Now
then. I went out a couple of weeks ago and met a lovely young lady
and talked to her and everything. Even danced and drank and laughed
and that. It’s rare that I find myself talking to, well anyone, but
especially a lady woman that I find interesting and beautiful and
easy to be with and, well, you get the picture. Took phone number,
made contact, seems nothing doing. Standard night out stuff,
probably, if you’re not me, but I am me and it isn’t. So
presumably I’m doing something wrong. When I like someone, y’know,
like like, as if I was a teenager, I like to talk to lots of people
about it, mostly because advice is good and I’m not, so it’ll
likely help me, and through this talking I’ll arrive at the best
way to do things and do them. However I’m not entirely sure that
this is the best way any more, partly because I’m still single, and
partly because it turns out everyone is as useless, confused and
hopelessly introspective as I. Just in their own ways. Frankly, if
they’d just told me this to start with, I’d have arrived at my
conclusion a lot sooner, so it’s their fault really.
Ordinarily
I would present my position and theories to various compadres, hear
the usual “don’t text too soons” and “make sure you’re not
yous” and I’d take it all on board. I’d create thousands of
alternate realities in my head. One where I’d say X to girl Y at Z
o clock and I’d be laughed at, another where I’d say X to girl Y
at K o clock and be jumped on. One where any contact made is seen as
desperate and repulsive, one where I look assertive and open.
Occasionally there’d be a world in which people just said what they
meant, but it’d be too out there and I’d freak. You have to
remain somewhat grounded in reality. The multiverse approach leads to
constant second guessing, wondering and doubt, all self created and
sent back in the same direction. Silly, really. But you rightly
assume that your friends want to help, and it’s not their fault
that any tips they give you are totally useless because not only are
you not them, neither is the human that you are trying to make like
you. Like like. All advice being from personal experience, and
bearing in mind that you’re going to do what you decide anyway,
they might as well suggest that you arrive to your first date with a
baby grow and offer the opening line “fill this”.
So
that saying what you mean thing. That’s almost certainly the best
way to do stuff. Not for anyone else probably, because that’s not
what you do, but I have built a life, reputation and self perpetuated
image around being brutally honest and constantly disappointed. It’s
not really me, but people seem happy with it, and nobody has the time
to sit down and listen to me explain the rest. If you lot all did it
as well, life would be so much easier. Not at first. At first it
would be fucking misery, but eventually we’d all harden up, learn
that we’re just going to do that thing we thought we might do
anyway, and get on with shit. Not just in relationshippy stuff, in
work and life in general. Cut throat honesty would be so much less
damaging in the long term.
In
your life, when someone has said “hiya, how are you”, have you
once stopped for a second, thought: actually, how am I? And then
answered the question as a human being with an existence outside of
talking about Downton Abbey and worrying about Rhiannas taste in men.
No. You probably haven’t. Because you know damn well that the
person apparently enquiring doesn’t actually give an owls merkin
about how you are, they expect a nod and an “alright”, and that’s
what they’ll bloody well get. It’s madness. Do you know what I do
if I don’t really want to know how someone is? I don’t ask. I
don’t pretend I’m interested. Because I’m not. And if you are
asked, to reply that you’re fine in a voice and body that are
displaying the words ‘I’M NOT FINE’ in six foot high neon
letters made of self hatred and tears, is disrespectful to all
parties involved. It’s possible that they care, it’s possible
that they want to know, and if they don’t and you tell them anyway,
you can pretty much guarantee that they won’t ask again.
Particularly if you latch on to their leg and sob.
I
will still talk to peers about all that jazz of course, but as a
listening exercise, rather than as a means to compile useful data.
No, from now on I’m going to listen to the stupidest, most knee
jerk reacting, stiff, cynical, romantic bum face I know. Which is me.
Oh, I’ll be warned off. They’ll tell me it’s a ridiculous idea,
but if I’m just me and totally honest then people know where they
are. If I bend any facet of my personality to impress or cajole or
attract, I have to keep that up for ever. I have to act and lie and
pretend, deceive and evade, and that’s not a strong basis for any
type of social engagement. Which means should I see this girl again,
or any subsequent females that can bear my company, I’m just going
to let them know that I’m interested in the position of being near
them a lot, and that I’m a quick learner. Or something
approximating that. That way, they can either reciprocate or spit on
my eyes and kick my bollocks through my heart. It’s a quicker,
cleaner process. Apart from the bollocks/heart thing.
There’s
no harm in being honest. You never have to remember what version of
yourself you’re meant to be at any given time, and people will
learn to come to you for a truth, or at least if they don’t want
platitude, gloss and empty comfort. Well, they should learn. Saying
what you think only seems terrifying while you do it, and that is
immediately replaced with a sense of relief, pride and confidence.
You thought it, you said it, you did it. Sure, it’s all on you, but
you’re you and you have to live with that bastard for the whole of
time so you may as well actually be you. Someone else might do it
otherwise and that would just be confusing on so many levels. Having
said that I still have to not get fired, so I might deceive and evade
a little bit, just in an occupational environment. When management
ask how you’re feeling, they don’t want you to say that the
decrease of a perception of importance and worth amongst the
workforce, combined with an almost complete lack of communication on
any meaningful level between ranks has had a detrimental effect on
both morale, and, on a more personal level, any sense of potential
and promise. They want to hear “alright”.
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