed, mortified, wretched, but I know the context is but an excuse.  I would have been, even without it, all those things.  Friends say press the Delete button in my head.  Of course.  Nothing else for it.  But I cannot help remaining haunted by the mystery.  Did a polite thank you and a text really comprise such a Weapon of Mass Destruction?  Or was it just me?

Guest Blog from JoJo

With many thanks to JoJo for this guest blog which, as with all guest blogs, is completely unedited by me:-

Friendship is precious.  I have had many friends over the years, childhood friends, school friends, work friends.  Friends I have made through my children and all the schools they have been to, and friends I have had during my 22 year marriage.  Many of these friends span the decades.  We all went through the same things together over more than half a lifetime.  We all dated,  got engaged,  got married,  had kids, and went through the ups and downs of life.  Our kids all grew up together, some couples got divorced and some re-married.  Most, I am pleased to say, have remained happily married throughout the decades, and they are blessed.  I guess that you could say statistically we have gone through all the normal things that normal people of our age go through. 

Some friends came into my life for a period of time, and for a season.   They passed through, moved on, and so did I….. almost like chapters of a book.  Many of my friendships have spanned the decades, and I treasure these the most because they are my lifelong friends.  But I don’t underestimate the friendships that only lasted for a shorter period of time rather than a lifetime.  Sometimes these intense friendships are as meaningful as the long-lasting friendships.  There is always something to be learnt, loving and loosing is all a part of the rich tapestry of life.  I have gained wisdom and insight from every single person I have met, and who has crossed my path and entered my life story…. at whatever stage.  I will always treasure and remember those friends who came into my life, and then left me for whatever reason.  I know that one day we will meet again.

The hardest thing about becoming single and getting divorced has been that though many of my ‘coupley’ friends have remained my friends, I simply no longer belong in their world…. I just don’t seem to fit the ‘mould’ anymore.  Their world of happy ‘coupledom’ is so very different to my life now.  Over the last 6 years, perhaps I have changed, become more independent and self-sufficient.  To begin with, I tried very hard to involve them in my new ‘single’ status by inviting them over for this and that, but after a few years it seemed like they were loosing interest, and I was fighting a losing battle.  I haven’t given up on them, as giving up on friends who I love, and with whom I have been through so much and known for so long is not on my agenda.  I don’t believe in giving up on people full-stop.  It is just that sometimes I feel as though I have been side-lined.

Oh, and then there are the ‘fair-weather’ friends.  People who stick by you and are chummy when all is well and good.  They are quite happy to share the joys, the sunshine, and celebrate the good times, but when the going gets tough, and when the storms of life come along, they are nowhere to be seen.   They seem to disappear in a puff of smoke.  Oh, and believe me, life is full of storms,  the tiny ones and the humungous ones.  It maybe a small ‘storm-in-a-tea-cup’,  but it can be a major, thunderous and life-changing storm that turns your whole life upside-down.  True friends are the ones who stick by you no matter what, and who are there for you during these storms, and who don’t abandon you.  Friendship isn’t necessarily about who you have known the longest,  but who came into your life, and never left your side during the good but especially the bad times.

Having said that, I have some friends who I have known for many many years, but because of distance, busy life-styles, families, commitments etc we don’t see each other as regularly as we would like.  When we do eventually see each other, it doesn’t matter if it was months since we last saw one another, or even years, we are always able to pick up from where we last left off.  This is a mark of a true and deep friendship, as it seems to defy even time itself, no matter how long has passed.  Ageless, timeless, and forever friends.

I have to say that most of the friendships throughout my life have always been same-sex ones.  I have had very few male friends over the years.  Maybe because I went to an ‘all-girl’ school, and then ‘all-girl’ Secretarial college, followed by marriage and children.  Therefore, friends from then on were women with children of a similar age to mine.  My ex-husband always said that he didn’t believe it possible for a man and a woman to be ‘just friends’….. and that there was no such thing as ‘platonic friendship’ between a man and a woman.  How wrong he was, and how deceived and blinkered I was too.  I am now blessed with many female friends, but also a few male ones too, and I really cherish them.  It is always good to see and hear things from a ‘male’ perspective,  I really value their opinions, and thoughts on life.

It is strange that even though I dated my ex-husband for 4 years, and was married to him for 22 years, I hardly knew him.  The ‘friendship’ element was totally lacking in our relationship, and I guess you could say we lacked ‘intimacy’.  I wish with all my heart that it could have been different.  How I yearned for ‘closeness’, and a connection with him that just was never there.  It was for this reason that sadly after many years of loneliness within my marriage we parted ways.  He is now very happily re-married to someone who is far more suited to him, and I am happy for him.  Well all appears good, happy and rosy anyway.

You can walk down a street and look at all the houses lined neatly along the road and wonder who lives in them, and what goes on?  Some houses look so cosy, warm and homely from the outside, with their pretty front gardens,  welcoming doors and windows.  We always assume that living therein are happy couples, with happy little families…..but do not be deceived.  The reality is, that in these houses are real people, living their own storms of life, whether it be relationship breakdown, illness, bereavement, troublesome teens etc etc.  To everyone on the outside, my house and my life looked like yet another happy, cosy home, but what went on within those four walls was another matter.  What looked like a ‘happy ever after’ life and marriage, was in reality lonely and cold.  My love for my children was what kept me going, and that is why I stayed. 

As the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover, good looks, frontage and veneer can be quite deceiving, and what lies underneath can be a very different story.  A person can put on a wonderful facade of perfection, righteousness, smooth talk and charm….. they may seem to be a fine, up-right model citizen.  But sometimes beneath the mask that everyone sees,  hides someone or something much darker…. unresolved anger, bitterness, resentment, unforgiven grievances, a cold heart, and uncalled for judgement of other people.   You can see a person, a friend even,  appearing all smiles,  and it seems like they have got everything all together in their life and all is in order….. love, happiness, success, self-satisfaction,  but if you dig deep enough, their life is anything but.  Theirs too is a mask that they wear, and they don’t want to lift or remove it because the truth and the harsh reality is hard to bare……. deep unhappiness, or dis-satisfaction with life, hurt, rejection, loss, loneliness.  It is easier to hide behind a mask.

What you see is not always what you get.  You think you know someone, but do you?  What happens when the mask comes off?  You think that from the outside of a house, all looks happy and rosy, but is it?  It is all down to  appearances, and how people want to present themselves.  The reality of people’s lives, is very often different to what they want you to think or believe.  How does all this relate to friendship?  Well some friends are real, and some are not.  They put on a mask or act out a charade of friendliness, when the truth is, the chords of friendship are not strong,  and they do not run deep. What appears to be real and deep, is actually very shallow.  When troubles come these people who you thought were your friends are nowhere to be seen.  Sadly they are fickle and false.

So let’s get real….. take off the masks we are wearing, and take a look beyond the facade of other peoples lives, and how they present themselves.  First of all, let’s be true to ourselves,  then we can be true to others.  Then we need to love the people who God put’s into our lives, whether or not they are there for a season, or there for a lifetime, they are there for a reason.  Truth, open hearts, honesty, respect, care and love for one another are what count, no matter what our age is, or what stage in our life we are at.  

Wilderness

From yesterday’s Times:-

When I got married, it was with no regret that I left the whole dating game behind me.  Little did I know.  If it was a nightmare in my twenties, it is a great deal worse now.

Then, there was the telephone or, at a push, letters.  It was agonising – awaiting a call; arguing in one’s head the unconvincing case for calling him, feeling it a weakness if one “gave in”, kicking oneself when he subsequently ran a mile.  But, now, the will he/won’t he and the should I/shouldn’t I remains, but has shifted into whole new realms of complication.  Twenty years on, times have changed.  Half the world believes women have just as much right to chase, and in fact men love it; the other half vociferously adhere to the “fact” that this is the one thing which in life will never change: men must always do the chasing.  I was nineteen when I scored my first clunking answering-machine, which helped matters a little.  Now that I am too close to fifty, there are emails, texts, social networking sites, you name it, and the “rules” – if you believe in these things – are all over the shop.  There is an onus on all communications to be witty, incisive, on the nail.  Failure to pull off this feat in a square inch or less of text can give rise to terrible misunderstandings and dashed hopes.

One missive from Surprise Twinkle winded me.  I took it for a sudden, serious brush-off.  Friends advised me to react with definitive silence.  But a small part of me thought, the tone doesn’t tally with all that has gone before; just maybe I have misinterpreted his words?  I risked a careful reply.  His reaction was mortification and the express desire to see me again.  Such navigations are gossamer delicate.  Silence may have unnerved him and so been met with silence.  I may never have seen him again.

But I did.  We met for lunch and a film and made tenuous declarations to see each other again.  I loved being with him.  But I am once more going back over the afternoon in my mind, trying to weigh up the evidence and interpret the signals.  I think they are positive but, yikes, the next move – or not – on my part could make or break the next stage.  I feel as though I’m in a wilderness.  Sexual politics may evolve, but modern mores can never tamper with basic human psychology.  This remains constant and still doesn’t wish to be pressured or ignored.  So much rides on how I respond – or don’t? – to his last communication, which was so measured it could mean anything.  The next move – his or mine – could be the salvo to a fantastic affair, maybe more; or bust.  Help!

Alone in a Crowd

I went to a very crowded gig the other night in a wonderfully seedy dive.  Two of the band members are good friends whom I admire and revere not least because their music is properly brilliant even for someone who doesn’t much care for music and I want to go to all their gigs.  I could hear them again and again and I had a lovely time.  The place was bunged with old mates and one of my children, of whom I felt very proud, accompanied me.

A total stranger with rather long grey hair, came up to me and spontaneously complimented me on my hair; an unusual occurrence, because my beachy hair is beyond low maintenance because I can’t afford hairdressers so it very much has about it the air of take it or leave it and is sometimes – due to having children of school age – even the all-singing, all-dancing playground for nuclear-resistent nits.  He did it in a nice way, and it worked.  I smiled and thanked him and felt  fleetingly good that something about me had prompted something, however base, in another human being to comment favourably.  Later I was told this man, delightful though he is (one of the band, I realised), has a history of living in a substance-induced parallel universe and he makes passes at every woman who has a pulse.  Oh, how comforting that I qualify!  Ha!

Part of me, despite him and despite the nice time, felt like shit.  Like the sad reject, unmarried and alone in the crowd, if surrounded by friends.  Everyone was married, and the only reason a handful weren’t was because they were still not legally allowed into films with an 18 certificate.  I looked at my married friends, having a normal weekday night out, glass of beer in hand, smiling and chatting to each other and laughing and getting a little bit smashed but not very because it was a school night, and my prevailing thought was how lucky they are but they don’t realise it, and I always realised it, but why should they?  What they have is normal and ordinary, and only to me is it wonderful and extraordinary, and listening to the music, gin in hand, I fixed the brave face in place but honestly just wanted to cry.

Repellent self-pity.

And pathetic.

Fucking pathetic.

Silence

I am so sorry I have been so silent, and then the Times column didn’t come out on Monday when I had promised it would because they had to make way for a big book extract about the death of Philip Gould.  Anyway, it promises to go in next Monday and I jolly well will publish it here on Tuesday.  It will of course be rather out of date, to say the least, for which I am sorry.

I am also sorry that I have not been posting.  Everything went wrong and I was just too fucking depressed and am still feeling a bit knocked for six.  In the process now of – yet again – trying to pick myself up, dust myself down, smile and wave and push on.  Not quite back on track.  But getting there.  I guess.

I am lucky enough to have the children back and to have had the opportunity to read some excellent novels, including John Lanchester’s Capital (I am a BIG fan of John Lanchester, the writer and the man; he’s wonderful) which really took me out of myself; and another one which was high-brow enough (about the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to require a little more concentration than usual to distract me a little from my self-imposed misery.  I loved it too, and especially so when a friend of mine who is the sub-warden of an Oxbridge college and a distinguished historian told me that she had always been told how brilliant this particular novel was but had never got to grips with it and how clever of me not only to have got through it but also to have loved it!  (Nothing better than kind, supportive friends, eh?)

You have every reason to tell me I am sounding like the worst kind of boastful arsehole and I can fuck right off and you’d be right, but I mention it purely because the boast is all I have right now: the book and her compliment constituted the only little pulse of pleasure in a period otherwise entirely devoid of the stuff.  Worst Easter ever.  Thank fuck it’s over.

Out of Touch

I am going to be out of internet touch this weekend but back home next week.  I will be posting, I promise, Monday’s Times column on Tuesday.

Have a good weekend.